When straw bans started gaining steam in the public conversation, disabled people sat uneasily confronted by the readiness with which many non-disabled people seemed to dismiss their needs. Now, with power shut-offs taking lives and articles blaming air pollution on inhalers, disabled people are learning just how expendable non-disabled people see them.
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"While people with disabilities are familiar with casual ableism, deaths caused by the PG&E shut-off put the effects of disability ignorance into focus. On October 12th, 12 minutes into the PG&E power shut-off, a man who used oxygen died after the middle-of-the-night power loss amidst murky details from the company left him no time to prepare. In posts online, commenters blamed the man for his death and asserted that he should have anticipated and bought a generator. It takes a certain level of callousness to tell disabled people, a group that makes 66 cents to the non-disabled dollar and who are allowed to be paid well beneath the minimum wage, to spend $5,000-10,000 to avoid death."
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The disability community is living in a dystopian present where conserving the planet is in direct competition with the value of their lives. Their deaths at the hands of negligence and discrimination re-packaged as climate awareness are unacceptable losses. Climate discussions that fail to include disabled and chronically ill people turn the conversation from “preserving the planet for all,” to “preserving the planet for the few.” In the battle of the “survival of the fittest,” disabled people will always lose.