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Call to Action: End Environmental Racism Now

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Call to Action: End Environmental Racism Now

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Call to Action: End environmental racism now

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New bill would help clean up legacy pollution which disproportionately harms Black, Indigenous, and Latinx children & communities.

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What do racism and poverty have to do with pollution and climate change?

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What do racism and poverty have to do with pollution and climate change?

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Grist | 2016

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We already know that pollution and climate change negatively affect people's health and quality of life. But we're not always clear about which people are most exposed and impacted.

The harm that comes with rising seas and contaminated water systems isn't evenly distributed. To the contrary: Those who are already disadvantaged by race, wealth, and income are usually the most affected by environmental disasters. Without recognizing that inequality, we're not always solving the problems with our water, air, and soil in ways that serve the people who need it most - which is why environmental justice is a critical part of planning a green future that's good for everyone.

If you've never heard the term "environmental justice" before, or if you just want to know more about it, watch our video above.

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What do racism and poverty have to do with pollution and climate change?

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We already know that pollution and climate change negatively affect people's health and quality of life. But we're not always clear about which people are most exposed and impacted. The harm that comes with rising seas and contaminated water systems isn't evenly distributed.

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AJ" | 2018

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Why This Town Is Dying From Cancer | AJ+

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Twitter List

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Twelve Black Climate Activists Changing out World

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Twelve Black Climate Activists Changing out World

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Greg Harman | Nexus Media | 2020

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Here are the voices of those struggling for racial justice in the face of rising temperatures.

By Nexus Media
The politics of climate change are shifting. This year, as the most diverse Congress in history was sworn in, its newest members called for an ambitious plan to overhaul the U.S. economy to draw down carbon pollution while tackling social injustice. While the big, mostly white environmental groups hemmed and hawed about whether to support the proposal, a young, racially diverse coalition of advocates took to the Capitol steps to make the case. Organizers and activists long relegated to the sidelines are gaining momentum-and political power-as they push for bold solutions to the greatest challenge of our time. A new generation of Black luminaries stands at the vanguard of this movement.
Born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York, Frances Perez-Rodriguez has dedicated her career to making sure everyone has access to nutritious, sustainably grown food. Perez-Rodriguez is a member of the La Finca Del Sur Community Farm, an urban farming cooperative led by Black and Latina women and a market manager at Rise & Root Farm, farming cooperative in Chester, New York. Source: Nexus Media.
"I was introduced to community organizing after seeing a documentary on the Central Park Five and learning about the ways the NYPD - and the U.S. criminal 'justice' system at-large - mistreats people of color.... The killings of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, soon after, solidified in me the need to better grasp white supremacy, racism and international struggles for self-determination and against oppression."
- Frances Perez-Rodriguez, farmer and activist

Mychal Johnson is a community organizer in the South Bronx in New York City. As the co-founder of South Bronx Unite, he is working with community members to care for a neighborhood coping with decades of pollution and neglect. Source: Nexus Media

"My grandparents migrated to the North from the South in 1945. They were very active in their community, always engaged in what was going on. They showed me as a child that that was part of our social responsibility. My mother was really engaged in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. I think the incremental change laid out in decades past is what we need to carry forward, and I think it's my responsibility as a conscious individual to somehow be a part of creating change."

- Mychal Johnson, Bronx-based organizer

Adrienne Hollis is a scientist and environmental lawyer who serves as the lead climate justice analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, and teaches law at American University and public health at George Washington University. Source: Nexus Media

"I try to make sure that people who have traditionally not been allowed - or included in places where decisions are made - to be in those spaces so they can speak for themselves and influence environmental, public health and policy issues."

- Adrienne Hollis, biomedical scientist and environmental lawyer

In September 2018, Lindsay Harper made history as the first Black woman to become executive director of Georgia WAND, a women-led advocacy group working to end nuclear proliferation and stem pollution. Harper believes that economic empowerment is the best tool for promoting peace. Source: Nexus Media

"It's a special time where we're building healthy movement. We don't have to sacrifice ourselves in the process. Nobody has to be sacrificed for the world to be better. This mindset that there's not enough for everyone to have something - fuck that. It's white supremacy."

- Lindsay Harper, Atlanta-based organizer

Quentin Bell, a trans man, is the executive director of The Knights & Orchids Society Inc., a Selma, Alabama-based nonprofit led by Black, Queer, and gender non-conforming activists who are working to protect LGBTQ rights in the South. Source: Nexus Media

"Many of us forget that this work is long term. It isn't an overnight fix, and we have to prepare the next line of fighters for the work. I had to become my own advocate because there wasn't anyone who looked like me that I could relate to through my transition. Once I created what I needed, I reached back to help others like me. In that reach back, I realized that I had to move out of the way."

- Quentin Bell, Selma-based organizer

A native of Dominica, Ama Francis is a climate law fellow at the Sabin Law Center at Columbia University, working to help people displaced by climate disasters and make small island nations more resilient in the facing of rising seas and dangerous storms. Source: Nexus Media

"I wanted to study something that would help protect Dominica, and given that climate change is one of our biggest threats, I chose environmental law so we could have access to legal tools in the fight against climate change. Now that I live in the U.S., I realize that climate change is an issue about inequality - not only between countries, but also between people from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds."

