Introduction
Eav Brennan is an artist and environmental educator living on Gadigal Country in Australia. Eav shares her perspectives and lived experience of being a disabled person within the climate justice movement and offers ideas for the climate justice movement to take on board.
Eav’s Experiences
The following is my opinion and lived experience of being a disabled environmentalist. I hope for it to be a starting point for disabled people to be recognised and elevated within the climate movement.
I am a disabled person, not a person living with a disability
I adhere to the social model of disability. That means to be disabled is a force enacted upon people, not an inherent aspect of one’s body or mind. So for me, as someone with PTSD and Joint Hypermobility Syndrome, I am disabled by the systemic physical and psychosocial barriers I experience. I am not a person living with disabilities, I am a disabled person. This is also intersectional.
Within the climate movement, I have been disabled in two distinct ways:
1. Being in Pain
Being placed into situations where I am in pain and where there is immense social pressure to stay. It took a long time to recognise that lots of situations that I found painful didn’t hurt my peers, and that I deserved more than to be hurt for the cause.
It’s quite socially challenging to be the one person that sits down in a crowd full of standing people. Whether you’re in at a climate strike, or if you’re rallying in front of our MPs office, there’s an additional risks if you sit down. I’ve been trodden on. I try to always stay on the fringes of a crowd, but it’s not always possible to navigate that sort of environment and keep to the edges.
The worst version of that I’ve encountered is where standing is policed. Because my physical disability is invisible (unless I’m using a walking stick) I’ve been at a rally outside a courthouse, where the people were speaking at the rally. I just sat down on the steps behind the courthouse to listen and a woman kicked me to tell me to get up.
A potential solution for organisers is when there’s a large event where hundreds or thousands of people are expected to attend, make sure there is an area where sitting is the norm. Chairs laid out in the shade, next to a path with ramps would be my suggestion, but it really depends on the space.
2. Being Diminished
Being diminished when I was panicked, sore or triggered.
I was incredibly ill as a small child. It took me a long time to register that it was not normal in the 1990’s and 2000’s for kids to meet other kids who went on to die. For kids who frequented paediatric hospitals, that was a very real possibility. In 2016, this was simultaneously an asset to my team in direct action, and the end of my environmental activism as I knew it.
The reality of my disabled upbringing and my peers’ able-bodied upbringings were the most stark in a remote location in central west NSW, where one of our team mates became extremely ill with heatstroke. I saw the very real possibility of her dying on the floor of a shack, like the kids I had met in hospital. Most of the rest of the people doing direct action didn’t even come in to check on her. They left and got arrested, where two others and I got the girl to hospital and she was given intravenous water. She survived.
What followed was the most discriminatory action I’ve experienced as a disabled environmentalist. In the weeks that followed my actions and reactions to the situation were settled by the rest of my team as Eav being insane, antisocial and aggressive. When the debrief came around, it was agreed that I should have been more calmy communicative about the situation and the girls’ state – despite PTSD meaning I cannot talk about what has happened at the best of times, let alone when I’m performing first aid on a seriously ill person. I was deemed unstable and in need of help, and we never spoke again.
In the intervening years I have avoided climate events, or sat quietly on the edge of protests. Nowadays I organise my own craftivist workshops which centre accessibility and gentle protest, where I prioritise the safety of disabled people as my primary objective of the work.
Disabled-led Places are Key
A lot of the focus of the climate movement is – understandably – giving life on Earth the best chance of surviving and flourishing in the future.
Disability rights movements are a wellspring of fierce creativity, adaptability, and care. When the disabled community is treated as an afterthought, as vulnerable people who need to be tacked on to existing events, everyone loses the opportunity to connect with a group of people with hugely diverse skills to navigate the world.
We have so much to offer the future of this planet, but we need to be believed and accepted for that to have an impact.
Making a disabled-led place within the climate and environmental justice space was primarily important for me because we deserve to feel accepted and valued as members of society, especially now that COVID-19 has killed and impacted so many of us. We deserve a future of our own.
I also wanted to try to create a trauma-informed community which prioritises gentleness in workshops, without dampening the messaging of the cause.
One personal example of the significance of mobility justice movement led by disabled people for me has been riding in solidarity with the Gaza Sunbirds paracycling team. The Sunbirds had been training for the Paralympics before the genocide began in October 2023. Some have now left Gaza to compete, but many are still bike messengers for critical supplies over Gaza. In that time, they have also organised global bike rides in solidarity with Palestinians (big ups to An.Other art collective and Marto for organising the Sydney rides). Although the Sydney events’ routes and speeches are organised by able bodied people, the Big Rides for Gaza have been the only times I’ve been out in the streets without being in pain for a long time. I have no problem asserting myself when the route for example takes us down two flights of stairs, because I trust the mobility justice at the heart of the cause.
Key terms the Climate Movement should be aware of
Note: I am a disabled person, not a representative or authority when it comes to these terms. This is just my perspective of these ideas.
- Disabled a social force upon which people with illness or injury are actively excluded, and harmed by existing within their society.
- Person Living with a Disability some people prefer this term, it means that personhood is placed in priority over the barriers the person faces. Personally this term makes me feel like I live with a housemate that regularly dislocates my kneecaps, or that I should start referring to myself as a person living with a womanhood.
- Mobility Justice Is an intersectional movement that encompasses environmental, social and disability justice. It is based on the principle that all people ought to be able to safely navigate the world without pain or fear, and without reliance on fossil fuels to access quality food, water, healthcare or community.
- Accessibility is the infrastructure to facilitate participation in a community. This is broad and diverse, and it is impossible to make an event universally accessible. Oftentimes, making something accessible to one group of people can make it more challenging for another group to enjoy the same event. It’s something that everyone can work on and listen to others about. The important thing is to believe people who raise accessibility concerns and accept their ideas for improvement.
Whether it’s crafting or riding bikes, elevating disabled organisers will round out the climate movement. We are a highly skilled bunch, who know how to adapt to inhospitable environments.
We are also extremely diverse in our accessibility needs. I know my crafting workshops are not accessible to everyone. I’m not trying to be accessible to everybody. It’s more about creating an example which – if it works for you – that’s great! But the climate movement needs to work harder and be more open to listening and believing what needs to be done to create a genuine culture of care.
Explore Further
- Making your Activism Accessible, Le Hub Wiki
- Disability Justice is Climate Justice (Sins Invalid)-Article and ASL video
- Disability Rights is a Climate Justice Issue. Here’s Why (Leanne McNulty)-Article
- To Survive Climate Catastrophe, Look to Queer & Disabled Folks (YES! Magazine)-Article
- Making Protest Accessible: Tips and Checklists for Actions
- TED talks on Disability Rights, Perceptions, Accessibility and Inclusion
- Justice, Diversity & Inclusion: Start Here, Commons Library