white americans when you tell them that the idea of climate change as an impending disaster is a reductive first world perspective because it’s a tangible reality for many in the global south already:
maybe if you see south and southeast asians dying in the heat and latin americans dying in floods and all you think of is imagining a reality where YOU are affected, then you should rethink how you see people of color. if you cannot see climate change as a real disaster until it is other americans dying in the heat and the floods and not just black and brown people, then don’t talk about climate change until you can acknowledge the grim reality of climate change for everyone.
Also it is already a reality in the northern hemisphere even if you’ve been privileged enough to not be truly affected by it. But a lot of white liberals don’t really see that either, given tornados and hurricanes mainly affect southern states. They don’t care that the southwest is in major drought without any signs of letting up. They don’t care that tribes in the Pacific Northwest are losing their land to raising seas, or that Arctic natives are losing their traditional food ways. The extreme temperatures, both hot and cold, are killing the unhoused. There is major flooding in central Europe and the UK temperatures are only getting hotter and hotter.
It’s happening and it’s been happening and it’s going to keep happening.