- Ama Francis, environmental lawyer

A lifelong New Yorker, Karen Washington is a farmer, activist, physical therapist and board member of the New York Botanical Garden. Through her work with Farm School, she is teaching young New Yorkers about gardening and community organizing. And, as a co-founder of Black Urban Growers, she is working with Black farmers on growing fresh, nutritious food for underserved communities. Source: Nexus Media

"Know your true history. We are an agrarian people. We were brought here enslaved not as unskilled labor, but as skilled and knowledgeable farmers... Long ago we were told to leave the land for a better life. Instead, we forgot it's the land that gives us our power. Now we know, as Mother Nature calls us back to where we came from, to once again become stewards of the land."

- Karen Washington, farmer and activist

A sociologist and organizer, Ife Kilimanjaro serves as the senior network engagement director at the U.S. Climate Action Network. She was spurred to work on environmental issues after working as an elementary school principal in Detroit, where she saw children get sick and miss school because of air pollution and lack of access to clean water. Source: Nexus Media

"Often missing in the literature and research are important pieces of history made and told by Indigenous people, people of color, poor folks, rural folks and others on the front lines of environmental injustices and climate change. Relatedly, expertise, wisdoms and presence of these frontline communities are missing at tables and in rooms where decisions are made that impact them."

- Ife Kilimanjaro, sociologist and organizer

Environmental organizer Rachel Stevens got her start working with college students advocating for clean energy in South Florida, and went on to work with indigenous communities fighting for their land in Peru. Most recently, she worked with the Sierra Club, organizing communities of color threatened by urban oil drilling in Los Angeles. As a part of a movement that has long been helmed by white men, she is pushing to see more Black and Queer organizers in positions of leadership. Source: Nexus Media

"Black folks, low-income folks, and other people of color and indigenous peoples contribute the least to environmental destruction, yet we experience the worst impacts of climate change and pollution."

- Rachel Stevens, Los Angeles-based organizer

Beverly Scott is the vice chair of the National Infrastructure Advisory Council and Jobs to Move America, and the founder of Introducing Youth to American Infrastructure+, which helps women and people of color become infrastructure innovators and entrepreneurs. She's working to make sure public transportation projects serve everyone. Source: Nexus Media

"For 40 years, I have worked in the public transportation sector. And while I respect and enjoy all of the big pieces that move, massive equipment and structures, at the end of the day what I have really been privileged to do is be in the business of community building, which I would not trade for anything."

- Beverly Scott, policy analyst and advocate

Rev. Michael Malcom is a pastor and environmental advocate, serving as director of of South Carolina Interfaith Power and Light and Alabama Interfaith Power and Light, organizations led by faith leaders working to protect creation. Source: Nexus Media

"Environmental justice means loving my neighbor. It means speaking truth to power and standing up for the right to breathe clean air, the right to drink clean water and the right to eat clean food. Environmental Justice means equity for all, most of all, environmental justice means putting justice first."

- Rev. Michael Malcolm, pastor and advocate

Natalie Mebane has tackled environmental issues in the United States and the Caribbean, having family in both. She currently serves as the dirty fuels lobbyist for the Sierra Club, working to stop the spread of fossil fuel infrastructure. Source: Nexus Media

"Know your worth. You will be told almost daily that you are not good enough. Your intelligence, your experience, your insights and knowledge will continuously be questioned. You will make people uncomfortable simply by your presence in their space. Once you decide that this is your life's work, do not stop and do not be discouraged."

- Natalie Mebane, environmental advocate

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Nexus Media is a syndicated newswire covering climate, energy, policy, art and culture. Markeya Thomas, Shravya Jain-Conti, Mina Lee, Celia Gurney, Bartees Cox, Owen Agnew and Jeremy Deaton contributed to this report. Like What You're Seeing? Become a patron for as little as $1 per month. Sign up for our newsletter (for nothing!). Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes or Sticher. Share this story with others. Or just hang out. It's always good to kick it together.

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Twelve Black Climate Activists Changing Our World | Deceleration

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By Nexus Media The politics of climate change are shifting. This year, as the most diverse Congress in history was sworn in, its newest members called for an ambitious plan to overhaul the U.S. economy to draw down carbon pollution while tackling social injustice.

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Almost every household has someone that has died from cancer

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Almost every household has someone that has died from cancer

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From her front porch in Reserve, Louisiana, Mary Hampton looks in every direction and sees ghosts.

To her left is her brother Fred's home. He died from cancer. On the right is another brother's home. His wife, Olga Mae, she died from cancer too. Across the street? A neighbor who died from cancer just a couple of months ago. The list goes on and on.

Hampton is not alone. Many residents in this tight-knit, predominantly black riverside town can rattle off a similarly jarring list of loved ones who have battled or died from cancer.

"Almost every household has somebody that died with cancer or that's battling cancer," Hampton says. "It's the worst thing you'd ever want to see: a loved one, laying in that bed, pining away, dying. Just to sit and look at them, and know you can't do anything about it."

