When we talk about racism, we often mean personal prejudice or institutional biases. Climate change doesn't work that way. It is structurally racist, disproportionately caused by majority White people in majority White countries, with the damage unleashed overwhelmingly on people of colour. The climate crisis reflects and reinforces racial injustices.
In this eye-opening book, writer and environmental activist Jeremy Williams takes us on a short, urgent journey across the globe – from Kenya to India, the USA to Australia – to understand how White privilege and climate change overlap. We'll look at the environmental facts, hear the experiences of the people most affected on our planet and learn from the activists leading the change.
It's time for each of us to find our place in the global struggle for justice.
Jeremy Williams is a writer and campaigner for environmental and social justice. He writes at The Earthbound Report (twice recognised as Britain's leading green blog) and is editor of the Extinction Rebellion book Time to Act. Jeremy has worked with Oxfam, WWF and RSPB and is a co-founder of the Post-Growth Institute, Sustainable St Albans, and Edible Luton. He grew up in Madagascar and Kenya, and now lives in Luton.
Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu is a political & women's rights activist. She has taught intersectional feminism to female refugees and asylum seekers, and scrutinizes government policies from a gender and diversity inclusion perspective. She is also a New York Attorney and Solicitor of England & Wales. As a public speaker and political commentator, she has been featured in mainstream and online media. She founded the Women in Leadership publication and established She@LawTalks to promote women & BAME leadership in the legal profession. Her first book This Is Why I Resist (Headline) was published in 2021.
"Really packs a punch"
– Aja Barber, author of Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism
"Will open the minds of even the most ardent denier of climate change and/or systemic racism. If there's one book that will help you to be an effective activist for climate justice, it's this one"
– Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu
"Accessible. Poignant. Challenging"
– Nnimmo Bassey, environmentalist and author of To Cook a Continent: Destructive Extraction and the Climate Crisis in Africa
"Climate Change Is Racist is a significant intervention in climate change studies and activism. Jeremy Williams crafts an accessible, intersectional analysis that is essential reading for those seeking to diversify climate change activism and confront historical, structural racism(s)."
– Professor Robert Beckford, Director of the Institute for Climate and Social Justice, University of Winchester