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COP26 Climate change
UN Climate Change Conference UK

Message for COP26 Negotiators: Capitalism has never really worked out for the Earth or for BIPOC Communities

1 min read

Those closest to the problem are best placed to design effective remedies. In the case of climate change, frontline communities in the United States are already showing us the way.

Jacqueline Patterson, founder of The Chisholm Legacy Project: Resource Hub for Black frontline Climate Justice Leadership and former director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, notes that the "free market" has never worked to protect minorities or protect the planet from plunder and greed.

Key quote: "As civil rights activist Audre Lorde said: 'The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.' It is the market-based economy that got us into this mess in the first place. To use the same mechanism that caused the problem to try to solve the problem is illogical at best."

About the author(s):

Douglas Fischer

Douglas Fischer is the executive director of Environmental Health Sciences, which publishes EHN.org.

Those closest to the problem are best placed to design effective remedies. In the case of climate change, frontline communities in the United States are already showing us the way.

Jacqueline Patterson, founder of The Chisholm Legacy Project: Resource Hub for Black frontline Climate Justice Leadership and former director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, notes that the "free market" has never worked to protect minorities or protect the planet from plunder and greed.

Key quote: "As civil rights activist Audre Lorde said: 'The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.' It is the market-based economy that got us into this mess in the first place. To use the same mechanism that caused the problem to try to solve the problem is illogical at best."

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