Reserve sits in the heart of an industrial corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. For more than 30 years, it has been known to many of its residents as "Cancer Alley". That designation stems from the toxic pollution that is belched out from chemical plants along the serpentine squiggles of the lower Mississippi River.

For a long time, proof of that morbid title lay mostly in anecdote and suspicion. "We always wondered about the pollution, but we never really knew," says Hampton, who, like many residents in the region, relied on petrochemical plants to make a living for much of her career.

But the town underwent a profound awakening in December 2015, on the back of a government report on toxic air. The findings from America's environment agency, the EPA, not only confirmed the existence of a profoundly higher risk of cancer throughout the region, but it pinpointed Reserve, a working-class town of about 10,000, at the bullseye.

In the tract of land where Mary Hampton lives, the risk of cancer from air toxicity is 50 times the national average. The highest of anywhere in the US. In fact, five census tracts within the St John the Baptist parish, the municipality to which Reserve belongs, are in the top 10 cancer risk zones in America.

And yet, those 2015 revelations were met with next to no action.

"We felt like nobody cared. The attitude was 'it is what it is so you all just live with it,'" says Hampton. "What are we supposed to do, stay here, be sick and die?"

Residents across the parish routinely articulate similar feelings of abandonment; from their elected representatives, from industry, and, frequently, from the national media.

For the next year, the Guardian will be reporting from Reserve and elsewhere in Cancer Alley on the battle the residents are waging for clean air. In a series of reports, films and public meetings we will track the progress of their fight, ask why local politicians are absent, and ask what residents of Reserve have to do to win the right to a clean and safe environment for their children.

We will ask why a poor, predominantly African American town has had to live with a likely carcinogen for 50 years, and give voice to residents' frustration, anger and sadness that their appeal for a healthy environment is falling on deaf ears.

This is the first dispatch in that series.

The toxic chemical plant next door

A few blocks from Mary Hampton's porch sits the primary cause of this extraordinary risk level: the Pontchartrain Works facility, and the chloroprene that belches from its stacks. Although there are more than 50 toxic chemicals that contribute to the risk here, chloroprene, the primary component of the synthetic rubber neoprene, is responsible for the vast majority. It is a product that has for almost a century been used all over the world in the manufacture of tyres, wetsuits, medical equipment and countless other products - and the Louisiana plant is the only place in the US that produces it.

Its primary component, however, is now considered by the EPA as " likely to be carcinogenic to humans ".

Beginning in 1968, the factory, then owned by the chemicals company DuPont, emitted chloroprene into the air in Reserve without much attention. Residents complained about intermittent bursts of chemical odors, and told anecdotes of illnesses and ailment, for the most part without ever making a connection.

But after the EPA's December 2015 air toxicity report, which was based on more stringent estimates for the carcinogenicity of chloroprene, the anecdotes were finally backed by government science. Almost overnight, the plant now owned by the Japanese company Denka, was deemed responsible for the greatest risk of cancer of any manufacturing facility in the US.

Finally, the residents felt vindicated. But angry, too.

"I was angry, I felt hurt, and most of all I felt like, where are we to go?" Hampton says.

Lydia Gerard, who lives a few blocks from Hampton and whose family goes back five generations in Reserve, says: "It just takes the wind out of you, it really does. It makes you want to throw your hands up." Her husband died from cancer in 2018.

"We can't give up, and we won't. We have to continue to let those plants know that we are looking at them. It may not be in my lifetime that anything gets done, but I'm praying that it is."

A few months later, the EPA set up monitoring stations at six locations around the parish to monitor chloroprene emissions. The agency now stated that emissions of the chemical above 0.2 micrograms per cubic metre (ug/m3) in the air were unsafe for humans to breathe over the course of a lifetime. The readings were devastating. Routinely, chloroprene emissions were dozens of times above the EPA's guidance, suggesting residents living close to the plant had been constantly exposed for decades.

In January 2017, Denka signed a voluntary agreement with the state of Louisiana to reduce its pollution. By this point, with the Trump presidency in its infancy, the issue had begun to attract some national exposure. Up until that point coverage had been restricted to local media but the story then appeared in the Intercept, followed by CNN and NPR.

But still, the high readings continued.

On one day in November 2017 at a station at the fifth ward elementary school, which sits on the plant's fenceline, chloroprene was recorded at a staggering 755 times above the EPA's guidance. Nearly 400 young children attend the school, breathing the air each day. It sits about a thousand feet from the plant, closer than Mary Hampton's front porch.

Denka has consistently rejected the EPA's guidance and its findings on cancer risk in ambient air in the parish, suggesting to the Guardian they are not based on "sound science".

"The safety and health of Reserve residents, the surrounding community and Denka Performance Elastomer's [DPE] employees are the company's top priorities," said a spokesman for the company. "DPE operates its facility safely and within all permits written by the Louisiana department of environmental quality in accordance with existing standards designed to protect public health and the environment."

The EPA suggests that chloroprene emissions above 0.2 ug/m3 are unsafe for humans to breathe over a lifespan. Since 2016 the EPA has been monitoring air quality at locations around the plant including a nearby elementary school. They are routinely dozens of times above the 0.2 guidance.

