A few days before the end of November, Gramado, a city known as one of the most sought-after tourist destinations in southern Brazil, grabbed the attention of national and international media. Unfortunately, it wasn't due to its film festival or the traditional lavish Christmas festivities. The city, already suffering from weeks of persistent rain, witnessed the emergence of massive geological rifts tearing through its streets, creating a post-apocalyptic movie-like scenario.
The imminent danger of ground movement alerted the population and the authorities, who promptly evacuated the buildings on the hills of the condemned neighborhood. This course of action proved entirely effective and responsible, as one of the buildings within the designated area did indeed collapse three days after the evacuation. However, it is worth noting a detail: the affected neighborhood consisted of upscale residences and luxury hotels and inns, which raises a question: would the efforts have been the same if the situation occurred in lower-income peripheral neighborhoods?
In the specific case of Gramado, we may never know. However, it is all too easy to enumerate numerous environmental tragedies over the years in various cities, impacting more vulnerable populations who didn't even have time to leave their homes, perishing beneath debris and mud.
In the face of this situation, a specific term has been increasingly discussed when addressing the challenges of contemporary cities. Environmental racism pertains to how environmental issues are viewed through the lens of social inequalities, particularly racism. The intersectionality between race and the environment has sparked discussions about the differential impacts of natural phenomena on the population. It also addresses urban issues such as unequal access to clean water and sanitation and the placement of landfills and dumps near low-income communities, among other concerns.
The term was coined in 1981 by the African American civil rights leader Benjamin Franklin Chavis Jr., who served as an assistant to the renowned political activist Martin Luther King. Its origin can be traced back to the protests of the black movement against environmental injustices that were taking place across the United States at that time.
Recently, given the impacts of climate change on the planet, environmental racism has expanded to encompass climate racism as well, which highlights a significant contradiction where the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions are the more developed countries. However, the nations facing the most severe consequences of climate change are those in the global south.
The same principle applies to cities; environmental degradation does not seem to impact everyone equally. In the Brazilian context, for example, it's important to emphasize that the historical settlement of hillsides by the Black population — except for cases like Gramado — is connected to its colonial past, with social structures based on the enslavement of Black individuals who were disenfranchised and received no reparations after emancipation. Consequently, this population not only becomes the most vulnerable in the event of environmental disasters but also lacks the same support compared to the white and wealthier population.
Several practical examples illustrate this situation. The environmental tragedy in the Brazilian city of São Sebastião, on the northern coast of São Paulo, earlier this year resulted in 65 deaths due to landslides caused by heavy rains. In a divided urban configuration, on one side of the highway and towards the hill lived the more deprived and predominantly Black population, while on the other side, near the beach, were the mansions of the wealthy, predominantly white residents. The unprecedented volume of rainfall affected all residents but the impact was significantly higher for the poorer residents who suffered from landslides, losing not only material possessions but also coping with the loss of loved ones. The city became isolated, and helicopters rescued the wealthier inhabitants.
Another example is the case of Maceió in Brazil, an interesting story because, despite being directly related to an environmental disaster, in this instance, the causes of the tragedy were clearly of human origin, stemming from mineral extraction activities conducted by a company.
In March 2018, the city experienced an earthquake of 2.4 on the Richter scale, followed by cracks and subsidence of the ground that expanded over the months, raising concerns for residents in the affected neighborhoods. For 40 years, the region had been undergoing salt mining by the petrochemical company Braskem – a part of the Novonor group, formerly Odebrecht — with more than 30 wells extracting salt from underground, which led to constant ground movement. Over 60,000 people were evacuated from their homes, and the once vibrant neighborhoods became ghostly areas marked by cracked and condemned structures.
Many families were forced to quickly relocate to areas far from the city center or to neighboring municipalities without support and far from receiving adequate compensation. In this aspect, the inequality of treatment and the difference in the speed of the compensation process between the affected middle-class neighborhoods and the lower-class ones stand out. It's worth noting that the situation was further exacerbated by urban speculation, which, intensified after the disaster, resulted in Maceió experiencing the fourth-largest increase in property prices in the country that year.
This example highlights the significant impact of extracting natural resources on both life and the planet's environment. This process not only influences life directly but also contributes to the exacerbation of climate change. Due to these and other practices, an era of unpredictability and insecurity is approaching, where extreme events will become more recurrent. In such a context, our cities need to be vigilant in providing control and resilience mechanisms, with a focus on historically vulnerable populations that are environmentally and climatically impacted.
A few weeks ago in Brazil, the Constitution and Justice Committee of the Chamber of Deputies approved Bill 380/23. This bill incorporates measures for adapting to and mitigating the impacts of climate change into the guidelines of the City Statute, with a focus on contexts of vulnerability. One of the proposed innovations includes studies analyzing climate risks and vulnerabilities as urban policy instruments, which aims to provide municipalities with a solid foundation for decision-making, taking into account the specific challenges faced by each region.
This approach underscores the importance of a comprehensive response to natural disasters, emphasizing the development of a risk reduction plan. Trained professionals would play a key role in assessing risks in various areas and proposing tailored solutions. While evacuation might be the only feasible option in some scenarios for ensuring public safety, in other cases, implementing measures like drainage systems and slope reinforcements can effectively mitigate the impact of natural disasters. The near tragedy in Gramado illustrates the possibility of foreseeing and preventing certain situations. Despite these advancements, there remains a clear need for more equitable treatment in such circumstances.
