So’s I was thinking, “Hey Substack’s a good place for people to score a livin, but seein how it aims to ‘build trust in the information ecosystem as a whole’, maybe I should ante up outta respect to such an august institution.”
In that spirit, let’s give a fact-checker his due.
During a recent interview on “Face the Nation”, Senator Rick Scott accused Vice President Kamala Harris of promoting anti-White discrimination at a DNC Women’s Leadership Forum. Fielding a question from actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Harris allegedly argued that the government should base how much hurricane aid it administers on the victim’s race.
Here is a transcript of the “Face the Nation” interview with Senator Scott:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator, before I let you go, I do have a bigger picture question because you know, disasters are a time when people can come together. And our country is so incredibly divided. I know you know that. Over this weekend, we heard some pretty disturbing rhetoric from the former president who tweeted that Senator McConnell has a death wish. He said some racist things about his wife, the former Cabinet Secretary Elaine Chao. Last night at his rally, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene made a false claim that Democrats want Republicans dead, and they have quote, already started the killings. Given the level of security threat right now. Would you rebuke those comments?
SEN. SCOTT: But I think what we got to do is we got to bring everybody together. I'd also say that would vice versa. Harris said yesterday that our day before yesterday that, you know if you if you have a different skin color, you're going to get relief.
[my emphasis]
Scott was undoubtedly referencing the following quote from the Vice President, which had been circulating in conservative media:
“And so we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality but we also need to fight for equity, understanding not everyone starts out in the same place and if we want people to be in an equal place sometimes we have to take into account disparities and do that work.”
However, PolitiFact’s Jeff Cercone discovered that conservatives had taken Harris out of context. His analysis of the full interview follows:
Chopra Jonas, in a lengthy preamble to her question, spoke about how extreme weather like Hurricane Ian is becoming more frequent and severe. She credited the Biden administration for passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which included $369 billion for initiatives such as manufacturing clean energy products, cutting emissions and environmental justice. She also said the U.S. sets an example for other nations to follow on climate policy.
"Can you talk just a little bit about the relief efforts, obviously, of Hurricane Ian and what the administration has been doing to address the climate crisis in the states?" Chopra Jonas asked Harris.
Before Harris could answer, Chopra Jonas added a follow-up question: "We consider the global implications of emissions. The poorest countries are affected the most, they contribute the least and are affected the most. So how should voters in the U.S. feel about the administration’s long-term goals when it comes to being an international influencer on this topic?"
Harris responded first by touting the $369 billion in funding in the Inflation Reduction Act "dedicated to addressing the climate crisis," which she said is a crisis "evidenced by Ian, by the wildfires happening in California, the floods, the hurricanes."
Harris said she thought about climate policy "in terms of the human toll."
"I know we are all thinking about the families in Florida, in Puerto Rico with (Hurricane) Fiona, and what we need to do to help them in terms of an immediate response and aid, but also what we need to do to help restore communities, and build communities back up in a way that they can be resilient, not to mention adapt to these extreme weather conditions, which are part of the future."
Harris then addressed Chopra Jones’ "point about disparities." She described an environmental justice unit she started when she was San Francisco district attorney that focused on "the disparities issue you have described, rightly." She said "it is our lowest-income communities and communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions, and impacted by issues that are not of their own making."
"So, we have to address this in a way that is about giving resources based on equity, understanding that we fight for equality, but we also need to fight for equity, understanding that not everybody starts out at the same place."
In other words, Kamala was only suggesting that the government should offer extra aid to marginalized communities over time to help them rebound from future disasters, not that it should withhold aid to White communities.
PolitiFact got it right.
But with me duty discharged, I’ll put a copper on the guv’nah by examining a hidden racial claim that PolitiFact left on the table.
Let’s revisit Chopra Jones’s allegation that
extreme weather conditions like this are becoming obviously more frequent and more severe. And I wanted to acknowledge the administration for passing the biggest climate legislation –legislation in history earlier this year — (applause) — because it is a fact that America’s leadership sets an example to other major economies around the world, which are truly dragging their feet when it comes to doing their bit.
But — and just a little follow up, because this is important to me: We consider the global implications of emissions, right? The poorest countries are affected the most […] They contributed the least and are affected the most.
[my emphasis]
Chopra Jonas believes that certain foot-dragging “major economies in the world” victimize poorer countries with their pollution. And who, pray tell, holds the reins of these economies? Vice President Harris’s response suggests that, at least in her own mind, the “major economies” are all run by rich White people:
[I]t is our lowest-income communities and communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions, and impacted by issues that are not of their own making.
[my emphases]
In short, Harris — with zero pushback from Chopra Jonas — asserted that people of color bear little responsibility for global warming. This is a perfect example of how modern policymakers view major issues through a cracked racial prism.
But more importantly, is this claim even true?
No. The claim that “major economies” are the main culprits of global warming only holds if one includes China and India among its members. Since these two nations are run by non-Whites, Harris’s analogy —and the corresponding narrative behind it — collapses.