For Mary Hampton, the realities of Cancer Alley turned from a dream to a nightmare. Her father, Joseph James Sr, dreamed, in the midst of Jim Crow segregation, of owning a stretch of land his family could call home for generations.

That was no simple feat. On his modest salary as a sugarcane drier, he had to rely on the compassion of a white seller who allowed him to pay in installments of $20 a week. Back then, banks in the south rarely lent to black people.

James was eager to buy property along the River Road, which for generations was land where black Americans could only have lived as enslaved people on sugar plantations, or after the civil war, as tenant sharecroppers. He built his family home on the front lot, brick by brick. All paid with cash. He hoped that through hard work and thrift, his progeny could cobble together some of the generational wealth that black Americans in the south have been routinely denied.

That was a dream born before 1957 when DuPont bought the old Belle Pointe plantation next door, a plot of land that already carried its own dark secrets, and began constructing the new chemicals plant in an area once worked sun up to sun down by more than 150 enslaved black Americans. For many African Americans in Reserve, including Hampton, who trace their ancestry back to slavery in the area - the reminder of past atrocities is made even starker by knowing what the land has been used for since.

"When you think about it, nothing has ever really changed," she says. "First slavery, then sharecropping, now this. It's just a new way of doing it."

As the EPA's 2015 findings reverberated around the community, they gave rise to a profound realization for Hampton: she had been breathing toxic air for most of her adult life. Horrified, she joined with other residents to found the Concerned Citizens of St John the Baptist group. They have been organizing ever since.

'Maybe they just don't want to know'

Hampton's group meets twice a month at a church in Reserve, but despite the group's growing numbers, they have found little to no support from their elected representatives.

In Louisiana, the petrochemical industry's ties to society run deep. A recent industry study found that the chemical sector generates some $80bn annually and supports two of every seven jobs in the state. In large part that dominance owes to a historically lax regulatory environment and weak union protections.

While the state has the power to enforce stringent regulations on the plant, or even close it down entirely, many residents in Reserve are unsurprised that it has taken a more lenient approach.

The Louisiana secretary of environmental quality, Chuck Carr Brown, a former industry consultant, has worked with Denka to lower chloroprene emissions. Since 2016 the company has spent $30m retrofitting the plant to offset some air pollution. But the secretary has not committed the firm to the safe level guidance from the EPA, a target that, by Denka's own admission, would be impossible for them to make "technologically feasible".

In 2016, Brown accused Hampton's group of "fear-mongering" over the potential harm of the compound. The official declined to be interviewed for this article, but has since apologized for the remarks.

Still, residents around the plant remain furious with the aspersion.

"We have these supposed protectors in government, who are supposed to be watching out for us. But where are they when these people are treating us like guinea pigs, prone to genocide?" says George Handy, a 63-year-old resident who has lived most of his life next door to the plant.

The industry and Brown also regularly cite research from the Louisiana Tumor Registry, which claimed in its most recent report that the term Cancer Alley "has no scientific validity". The registry data, which tracks incidence of cancer out of the state university in Baton Rouge, has found that while some census tracts in the region have much higher incidence rates than the state average, others are much lower - and that none of that data is indicative of a disproportionate geographic risk.

One of the few local political voices to express firm support for the activists is Larry Sorapuru, who sits on the parish's nine-person council. Sorapuru, a former chemical technician who has seen two aunts die from cancer, lives just across the river from the plant in the town of Edgard. During a recent trip to Reserve, driving along the streets of many of some of his poorest constituents, Sorapuru was non-committal over why the issue had failed to garner significant local political attention.

"Probably they [other parish council members] haven't engaged with other environmental groups. Maybe they're not realizing the health hazards involved. Maybe they just don't want to [know]. Perhaps they don't want to come out as being against Denka or DuPont. It's a big company," he says.

The plant has, for generations, been a major jobs and tax source for the parish. According to records from 2017, Denka was St John the Baptist's third largest employer that year. Records from 2012, when DuPont owned the factory entirely , indicate the company was the second highest property tax payer that year.

A review of records by the Guardian also indicates that at least three parish officials have either worked for DuPont themselves or had family members employed by the company.

'It is both racist and classist, but mostly racist'

Robert Taylor's one-storey house sits even closer to the fenceline than Mary Hampton's. When his wife Zenobia was diagnosed with cancer 16 years ago, he decided he had to get her out of Cancer Alley.

"If we were gonna help her spend some quality time with what she's got left, we had to get her out of this," Taylor says. He now spends his days split between tending to his wife in southern California, and back home in Louisiana, where his adult daughter, Raven, is sick from a rare intestinal disease - gastroparesis - that he said doctors have tied to chloroprene.

Like Hampton, the list of Taylor's family members who have died from cancer is arresting. He lists his mother, sister and nephews - who all lived in Reserve - before pausing in a flash of frustration.

"I still can't believe that this one community could be asked to suffer this much, merely for the profit of these foreign corporations. What kind of people are they to knowingly wipe out a whole community of people for profit?"

