Climate change exists in an era of the Earth’s history that geologists call “the Anthropocene Epoch.” This term can be misleading, since it suggests that the climate crisis, the sixth mass extinction, and severe land use change are caused by all humans equally, rather than the disproportionate actions of the wealthiest few.
In fact, the most geologically supported date for the beginning of the Anthropocene is 1610: The transatlantic slave trade initiated a model of extractive economies based on the removal of wealth from Black and Indigenous communities by degrading Mother Earth and exploiting human labor.
The result was that colonizers accumulated wealth. Today, some of the world’s wealthiest companies and people can directly link their wealth to slavery and stolen land. Importantly, access to capital is the greatest determinant of each person’s carbon footprint—and nine of the ten richest people in the world are residents of the United States. The richest 10 percent of the world’s population were responsible for 52 percent of carbon emissions from 1990 to 2015.
Colonization, the process of devaluing and dehumanizing people in order to justify exploiting them and their homelands, caused climate change.