How failures of democracy fuel the environmental crisis
By Ogonnaya Dotson Newman and Kayla Patel
Pundits and politicians agree: American democracy is in crisis. Of course, the failings of our democracy are more chronic than acute; genuine, multiracial democracy has long eluded us. But today, long-standing failures of democracy fuel a worsening environmental crisis that threatens health, livelihoods, and life itself.
That death spiral is not inevitable. Because the problems are so closely entwined, the solutions are connected, too. By organizing for environmental justice, we can mobilize across divides of race, class, and political affiliation, with benefits for our politics and the planet.
Deep-rooted crises
Today’s democratic and environmental crises — which some have termed a syndemic — have deep, historic roots. The crises originated with colonialism and the Doctrine of Discovery, which brought genocidal violence against Indigenous people and a racialized, extractive economy. The architects of the Constitution famously opted for a representative republic rather than a direct democracy, fearing rule by an intemperate mob. And Black Americans were denied representation from slavery through Jim Crow; while the 1965 Voting Rights Act attempted to make good on the promise of the 14th Amendment, those gains are still imperiled by racist gerrymandering and other assaults on voting and human rights.
Meanwhile, the dynamics of finance capital have produced staggering inequity, concentrating wealth and power in the hands of an ever-smaller group of individuals and corporations. A mere 5% of the American population lays claim to two-thirds of the nation’s wealth; the 50 richest people own as much as half of all people living in the US. And, in an economy still largely powered by fossil fuels, oil and gas giants are accumulating record profits, with Exxon posting a record-breaking $56 billion haul last year. That concentration of wealth and profit translates to outsized political power, betraying the promise of equal representation.
The growing concentration of wealth and power has direct — and less-direct — impacts on the health of our shared environment.
In the direct category, staggering wealth leads to staggering environmental impact. The ultra-wealthy, with their private jets and multiple homes, are super-emitters of climate-changing greenhouse gases. Indeed, the world’s wealthiest 10% were responsible for about half of carbon emissions in 2015, and the top 1% produced 15% of emissions. That’s almost double the 7% emitted by the poorest half of humanity. Yet the poor, who have done the least to cause climate change, are the most vulnerable to its impacts — in the U.S. and around the world.
Wealthy individuals and corporations use their political muscle to harm both democracy and the environment. Their influence was turbocharged in 2010 by the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United, which upended campaign finance restrictions and allowed corporations and interest groups to pour unlimited funds into elections. Fossil fuel companies spent an estimated $23.6 million in federal elections in 2006; that figure soared to $138.8 million in 2020 — not accounting for donations by “dark money” groups, whose spending is kept secret. The influence of deep-pocketed polluters is reflected in policy.
Regulatory capture at the EPA
A half century ago, amid surging concern about air and water pollution, President Nixon consolidated the federal government’s environmental initiatives into the Environmental Protection Agency. Charged with establishing and enforcing environmental regulations to protect human health and the environment, the EPA is uniquely positioned to hold perpetrators of the syndemic accountable and prevent further harm.
Indeed, the EPA is the reason our rivers no longer catch fire, car exhaust is 98% cleaner than in the 1960s, and the ozone layer remains intact. EPA regulations on air quality, in particular, have had impressive health benefits, preventing some 230,000 premature deaths between 1990 and 2020. Those regulations also have substantial economic benefits: according to the OMB, EPA rules (especially on air pollution) have the best cost-benefit ratios of any regulations promulgated by the federal government.
But corporate influence sometimes subverts the EPA’s mission. For example, at a time when more than two-thirds of people living in the U.S. wanted the federal government to do more to protect air and water quality and fight climate change, Donald Trump’s EPA — led by a former coal-industry lobbyist — worked to dismantle federal climate policies and roll back more than 100 environmental regulations. This was a textbook example of “regulatory capture” — when a public agency serves the interests of the industries it’s supposed to regulate.
While the Trump administration only partially succeeded in rolling back these vital environmental protections, industry influence on the EPA continues. Earlier this year, the agency dropped three civil rights complaints under pressure from Louisiana governor-elect Jeff Landry, a loyal supporter of the oil and gas industry. The complaints had nearly won changes to the state’s permitting process that would protect overburdened communities — including “Cancer Alley,” a majority-black area that is home to 140 petrochemical plants — from additional industrial development.
And it’s not just the EPA. In May, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin held a budget deal hostage to secure approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a conduit for fracked natural gas that has generated intense opposition along its route. Earlier, Manchin won a fossil-fuel-friendly side deal as the price of his vote on Biden’s climate bill. Manchin, who has earned millions from investments in coal, and receives more cash from oil and gas interests than any other member of Congress, embodies the fossil fuel industry’s political power.
Racism and the syndemic
Like other failures of democracy, structural racism has profound impacts on the environment and human health. The marginalization and disenfranchisement of people of color enables environmental harms that would not otherwise be tolerated.