Taylor has been another of the leaders of the fight for clean air in Reserve since 2015, and he's been more frustrated than ever as of late. Although it was clear from early on that DEQ, the state agency, was not committed to setting tighter enforceable limits, the 78-year-old had at least held out hope for the federal government.

It was the EPA after all that had identified the extent of the problem, set the 0.2 µg/m3 standard, and begun the air monitoring. Surely they would have the teeth to hold Denka accountable for the pollution?

But on a foggy February night this year, during one of the group's regular meetings, Taylor received the most unsettling news he'd encountered through his four years engaged in the fight.

In a startling moment of candor, the EPA regional director, David Gray, announced to Taylor and the other concerned citizens that it was "doubtful" the agency would ever set a legally enforceable standard for the toxin. "The fact of the matter is there is a sole source of chloroprene in the United States and it's here," Gray said, explaining that since rule-making was such a long and strenuous process, the agency would be apt to prioritize compounds that are present in more than one community.

The disorientation among the crowd was palpable, cueing gasps of frustration and disbelief.

Taylor was apoplectic. Visibly shaking, he told the government official: "I wouldn't dare sell my house to a human family. I wouldn't dare bring another human family into this."

Reflecting on that moment a few months later, he recalled: "It caused a complete change in me. It took a few days to gather my wits back."

The announcement was made starker by the fact that historically, it has been the federal government that has stepped in to protect black communities in the south when state and local governments have been unwilling or unable to act.

Taylor doesn't shy away from what he sees as a clear racial component in why his town is left to breathe carcinogens. Like much of Cancer Alley, Reserve is predominantly black and low-income. Black Americans make up 60% of the population in the town, and the per-capita income of $18,763 is about 40% less than the national average.

"The petrochemical industry and human beings cannot live and operate side by side," Taylor says. "So they have decided they're OK with just wiping us out, especially because of the fact that this is a poor black population. We were the lowest-hanging fruit."

Taylor's intuition is that Reserve is being overlooked because of the racial and economic demographics has been demonstrated on a national level, a phenomenon now commonly described as environmental racism. EPA-funded research from 2018 found that non-white Americans and those below poverty level are more likely than others to live near toxic pollution, and that the racial correlation is stronger than the economic one.

"In other words, the siting of polluting industrial facilities is both racist and classist, but mostly racist," says Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

'It's much worse under Trump'

The context to that February evening was apparent to most people in the room: the Trump presidency's assault on the EPA. The administration has already rolled back dozens of environmental protections making the likelihood of more federal intervention in Reserve slim to none.

A Louisiana environmental scientist, Wilma Subra, has been providing technical assistance to communities dealing with environmental health issues for nearly 40 years, and she says the administration's rollback of regulation has been unprecedented.

Enforcement typically waxes under Democratic administrations and wanes under Republican ones. "[But] it's much worse under Trump than it was under any previous Republican administration," Subra says.

Earlier this year the administration proposed a 31% budget cut to the EPA, which could spell yet further disaster for the residents of St John the Baptist parish.

Subra visits Reserve every other week to brief residents on the EPA's latest air quality readings, which she describes as an "extreme risk to their health".

"The community in St John are forced to inhale toxic air emissions where they live, work and worship," she says.

It is against this backdrop that Denka has pushed the Trump administration to withdraw the assessment of chloroprene as likely to be carcinogenic. Between 2017 and 18 the Japanese company spent $350,000 to hire lobbyists in Washington, records show. Calendars reveal Denka met EPA officials on three occasions during this time. A letter from the company's chief executive, Koki Tabuchi, to the former EPA chief Scott Pruitt, written on June 26 2017 and later released under the Freedom of Information Act, reveals the company's aggressive campaign.

Tabuchi argued Denka had "suffered extraordinary hardship" because of what it defined as "flawed" science, which had "created unnecessary public alarm". He was due to meet with Pruitt two days later.

Despite the campaign, however, the EPA ruled against Denka and upheld its assessment. A company spokesman confirmed that Denka is appealing against the decision, which is currently under consideration by the EPA. The company plans to submit more documentation to the EPA by June this year.

In a statement to the Guardian, the EPA declined to comment on meetings with Denka because of "confidential settlement discussions". But in a significant acknowledgment, the department stated it was working alongside the Department of Justice on a court-enforced agreement or "consent decree" with Denka. The EPA did not elaborate on the nature of this consent decree, which will be made public once finalized.

But a source familiar with the investigation said the settlement, while significant, relates to dozens of regulatory violations discovered at the plant and is not expected to address future emissions.

Denka is not the first to argue that the risks of chloroprene are overstated. DuPont, the compound's creator, has also argued against government reclassification. But, quietly, the company has long been aware of the chemical's risk. From the mid-1940s, DuPont scientists studied the effects of chloroprene on human health.

In a 1956 technical manual on neoprene, marked as confidential and numbering hundreds of pages, the warning is short but stark.

The document was unearthed by the Guardian amid thousands of records at DuPont's archives in Wilmington, Delaware. It comes from DuPont's first neoprene facility built in Kentucky in 1941 and closed in 2008 amid community outrage over the site's emissions. The manual states that chloroprene "may enter the body either by inhalation or by absorption through the skin". It warns that if consumed at high concentrations chloroprene "causes depression of the central nervous system and damage to vital organs".

