How Small Businesses Deserve to Fight Climate Change
By Mahala Herron-Rutland; Edited by Hayley Bricker
It is not every day that you meet someone who denies climate change. At least, I have only seen such people on TV or in the news. However, last fall, I met a nonbeliever in the flesh. Randy Thomas* was my Uber driver: a black, witty, principled, and hardworking guy from Los Angeles. It only took one rider in our shared Uberpool to make a snarky comment about climate change for Thomas to unload his feelings on the subject. What followed was a conversation about his life, his career, and why he does not believe in climate change, all in 45-minutes in Los Angeles traffic. His story elucidates the integral relationship of the pre and post effects of climate change on small businesses.
Political talk with your Uber driver has the potential to be awkward, but, as a journalist, I found it to be intriguing. During the ride, I gained further knowledge of how President Trump’s personal climate denial opened a window for climate deniers all over the world to speak their truth. Thomas believes that “there’s not enough evidence” to prove climate change exists. Thomas is also admirable of Trump’s business savvy, prompting his support. Further, Trump campaigned in favor of small businesses, which Thomas had. From further research, I also began to consider the after-effects of climate change and how it will affect the longevity of small businesses.
I wondered, how can one simultaneously be pro-small business and anti-climate change? Small business owner Thomas was an over-the-road trucker from Los Angeles, and, at the age of 21, he started his own trucking company. Prior, he managed to avoid a Los Angeles gang lifestyle by choosing to stay in school, becoming heavily involved in the community, and working as a police cadet for two years. Thomas had a two-parent home, was involved in church, and was living a productive life when one day he saw the opportunity to buy a tractor-unit for a semi-truck. Thomas looked at the opportunity as a once-in-a-lifetime chance that was available in the United States: he could drive semi-trucks and be in control of his own business. At a young age he “bought a truck, worked at a freight company and made money, wasn’t married, and never went to jail.” Thomas took pride in being a small business owner, and rightfully so.
As we know, young people are not always privy to the best decision-making. I was in awe at his maturity, not only avoiding an unfortunate lifestyle but wanting to take his career into his own hands. Just like many small business owners, he spent all that he had investing in his dreams:
I bought a medium size truck that I could afford. The truck cost $8,200. All in all, I had less than $9,000 tied up with the truck and all the tie downs and this is in 97’ I was grossing right at $65–70,000 a year. These avenues that we have comes from success. I’m driving all across the world, and I would meet people black and white and they would say, ‘Hey, you’re doing an alright deal here.’
While I was in awe of Thomas’ story, I was not too distracted by his youthful success to ask how his work with his tractor unit affected the environment. Thomas’ response was just this: “We don’t know. The engines and the work we had was what was sold on the market. No one was measuring [carbon dioxide].”
His response prompted me to explore the complex relationship between climate change initiatives and the impact on small businesses. Numerous studies predict they will be greatly affected by the impacts of climate change, specifically natural disasters and sea level rise. According to Small Business Majority, “57% of small businesses have no disaster recovery plans in place.” This means that in the case of a natural disaster or extreme weather conditions, the majority of small businesses are ill-prepared to practice resiliency.
I sat down with Dr. Alan Barreca, an associate professor with a background in environmental economics at the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability. On the subject of small businesses and climate change, he feels that:
Small businesses are vital parts of cities and neighborhoods, and so I think that the cities should be helping ensure that those businesses can smooth out natural disasters because it’s actually in the cities best interest. So there’s a justice angle to it, which I believe cities should be helping businesses recover when they experience an unusual of negative shock: environmental catastrophe, but there’s also an argument to be made that we want continuity, we want cohesion in neighborhoods, we want to come back after natural disasters to maintain the culture and feeling of neighborhoods that everybody values, so it’s about maintaining value.
The result climate change on our economy, specifically for small businesses, will be unfortunate. According to Witty Sparks, “4 in 10 small businesses in a FEMA-declared 2017 disaster areas lost revenue due to natural disasters.” This number will only rise as natural disasters increase. It is no secret that big corporations have many advantages, such as being able to provide healthcare to employees, teams to focus on important tasks like marketing strategies and diversifying revenue, and more specifically, the resiliency to adapt to climate change as sea levels rise. Small business owners such as Thomas have a lot to focus on such as hiring new and qualified drivers, ensuring that each truckload arrives on time, and keeping an edge on competitors, causing things such as recent climate change initiatives and the increase of natural disasters to set him and his small business back.
Thomas was truly enjoying his work when he perceived that the climate change initiatives under President Obama’s administration made him lose his career. This later fostered his support of Trump who reversed many of Obama’s climate initiatives and enabled many climate change deniers. Two of these initiatives under the Obama administration that directly affected Thomas included the establishment of ground-breaking fuel economy standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and implementation of a methane emission reduction strategy, which included new standards to cut emissions from existing sources in the oil and gas sector. While these initiatives make positive strides towards reducing carbon and methane emissions, small businesses such as Thomas’ were terminated due to the lack of resources to keep up with the climate initiative push. Thomas is an example of one small business owner who was affected by progressive climate change initiatives.