Structural racism is literally inscribed on the maps of American cities. Though it was outlawed a half century ago, the practice of redlining — by which the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation denied mortgage lending in Black neighborhoods — has left indelible scars. Today, underinvested, redlined neighborhoods have more industrial facilities and fewer parks and trees; as a result, they also have poorer air quality, and are hotter and more flood-prone than other communities.
Polluting industries are disproportionately sited in majority-Black communities. Indeed, Black Americans are 75% more likely to live near facilities that spew hazardous waste, and face double the risk of cancer from toxic air pollution compared to their white counterparts. The marginalization and disenfranchisement of Black Americans enables corporations to pollute with relative impunity. In this way, racism serves the interests of polluters and plutocrats.
Today, environmental destruction that is caused by corporate impunity and abetted by racism threatens a vast swath of people living in the U.S. Communities of color and/or low-income communities are hit first and worst, but air and water pollution transcend boundaries, while climate change imperils the stable climatic conditions that have long allowed humanity to thrive.
Resistance is growing
The toll of environmental disaster is metastasizing, in the form of poisoned drinking water, deadly heat waves, billion-dollar weather disasters, and devastating wildfires. For more and more people living in the U.S., these impacts are personal, manifesting as a life-threatening asthma attack, a home destroyed by flooding, infertility, or a child with cancer.
Within that widening swath of destruction, resistance is growing. Many are realizing that there is no escape from these converging crises.
The environmental justice movement was born in the Black, brown, tribal and Indigenous communities that have long borne the brunt of pollution and climate disaster. Today, despite being sidelined in many mainstream climate spaces, these and other communities on the expanding frontlines of environmental crisis are building a powerful movement for change.
For example, New York Renews — a coalition of over 200 grassroots organizations, including environmental justice, faith, labor, and community groups — helped pass one of the world’s most ambitious climate plans in 2019. More recently, several members of that alliance formed the PEAK Coalition, which is working to shut down New York City’s dirtiest power plants and replace them with clean energy solutions — and winning. In Cancer Alley last year, community groups won a David-and-Goliath legal battle to block construction of the world’s largest plastics plant.
These efforts increasingly include people who were not previously civically engaged, or who didn’t think of themselves as environmentalists. In Maine, farmers whose livelihoods were destroyed by PFAS-contaminated soil and water won groundbreaking legislation to restrict use of that toxic compound. And, across the U.S., conservative Republicans impacted by flooding have joined with others to fight climate change and harmful development.
In this way, the movement for environmental justice is building civic muscle. It could be a silver lining to the dark clouds gathering on the horizon: as more people are directly impacted by environmental crises, more could engage with political processes, invigorating our ailing democracy. However, channeling outrage into constructive advocacy will require a significant investment in organizing at all levels of governance.
Today, nonprofits and philanthropists are turning their attention to the crisis in democracy. Against the backdrop of the January 6 insurrection, high-stakes elections and consequential Supreme Court decisions, funders spent nearly $2 billion on democracy-strengthening initiatives in 2020 and 2021. The focus on democracy is important and necessary, but we must not lose sight of the critical connections between democracy and the environment — and the opportunities to strengthen both.
Funders can strengthen democracy by supporting organizing efforts on the frontlines of the growing environmental crisis, by countering efforts to criminalize protest, by sustaining healthy organizational and individual ecosystems in place that are sustainably staffed and ready to address the growing number of threats while building and reimagining our collective future. Building a multiracial, cross-class, cross-movement alliance is the pathway to countering the power of big money’s influence over so much in our daily lives. By connecting the dots between democracy and the environment, and by engaging more marginalized people in the fight for a healthy planet, we can transcend political divides and plant seeds for a future that is both green and fair.
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Ogonnaya Dotson Newman (she/her) is a Senior Program Officer in the Movement Infrastructure and Explorations Team at The JPB Foundation. Her previous experience, including at Native American Health Initiative, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, New York City Housing Authority and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, has been focused on community-based participatory research, partnership, and collaboration to address the needs of communities of color and/or low income. Newman has been on various committees and networks throughout her career, including The Funders Network, Women’s Voices for the Earth, and currently the steering committee of the Health and Environmental Funders Network and the board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association.
Kayla Patel (she/her) is a Program Associate supporting Movement Infrastructure and Explorations grantmaking at The JPB Foundation. She has previously worked in urban planning and environmental nonprofit sectors through which she aims to support people of color and low-income communities to have clean and affordable housing, air, and water. Before joining JPB in 2022, Kayla served as an Americorps member and graduated from Tufts’ Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Master’s program where she focused geospatial analysis, community-led planning, and climate justice. Kayla is also an alumna of Yale’s Environmental Fellows Program, dedicated to building career pathways to diversify the environmental sector.