First, the historical evidence. As the below bar graph illustrates, the United States has accounted for almost a quarter of the cumulative CO2 emissions from 1750 to 2020, while Russia, Germany, the UK, and other European countries have contributed another quarter. Notice, however, that China ranks second, Japan sixth, and India seventh, totaling 20% of the historical emissions. Still, emitting 50% of the world’s cumulative CO2 output is certainly worse than emitting 20%.
However, this metric doesn’t account for the fact that both the United States and Western Europe have enjoyed the fruits of the Industrial Revolution for much longer than other regions, giving them an enormous head start in producing greenhouse gases. Perhaps a more relevant question is how the countries currently rank in yearly CO2 output. Here’s a useful chart:
China and India alone currently account for more than a third of the world’s emissions. And both countries have come by this suspect accomplishment honestly.
According to the Global Carbon Project, India’s CO2 emissions ballooned by almost 150% since 2000, moving from fifth to third in that time frame. Meanwhile, China has led the world in CO2 emissions since 2005. The BBC has a nifty interactive slider that shows how both India and China have climbed the rankings over the last twenty years — a period where the leaders of both countries knew the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels.
However, comparing total emissions ignores a significant factor. Since a country’s total emissions correlates with population size, most analysts prefer to measure the carbon output per person, otherwise known as per capita CO2 emissions. By this metric, China and India tumble down the list. Problem solved, right?
Alas, these new measures catapult Middle Eastern countries to the top, while non-White countries such as China, South Korea, Malaysia, South Africa, and Libya remain comfortably above the world’s average. Trinidad and Tobago even finishes fourth!
There’s another problem with measuring pollution per capita. Dividing a country’s pollution by its number of citizens ignores the reality that a large population is itself an environmental stressor. It’s like saying a guy shouldn’t be blamed for gambling away his savings because he’s a chronic drunk; you’re using one bad habit to excuse another.
Since the scientific link between population density and environmental degradation is — shall we say — “settled”, we’ll let a picture tell the story. Here’s a charming view of the Ganges River:
Or, we can listen to an environmental equity expert’s opinion on Delhi’s air quality:
It’s so hard to shoot [a movie] here right now that I can’t even imagine what it must be like to live here under these conditions. We are blessed with air purifiers and masks. Pray for the homeless. Be safe everyone. #airpollution #delhipollution #weneedsolutions #righttobreathe
India’s 1.4 billion people may place it below the world’s per capita CO2 average, but their population density comes at a staggering cost. And adjusting pollution for population size doesn’t pull China below the world’s mean. Plotting the length of one emission metric against the other’s breadth yields the following graphic:
Pollution certainly looks like a global partnership, don’t it?
But there’s a final escape hatch for those who’d like to absolve non-Western countries from blame: Sure, China and India may seem like energy hogs to the undiscerning eye, but it’s actually Whitey’s fault because Western countries, Dr. Caligari style, are simply outsourcing their carbon emissions to poorer, Browner countries!
This objection may seem plausible at first blush, but as the neoliberal economist/Substack blogger Noah Smith notes, it fails a basic test. A country can lower its CO2 production by off-shoring its manufacturing to other countries; however, what it gives away in production it takes back in consumption. A country that doesn’t manufacture goods must import them from countries who do. Over time, a carbon outsourcer should see its carbon production fall faster than its carbon consumption. Yet many Western countries have seen their carbon consumption decline at a greater rate than their carbon production — the opposite of what should happen with an outsourcer. Take America, for example:
And as Hannah Ritchie explains, America is hardly unique among Western nations:
There are some countries where […] production-based emissions have stagnated whilst consumption-based CO2 [have] steadily increased […] Ireland in the early 2000s; Norway in the late 1990s and early 2000s; and Switzerland since 1990.
On the other hand there are several very rich countries where both production- and consumption-based emissions have declined. This has been true, among others, for the UK (chart), France (chart), Germany (chart), and the USA (chart). These countries have achieved some genuine reductions without outsourcing the emissions to other countries. Emissions are still too high in all of these countries, but it shows that genuine reductions are possible.
[My emphasis]
At any rate, nature doesn’t care about historical or demographic adjustments. Whether a country’s excess pollution is caused by a manufacturing head start or a burgeoning population, the fact is that excuses didn’t stop warming from coming. It came. And somehow or other, glaciers melt just the same.
A final irony. Remember Chopra Jonas’s complaint about the foot-dragging “major economies”? It turns out that, outside of the United States under Donald Trump, two of the major impediments to a carbon-neutral future are….wait for it….China and India. The Climate Action Tracker rates India and China’s plans for achieving net-zero emissions as “highly insufficient” as opposed to the European Union and America’s (still dismal) “insufficient” ratings. That’s what happens when your path to carbon neutrality lags a decade or so behind the so-called foot-draggers’.
My ruling:
Chopra Jones claimed that “The poorest countries […] contributed the least and are affected the most.”
In fact, metrics indicate that China and India emit more greenhouse gases each year than do the vast majority of developed countries, and these two countries have produced more cumulative CO2 than have several richer nations. Various attempts to shift the blame fall short of the mark and are irrelevant to the reality of global warming.
I rate her claim as “Self-Serving Bulls#%t.”