As Texans rebuild from the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey, Floridians are set to endure another Category V Hurricane in the form of Irma. And we still have Tropical Storm Jose developing and growing behind Irma as of this writing. It’s obvious, now more than ever before, that climate change is no conspiracy, no sneaky attempt by the scientific community to rob those poor oil barons of their profits. The Western economy of the United States alone makes up more of CO2 emissions than Japan, Russia, and the entire European Union combined. If you’ve read me before, then you are aware of my commitment to exposing the normalcy of imperialism—that folks think perpetual war and land occupation is somehow morally acceptable.

Capitalism is the primary motivating agent behind pollution of our environment and how we got to the point where the Earth has multiple hurricanes assaulting the Caribbean and southern United States. I will not present the evidence for a claim that has been proven a thousand times over—what we must understand in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma is who in particular is being affected. Marginalized communities, such as African-Americans in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, are often the last people to receive aid from the federal government if they are not already being outright driven from their homes by corporations preying on the land. And when the United States fails to aid its own citizens, it also refuses or punishes aid from countries it is engaging in imperialist war against, Cuba in the former case and Venezuela in the latter. The empire we live in cares very little for collateral damage caused by those causing obscene amounts of pollution (who more often than not, look like rich whites), we are driven by money and materialism, not empathy or compassion, despite what liberal politicians may tell you on the news. This is not to cast blame on victimized communities for their relatively minor contributions to the current environmental crisis, but to show you that climate change has a class character behind it, and that the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century largely occurred on the terms of landowners and entrepreneurs.

If you would like to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey, a great charity I trust is the

Houston Food Bank. When Irma arrives, I would hope that you keep in mind the peoples of the Caribbean and the most marginalized in Florida who will be hit first. Please consider also reading up on the history of environmental injustice activism and how I developed my analysis here through JSTOR. It should be clear to those of you reading that Americans living in the core of the United States, suburban whites for example, are the benefactors of pollution and global warming.