My talk at NYC Climate Week
Climate Change and Accessibility
The International Accessibility Symbol filled with the Sustaining All Life logo (multi colored hands in a fibonacci pattern like the center of a sunflower)
Disability Community
I gave this talk along side Laurie Summers at a Sustaining All Life on Disability and Climate Change during the NYC Climate Week.
… I've known Laurie Summers for 30 years, and she taught me that accessibility is grounded in relationships. And she said you need to build relationships with people with disabilities. So as a person with CP, I thought, “Oh, people who do not have disabilities need to build relationships with me, right? I am the bridge.”
For a long time I was very outward facing. I made relationships with people without disabilities. And then for a while, even though I was a committed activist, I started questioning, am I disabled? I have a husband, I have a child, I get jobs as a professional photographer. I have a life where I can do almost everything I want.
And Laurie kept looking at me, “Saying you're disabled, you're disabled, build relationships with people who are disabled.” And so I started to do that, now disability anchors me. My whole community is people with disabilities. I found my people. People who speak my language, the people who have gone through the same things I have, the people who find joy in similar ways that I find joy.
They're my people. What was I ever thinking? I talk with tons of people who are questioning, Am I disabled? Am I not disabled? Right? There's a whole line of questioning and I'm going to say, if you are questioning, try it on. You may very well find a home..
Building Inclusive Communities
Change is Coming
Laurie Summers, using her walker and I using my scooter, journeying through a water filled path
So as I said, my life is all about disability and art these days. And what I've noticed is that accessibility is not enough. if we create environments where people can get in and use the space, but people are still afraid of disability, we have not gone far enough. If disability is still regarded as a dirty word, we have not gone far enough.
We can no longer be an afterthought, the etc. We can no longer be regarded as something worse than death.
We need is to be a normal part of a good life. Disability happens. What we need is space to be a love letter to the body and the earth. Climate change and go hand in hand.
Artwork. My artwork, all disability center artwork has a role to play.
It can say we recognize you, we want you and your access needs are at the foundation of our organizations– along with hiring us, having us on your board and having us in leadership.
So this is my artwork. It is centered on disability joy and disability pride and it's a part of a larger project called The Body is Good, and I hope you all remember your body is good. [My artwork was displayed on the walls in the room we in which we gave our talk.]
Disability and the Climate Emergency
Now you might be saying, “What does this have to do with the environment? What does this have to do with the climate emergency?” Each and every one of you has a precious body. And climate change, the environmental shifts, degradation and devastation, is an attack on the body. What we are trying to do is to equalize everybody's chance of having a good life, disabled or not.
“Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
What we are trying to stop is people having an unequal chance of being disabled. That is what The Climate Justice Movement is all about…at least in my mind – The injustice that some people are more at risk of death and disability than other people, because of the environmental conditions of where they live and work. No one should be at risk from what is in our air or what is in our water.
And then, people with disabilities are 2 to 4 times more at risk when a climate disaster happens to them four times that’s a lot.
We need to figure out how to include us, people with disabilities (especially from the most impacted areas) in our protest and our solutions.
Preparing for Disasters: Listening Exchanges
Let’s talk about this disasters. The listening exchange we do (taking timed turns in pairs listening without interrupting) in Sustaining All Life is amazing. It's one way to show respect. Over and over today in listening to people’s stories, I've noticed that what happens is people talk for us, around us, and not to us. They don't listen to us. So just the way we set up the rules, the exchange where the goal is to listen, is a contradiction to the oppression of people with disabilities. These listening exchanges can help build our attention for our bodies.
We definitely need attention for our bodies as the climate changes. Climate change both causes disabilities and changes the environment slowly or quickly to make it less accessible to people with disabilities. So we need attention for how the change affects us and the bodies around us, how we include people with disabilities in our protests, development of policy and strategies, and how we with our good bodies will survive extreme climate events
“Disasters do not discriminate, Response might and often does.”
We know people who plan for climate disasters have a better survival rate than people who hope or think they will know what to do when the time comes.
One in four Americans have a disability/ one in 5 worldwide…
According to the United Nations, children and people with disabilities are 2 to 4 times more likely to suffer injury or die in a disaster, due to the lack of planning, lack of accessibility and inadequate shelters.
The relationships we build with friends, neighbors, and colleagues are critical. In times of facing unimaginable situations, we need to be there for each other. You can use these listening skills we have taught here to strengthen these relationships.
RECOMMENDATION
Here is what I am suggesting .
As the FEMA says: We are ALL help until help arrives.
We all need to decide whether and when we would evacuate or stay in our homes.
Go home, get to know your neighbors one on one or as a small listening circle.
Listen to each other make plans:
Take turns listening to how each of you feels about staying or evacuating in an emergency,
Say all the details of what you would need to do, what resources you need and what kind of help you would like.
Make sure you are in conversation with the people with disabilities in your life, use these tools to get to know them better, not to fix them, but to be in deep relationship with them.