100% Voter Participation Essential for Climate Justice
by Ted Landsmark and Jennie C. Stephens
The upcoming Presidential election will set the nation’s course on the climate crisis for years to come.
If President Trump wins, we can expect more climate denial and efforts to decimate environmental regulations, with especially devastating impacts for people of color and poor communities. If Vice President Biden wins, there will be a push for massive public investments connecting climate resilience and clean energy to equitable access to jobs, healthcare, and housing.
These trajectories are starkly different — not only in environmental and economic outcomes but also in social justice outcomes. Indeed, they will determine who will be included in — or excluded from — future prosperity.
A decision this momentous demands full voter participation. But fewer Americans vote than our counterparts in other wealthy democracies. Just over half of eligible voters showed up at the polls in 2016, when Trump was elected. And this year Americans face new barriers to voting, including COVID-19, economic disruptions and voter suppression.
To ensure that the needs of all Americans are reflected in the election, we must set a goal of 100% voter participation and mobilize community-based voter turnout strategies to achieve it.
Because low-income people, women, people of color, indigenous folks, and youth are more severely impacted by the negative outcomes of current energy, health, educational and wealth-generation policies, it’s especially important to make sure those voters have a say in the upcoming election.
Across the US, Black Americans are more likely to lack easy access to parks and open spaces, to live in the shadow of oil refineries and coal-fired power plants, and to get sick and die from breathing polluted air. While bearing the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, marginalized communities are disproportionately impacted by extreme weather events — and receive fewer resources for recovery while paying higher rates and being at greater risk for electricity shutoffs.
Moreover, a recent Yale survey shows people of color are more concerned about the climate crisis than white voters, who are more likely to be doubtful or dismissive about climate risks and their health consequences. Denying black and brown voters is denying climate voters.
Young adults and college students have a major role to play in getting out the vote. Several local university campuses are joining community-based voter turnout efforts this year. At Northeastern University, where we both teach, students have undertaken their largest-ever non-partisan voter drives — helping to register voters at COVID testing sites, and producing pro-voting masks and other swag. Students are also working with faculty to research voter suppression strategies. And Northeastern will convert one of its major athletic spaces into a community polling place to replace voting locations in senior housing complexes to reduce virus exposure in high-risk populations through voting.
While national politics dominate the news, climate justice is on the ballot in congressional races throughout the country.
During this disruptive time in human history, we need leadership that embraces antiracist, feminist principles and a people-first approach to connect climate, energy, health, housing, food, and education with social justice. Voting for diverse and accountable leadership and broad representation is essential to confront the interconnected challenges that lie ahead.
Ted Landsmark is Director of Northeastern’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy and a Distinguished Professor of Public Policy.
Jennie C. Stephens is Professor and Director of Northeastern University’s School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs and Director for Strategic Research Collaborations at Northeastern’s Global Resilience Institute. Her new book is Diversifying Power: Why we Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate and Energy (Island Press, 2020).
This article was published in collaboration with the Island Press Urban Resilience Project, which is supported by The Kresge Foundation and The JPB Foundation.
