Growing up, I heard the phrase 40 acres and a mule from all the adults in my life, usually in the context of an unkept promise. Were still waiting for our 40 acres, theyd say, referring to yet another violation of our rights sprayed across the news. When I was old enough to grasp the concept, my parents explained that after the Civil War, our ancestors were promised 40 acres of land and a mule as an apology for forced servitude. Growing up in Brooklyn, it was obvious that neither I nor any of my community members were descendants of people who had received such an apology.

It took some time before I fully understood that theres a nuanced relationship between climate change, colonialism, enslavement and reparations that affects all of us profoundly today. When we discuss the reasons for accelerating global warming, our conversations often focus on the corporate waste littering waterways, or emissions pumped into the ozone from factories. While these present-day practices contribute substantially to rising temperatures and more destructive and more frequent natural disasters, colonialism and chattel slavery also play a huge part. And even beginning to address this damage is going to take more than money its going to take new laws and a deeper understanding of how all this damage came to fruition.

As one 2019 BBC article explains : Enslaved people were brought [to North America] to work on the cotton, sugar and tobacco plantations. The crops they grew were sent to Europe or to the northern colonies, to be turned into finished products. Those finished goods were used to fund trips to Africa to obtain more slaves who were then trafficked back to America. During slavery in North America, its believed that 40% of New Yorks cotton revenue was earned by shipping companies, insurance companies and financial institutions through this very process.

This wealth, in turn, was used to facilitate the pillaging of land stolen from its stewards, Indigenous people. So in many ways, slavery allowed for unbridled greed and a rapid rise in industrialization that exploited people of color while kicking global warming into overdrive.

Fast forward to today. The economy that thrived as a result of this system is still operating at the expense of the environment and the lives of people deemed less than human . And so reparations should be thought of not just as repayment for historical wrongdoings, but as a way to fight for a sustainable future.

Most of our understanding of reparations comes from a plan to redistribute about 400,000 acres of seized Confederate land to formerly enslaved Black people. This plan is commonly known as the 40 acres and a mule approach, or the Sherman Field Order No. 15, named for Union General William Sherman, who issued the order. According to various historical accounts , it was initially devised by a group of Black ministers in Savannah, Georgia, and was set to take place on the seized Southern coastal land stretching from South Carolina to Florida. For the first time, there was a plan that could decrease the power held by the Confederacy while addressing the desires of formerly enslaved people to own land and establish their own sovereign state. It would be a place where they could recreate their world outside of enslavement.

As historian Lisa Betty puts it, justice is about way more than just a check; its about reimagining the world as a place where degradation and land theft are no longer normalized. Betty is a leading reparations advocate whos been vocal about how reparations are not just an act of social justice, but one of climate justice. In a recent article for Ethical Style Journal, she examines the ways in which white supremacy, colonialism and the enslavement of Black people not only affected the wealth of Black and Indigenous people in this country, but laid a foundation for the current climate crisis.