DuPont did not respond to detailed questions about its five-decades-long neoprene operations in Reserve. A spokesman pointed out the company no longer produces the product at all and reminded the Guardian it sold production to Denka in 2015.

"Prior to the sale, DuPont met the chloroprene limits in our DEQ air permit. We also met the Louisiana toxic air pollutant ambient air standard for chloroprene," the spokesman said.

Despite the company's attempts to shirk engagement, it has not escaped potential legal ramifications. Last year DuPont, Denka and DEQ were sued by a group of residents. Robert Taylor is the lead plaintiff.

"DuPont was there for 47 years unchecked," says John Cummings, a veteran Louisiana trial lawyer leading the legal action. "These people were dying of cancer, children were going to schools and had to breathe this chloroprene gas daily. Nobody cared. And that's why we're taking action."

A David-and-Goliath battle

Even those with no connection to the battle in Reserve have watched on in horror. Dr Ron Melnick, a former government scientist who was one of the first researchers to find chloroprene's links to cancer, was dismayed to hear about the rates of exposure to the chemical in St John the Baptist.

"It's shameful," he says. "I wouldn't even live in an area that the EPA says emissions are acceptable. For sure, I wouldn't live or have my children in a place which exceeds the EPA limits."

Robert Taylor, Mary Hampton and the thousands of others living close to the plant do not have the luxury of choice. They believe their David-and-Goliath battle against Denka, DuPont, the state and federal government is now their only recourse to breathe clean air again.

Taylor, who spent his life as a touring musician and working in construction, now accepts he has been thrust into a role that could define the rest of his life.

"If standing up for what is right, looking our enemy in the eyes and saying, 'We're aware of you and we need you to stop and we're going to do everything we can to protect our community, our people, our children' ... if that would make me a radical, then I guess I'll have to accept that title."

Design Sam Morris and Juweek Adolphe

Video Tom Silverstone and Daniel Hollis

Picture editor Jehan Jillani

Photography Julie Dermansky

Additional research Emily Holden

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'Almost every household has someone that has died from cancer'

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A small town, a chemical plant and the residents' desperate fight for clean air

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Women's Environment and Development Organization

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Climate and Environmental Justice (ENGLISH)

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Rachel Ramirez | 2020 | Grist

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Four years ago, Sharon Lavigne was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis. Blood tests revealed that she had aluminum inside her body. Lavigne has lived all her life in St. James Parish, which sits on an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that connects New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Since the 1980s, it's been known as "cancer alley."

According to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data, seven out of 10 U.S. census tracts with the nation's highest cancer risks are located in this corridor, which is already home to more than 150 chemical plants and refineries. When she got her diagnosis, Lavigne didn't think any of this might be related to her failing health, or that of so many of her friends and neighbors.

"That should've been my wake-up call," Lavigne, 67, told Grist. "But I was teaching in school, uninterested with what's going on. I was only interested in my job, going home, resting, and taking care of my children and grandchildren. That all changed when I found out that a new plant was coming."

When she heard that another petrochemical company was planning to set up shop nearby, Lavigne left her job as a special education teacher in 2018 and founded RISE St. James, a grassroots environmental justice group, to try to stop any new development that could further endanger the health of her community. Though the novel coronavirus has hit her parish especially hard - its COVID-19 death rate is the fourth highest in Louisiana and five times higher than the overall U.S. death rate - Lavigne and her allies have not given up the fight.

But the company has a head start. In 2014, the St. James Parish Council had quietly changed the land use plan for Lavigne's district from "residential" to "residential/future industrial," welcoming new industry with little public input. Then, this January, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) approved permits for the Taiwanese plastics manufacturer Formosa to build a $9.4 billion petrochemical complex in St. James Parish, despite data showing that it could more than double the amount of toxic pollutants in the area. Formosa's own models show that it could emit more of the carcinogenic compound ethylene oxide than just about any other facility in the country. These levels would exceed the benchmark that the EPA uses to determine if exposure poses cancer risks. (That benchmark is not legally binding, and a Formosa spokesperson wrote in a statement to Grist that the company does not expect its emissions to reach the level specified on its permit applications.) The gargantuan facility will consist of 14 separate plastics plants, two of which are ethylene glycol plants.

On March 31, the EPA's Office of Inspector General, an independent agency watchdog, put out a report stating that the EPA and LDEQ failed to provide critical information to nearby residents about ethylene oxide emissions and the elevated cancer risks associated with the toxic chemical. In response, however, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler demanded that the OIG withdraw the report.

Adding insult to injury for the predominantly black residents who live near the proposed facility in Lavigne's district, Formosa's chosen location sits on two former 19th century sugarcane plantations and a slave burial ground. Although Formosa did not initially disclose this information, a public records request by RISE showed that the company knew that formerly enslaved people were buried beneath the land during its obligatory land survey in 2018. Legal complaints filed against the proposed development cite not only the environmental impacts of building the facility but also the historic and cultural harm of erasing this history.

