Dissonance between framing & acting for climate justice

ABSTRACT

Residents of Southeast Florida face many climate-related impacts, so to understand how climate change is framed and acted upon in the region, we conducted a two-part study of community organisers and residents. First, the first author participated in an 11-week, community-based workshop on climate advocacy, leadership, justice, and resilience to identify how a climate action initiative framed climate change and fostered community leaders and allies. We found “place” and “justice” to be two prominent frames. After the 11-week training, seven of the 18 attendees (or 39 percent) were then interviewed on their understanding and application of the training. Participants expressed a deeper appreciation of the local risks on both coastal and inland communities, and discovered how spatial disparities in residence (between higher-income, coastal communities and lower-income, inland communities) led to climate injustice and climate gentrification. Their understanding was further substantiated by their direct experience with Hurricane Irma. Yet the more privileged participants resisted the organisers’ overarching goal to foster community-based climate justice engagement. Several of the participants their relative privilege and inexperience with social injustice as deterrents. While it was understood that everyone in the region would be affected and that there were social and economic differences in terms of impact and vulnerability, the privileged participants perceived these disparities as too daunting to become a climate justice leader or ally.

KEYWORDS:

• Allyship
• climate education
• climate gentrification
• climate justice
• frame analysis
• coastal and inland communities

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments during the review process. We would also like to thank Brett Clark, Sara Grineski, Mark Harvey, Philip Lewin, and Marcel Paret for their helpful feedback on early drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Prior to major hurricanes, individuals and households may spend several days preparing their homes and workplaces and/or evacuating (see Haney, Elliott, and Fussell 2007). Following hurricanes, some households may suffer damages to or loss of their homes or workplaces, and some neighborhoods may experience night curfews and impassable roads (see Smith and Belgrave 1995). Power outages may last for days or weeks, while other households or neighborhoods may experience little or no impact.

2 We are concealing any identifying markers of the participants to maintain their anonymity and confidentiality.

3 As presented by the organisers, assets, or resources, included churches, schools, hospitals, emergency care offices, police stations, fire stations, recreational areas and parks, grocery stores, and restaurants or anything that could be utilised during an emergency or disaster situation.

4 Little Haiti is a low-income, black, and immigrant neighborhood, and according to workshop organisers is vulnerable to gentrification (also see Portes and Armony 2018).