However, extreme weather and natural disasters due to climate change are the next big thing to set back small businesses such as Thomas’. In 2017, Rhonda Abrams of USA Today followed small business victims of Hurricane Irma and Harvey and expressed great concern for natural disasters along the U.S.’s southern borders, stating,“In the Miami area, consumer spending spiked just before Irma made landfall and then plummeted 57% compared to prior-year levels. During the week of August 25–31, when Harvey made landfall in Texas, retail sales in Houston dropped 59% compared to the previous week and total consumer spending fell 42.5%.”
From Florida, to Texas, to Los Angeles and Oregon, small business owners are greatly affected by climate change. Hurricanes are amongst the biggest threats to small businesses, but extreme weather conditions have a huge impact as well. Abrams further explains:
It’s not just hurricanes. My sister and brother have lived in southern Oregon for three decades. My sister owns a small business there. Summers used to be beautiful, attracting both tourists and locals enjoying outdoor activities under sparkling blue skies. Now, summer after summer, the skies are gray and filled with ash, week after week, from massive forest fires often hundreds of miles away.
Outdoor activities, including boating, fishing, hiking, rafting, and even wine tasting are heavily curtailed. The renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival canceled some performances due to smoke and ash. Small businesses throughout the West suffer.
In addition, small businesses will be less able to sustain compared to larger corporations in the future as climate change increases. According to the Small Business Majority, “Small businesses are uniquely vulnerable to extreme weather events and can suffer lasting economic damage as a result of a single extreme weather event because many lack the access to capital and resources of many large corporations.” The effect of progressive climate change initiatives caused Thomas to be a climate change denier, but the post-climate effects are not as clear cut. Luckily, the effects of climate change to all remain evident. According to Simon Mainwaring, contributing writer to Forbes Magazine,“Climate change will damage economies, devastate populations, increase resource scarcity, and dramatically impact the cost of doing business. So for both humanitarian and business reasons, it is imperative that companies of all sizes take action.”
While it is true that businesses of all sizes should take action, it is also true that small businesses are not as equipped with the resources or capital to practice resilience against climate change.
By disenfranchising small businesses, we disempower our communities. Benefits of small businesses include: providing employment opportunities to those who may not be considered by large corporations (minorities, felons, elderly, disabled, etc…), local circulation of money, the establishment of interpersonal relationships within the community, and more. Small businesses are a largely overlooked asset to our communities and should not be disadvantaged due to climate change progression, sea level rise, or extreme weather events. Bryon Kennard, the Executive Director of The Center for Small Business and the Environment, feels that small businesses contribute to the small population of eco-entrepreneurs in the economy, but instead of creating studies that measure how climate change legislation specifically affects U.S. small businesses, he says, “small business is always ignored.”
Small businesses can be supported with the resources and funds to measure their carbon footprint, giving them the ability to set emission reduction goals for themselves, and the resources to relocate, re-brand, and re-start all in a cost-effective manner. While this may seem like an ambitious goal, it is possible and pertinent to the rights of small businesses which deserve to compete with large corporations overall, especially in the fight against as well as the consequences of climate change.
Thomas and many other small business owners are affected by progressive climate change initiatives and the consequences of climate change. Small businesses employ local workers and contribute to the local government through taxes, therefore funding things like schools, fire stations and roads. Dr. Barreca has an optimistic view on the effect of climate change on small businesses and small business owners like Randy:
Most businesses will be impacted to some degree negatively by taxes. So you increase the price of goods and services, there’s going to be reductions in their profits which could potentially push some businesses away. That’s not good for those particular owners, it may be good in a sense for the people which these businesses are polluting. I think that what it would hopefully end up doing is pushing some of those businesses for people into industries that are maybe a little bit cleaner. So it may be the case that you move out of being a trucker, but you move into driving a Prius for Uber or Lyft because of the price we put on carbon. So if anything I think as a society we need be encouraging that re-allocation of peoples skill-sets.
While there is a justice component to the effects of climate change on small businesses, the economic component is more likely to get our government officials to act on post-climate change effects. Small businesses deserve to participate in pre and post climate change initiatives, not because they deserve it, but because they are a value to our economy.
What we can do to give small businesses justice in the climate change fight is to first end the denial of climate change. Sea level rise is very real, and natural disasters are worsening. Concealing the issue with political propaganda only delays the actions we need to take to secure small businesses. We can also measure and reduce our own carbon footprint, being conscious of how we individually aid in the contribution to human-caused global warming. Finally, we should urge our government to take action and equip small businesses with the resources to not only lessen their carbon footprint but relocate and rehabilitate their small businesses in the case of a natural disaster and extreme weather conditions. Small businesses and specifically small business owners such as Randy Thomas deserve to remain as we explore and experience the effects of climate change.
*Name changed to protect privacy and anonymity.
Climate Currents is The Center For Diverse Leadership In Science’s student-created resident blog that features diverse voices throughout the environmental science community. We seek to give voices to those who are experiencing climate change and other environmental injustices firsthand. Climate Currents features the diverse perspectives and experiences of scientists working in environmental research, activists involved in stewardship, and more.
Land Acknowledgement
The Center for Diverse Leadership in Science at UCLA acknowledges the Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (Los Angeles basin, So. Channel Islands) and are grateful to have the opportunity to work for the taraaxatom (indigenous peoples) in this place. As a land grant institution, we pay our respects to Honuukvetam(Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders), and ‘eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.
