I recently experienced the pleasure (and pain) of being in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly. Being in New York at the same time as the world’s leaders deliberated over the most pressing issues of the day definitely helped me feel a bit of gravitas as I discussed United Spinal’s own critical tasks with some of my favorite people in the disability community.
Powerful and passionate people also gathered in NYC for Climate Week. This event takes place alongside the General Assembly in coordination with the UN, which staged its own Climate Ambition Summit. This added to the air of inspiration around the city – and a general feeling of urgency.
Nearly everyone I know, inside and outside the disability community, has been touched by the effects of climate change this year in a way they’ve never experienced before. This is not by accident. It is now more likely than not that 2023 will be the year that we reach the 1.5 C tipping point. I feel like we are more ready than ever to listen more closely to news and critical views about this issue. But we must also strategize about how to get our fellow changemakers to listen more closely to what people with disabilities have to say about surviving climate change.
As the Associated Press reports, “Only 0.5% of the world’s financial aid goes to climate change and public health.” Given that people with disabilities are already considered a neglected population public health-wise, that makes me especially concerned.
Part of our health equity advocacy should make the effects of pollution on our community visible, especially since racially and economically marginalized people are disproportionally affected by it. This intersectional issue will require us to connect with and uplift the most vulnerable members of our community.
It’s going to get hotter
Let’s talk about the heat. General global warming of 1.5°C does not mean that the temperatures we experience during the summer will only be 2.7°F hotter, as American South and Southwest residents are well aware of by now.
People with paralysis can experience extreme heat differently from nondisabled people, and it can take much less for us to suffer serious adverse effects. But do people running public health communications and operating cooling shelters know this?
Human Rights Watch recently reported on how people with disabilities are especially affected by the searing heat waves that are part of our new normal. I was heartened to see that along with physical health, it also discussed how the social isolation imposed by extreme weather affects our mental health. For me, that speaks to how climate change also presents challenges to community formation – that is, to the most basic part of being human.
In discussing the HRW report, Reuters notes that there is a dearth of specific data about people with disabilities as the casualties of climate change are tabulated. Let us not remain uncounted. Additionally, let us help make decisions about how to get members of the disability community out of harm’s way in the first place.
Serving people with disabilities adequately with warning systems, evacuation plans, and public shelters will make climate change-driven natural disasters much less dangerous. In fact, the UN requires it. Emergency management professionals should be aware of the specific ways we rely on powered devices to stay independent and alive and provide accordingly for prolonged power outages.
United Spinal is Ready to Roll against Climate Change
I write this amidst North Atlantic hurricane season and in the aftermath of the Lahaina fires in Hawaii, where faulty alert systems failed everyone. Although natural disasters impact entire communities, it is always people with disabilities who face the greatest adversity in evacuating or sheltering. Clearly, our emergency management infrastructure is crying out for an extensive overhaul, which presents opportunities to rebuild it based on universal design principles.
Giving people with disabilities agency over our futures as humanity faces an existential threat saves lives and keeps communities intact in the face of climate change. Our dignity and voices are essential to a collective response to climate change.
United Spinal adds our voice – and wheels on the ground – to this life-saving and life-giving process via our Ready to Roll program with the gracious and generous support of the Neilsen Foundation. Yes, we need those in power to listen to our concerns. We must also support our community’s grassroots initiatives, like Ready to Roll, to build solidaristic connections with survivors.
As climate change disproportionately threatens our lives and communities, we must push back vigorously on all fronts.
The illustration is by Romolo Tavani. To learn more about how you can help ensure climate change responses include wheelchair users, join our Emergency Preparedness Working Group.