Formosa has publicly maintained that it followed thorough and conscientious procedures to identify and mitigate both the environmental and cultural impacts of its proposed development. The spokesperson wrote to Grist that Formosa "has met with hundreds of people in the parish" and regularly updates community leaders and stakeholders. The company has also paused construction during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing "an abundance of caution" and concern for its workers.

"Emission modeling was conducted and demonstrated that [Formosa's] emissions will have predicted ambient concentrations that will be below the state and federal standards established to protect human health and the environment with an added margin of safety," Janile Parks, the Formosa facility's director of community and government relations, wrote in an email to Grist. "To address community concerns and as part of [Formosa's] land use ordinance with St. James Parish, [Formosa] will voluntarily place air quality monitoring along its eastern property boundary to provide data on air emissions."

A deadly combination

African Americans in "cancer alley" are facing not only the country's most severe health outcomes in terms of pollution-linked cancer, but also some of its most severe COVID-19 outcomes. As of late April, about 56 percent of those dying from the novel coronavirus in Louisiana were African American, though they comprise only 33 percent of the state's population. And as of April 26, eight out of the 10 parishes in Louisiana with the highest COVID-19 death rates are in the southeast industrial corridor that includes "cancer alley."

The Formosa spokesperson wrote to Grist that "officials have not suggested there to be any link between industrial emissions and COVID-19." The company instead pointed to Louisiana's elevated rates of diabetes, obesity, and hypertension, which "are especially high among minority communities."

But research has suggested a link between air pollution and COVID-19 outcomes, independent of other factors. When researchers at Harvard's school of public health released a study last month showing a relationship between particulate matter (PM 2.5) pollution levels and increased death rates from COVID-19, experts and advocates in Louisiana began to think about what the study means for their state. Kimberly Terrell, director of community outreach at the Tulane University Environmental Law Clinic, identified Louisiana's PM 2.5 hotspots and looked at the COVID-19 outbreaks in those locations.

"There's a cluster of COVID-19 deaths along the industrial corridor," Terrell said at an online press briefing. "The strength of that Harvard study is that it looked at the entire nation, and it looked at a really huge population of people and found this relationship between pollution and death rate - and that relationship can be hard to see, because it's often obscured by other things like access to healthcare, poverty, unemployment, risk of getting the virus."

So Terrell set out to look more closely at that relationship. She scraped the raw data from the Harvard study and performed her own analysis. The majority of PM 2.5 hotspots are concentrated along "cancer alley" - and so are the highest death rates from COVID-19. Terrell also measured other COVID-19 risk factors and preexisting health conditions by plotting out the geographic distribution of diabetes and obesity across the state. She found that "cancer alley" residents do not suffer from conditions like diabetes or obesity at higher rates than folks in other parts of the state. This suggests that high levels of PM 2.5 concentrated in Louisiana's southeast industrial corridor could have had a decisive effect on the severity of its COVID-19 outcomes.

And based on recent trends, the pollution behind all this is set to continue or even worsen. In Louisiana, air quality measurably improved from 2000 to 2015. However, since 2016 the state has reversed that trend. PM 2.5 pollution is increasing again, specifically in the southeast part of the state.

A red light

Myrtle Felton, a member of RISE St. James, has seen her loved ones pass away one by one from cancer and other respiratory illnesses. Back when no industrial facilities loomed over her backyard, she used to enjoy tending to her garden for most of the day. But in the 45 years that Felton has lived in St. James Parish, petrochemical plants have been appearing left and right. Since then, Felton said that she doesn't like to be outside anymore because of the dirty air.

"So many people here have died of cancer. 2014 was a real awakening for me, because I lost five people that were very close to me," Felton told Grist. "My sister-in-law died first of cancer in February, then my brother-in-law the next month, then my husband, he died of respiratory problems. If that's not a red light going on telling me something is wrong, then what is?"

Outside her window, she can already see two chemical facilities on the horizon, and if it wasn't for the pandemic, she said dark smog would usually obscure her view of the facilities. She worries about what will happen when Formosa's operations begin.

"Somebody needs to come in and do something," Felton told Grist as she broke into tears. "Don't just listen to what I'm saying, feel my heart."

For now, Formosa is weathering the coronavirus outbreak, but with their permits approved by the state, the next step is to gear up for construction. Residents of St. James Parish vow to continue their fight by telling their stories.

"Feel my pain," Felton said. "I'm tired. We're tired."

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As coronavirus ravages Louisiana, 'cancer alley' residents haven't given up the fight against polluters

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Four years ago, Sharon Lavigne was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis. Blood tests revealed that she had aluminum inside her body. Lavigne has lived all her life in St. James Parish, which sits on an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River that connects New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

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ProPublica | 2017

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A Brief History of Environmental Justice

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Young Voices for the Planet

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Young Voices for the Planet is proud to show the story of Jaysa, a 13-year old girl from Bridgeport, Connecticut who speaks out at public hearings and helps catalyze the opposition to the coal-fired power plant that is causing her asthma. She addresses environmental racism in her community and reflects on the power a single voice can have on creating positive change. Watch and see what happens!

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Angelou Ezeilo | Nick Chiles | 2019

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Engage, Connect, Protect

Empowering Diverse Youth as Environmental Leaders

While concern about the state of our land, air, and water continues to grow, there is widespread belief that environmental issues are primarily of interest to wealthy white communities. Engage, Connect, Protect explodes this myth, revealing the deep and abiding interest that African American, Latino, and Native American communities - many of whom live in degraded and polluted parts of the country - have in our collective environment.

Part eye-opening critique of the cultural divide in environmentalism, part biography of a leading social entrepreneur, and part practical toolkit for engaging diverse youth, Engage, Connect, Protect covers:

Why communities of color are largely unrecognized in the environmental movement

Bridging the cultural divide and activating a new generation of environmental stewards

A curriculum for engaging diverse youth and young adults through culturally appropriate methods and activities

A resource guide for connecting mainstream America to organizations working with diverse youth within environmental projects, training, and employment.

Engage, Connect, Protect is a wake-up call for businesses, activists, educators, and policymakers to recognize the work of grassroots activists in diverse communities and create opportunities for engaging with diverse youth as the next generation of environmental stewards.

Angelou Ezeilo is founder and CEO of the Greening Youth Foundation. A 2016 Ashoka Fellow. she is a member of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights' Women in Solidarity Society. She lives in Atlanta, GA and Victoria Island, Nigeria.

Nick Chiles is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author. He lives in Atlanta, GA.

Click here to search for books for this author.

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Empowering Diverse Youth as Environmental Leaders by Angelou Ezeilo and Nick Chiles While concern about the state of our land, air, and water continues to grow, there is widespread belief that environmental issues are primarily of interest to wealthy white communities. Engage, Connect, Protect explodes this myth, revea

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The story of Native peoples' resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community's rich history of activism

Through the unique lens of "Indigenized environmental justice," Indigenous researcher and activist Dina Gilio-Whitaker explores the fraught history of treaty violations, struggles for food and water security, and protection of sacred sites, while highlighting the important leadership of Indigenous women in this centuries-long struggle. As Long As Grass Grows gives readers an accessible history of Indigenous resistance to government and corporate incursions on their lands and offers new approaches to environmental justice activism and policy.

Throughout 2016, the Standing Rock protest put a national spotlight on Indigenous activists, but it also underscored how little Americans know about the longtime historical tensions between Native peoples and the mainstream environmental movement. Ultimately, she argues, modern environmentalists must look to the history of Indigenous resistance for wisdom and inspiration in our common fight for a just and sustainable future.

"Highly recommended for American Indian studies and environmental justice students and scholars."
- Library Journal

"Gilio-Whitaker takes the reader on a historical journey that, had it been penned about the Jewish Holocaust or the 'ethnic cleansing' conducted at the behest of any number of twentieth-century despots, would be well known. Yet when it comes to the United States's continuing campaign to wipe tribal communities from the map, most Americans are in a state of denial that such a thing could happen."
- Los Angeles Review of Books

"An important and accessible work recommended for students and scholars of political ecology from the undergraduate level up. Gilio-Whitaker's far-reaching work creates a compelling foundation upon which to add specific examples of the ongoing struggle for environmental justice and Indigenous rights during times of anthropogenic climate change. By connecting Native American history with the environmental justice movement in a clear and comprehensive manner, Gilio-Whitaker clarifies the depth of the wrong-doings of the past, while also opening the door to a wide range of opportunities for positive change in the future."
- Journal of Political Ecology

"A masterpiece and a vital road map for the ongoing fight for Indigenous sovereignty. With every heartbreaking example of sacred sites decimated and traditional knowledge suppressed, the power and resilience of Indigenous people, preserving not only their culture but their very lives, shines through. Powerful, urgent, and necessary reading."
-Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

"The process of genocide, which began five centuries ago with the colonization of the Americas and the extermination of indigenous people, has now spread to the planetary level, pushing two hundred species per day to extinction and threatening the entire human species. Dina Gilio-Whitaker's As Long as Grass Grows makes these connections, holding the seeds of resistance, the seeds of freedom, and the promise of a future."
-Vandana Shiva, author of Earth Democracy

"Dina Gilio-Whitaker writes in succinct, powerful, and deeply historical ways about Natives and environmental justice or-almost always-lack thereof."
-Andrés Reséndez, author of The Other Slavery

" As Long as Grass Grows honors Indigenous voices powerfully and centers Indigenous histories, values, and experiences. It tells crucial stories, both inspiring and heartrending, that will transform how readers understand environmental justice. I know many readers will come away with new ideas and actions for how they can protect our planet from forces that seek to destroy some of our most sacred relationships connecting human and nonhuman worlds-relationships that offer some of the greatest possibilities for achieving sustainability."
-Kyle Powys White, associate professor, Michigan State University

"From Standing Rock's stand against a damaging pipeline to antinuclear and climate change activism, Indigenous peoples have always been and remain in the vanguard of the struggle for environmental justice. As Long as Grass Grows could not be of more relevance in the twenty-first century. Gilio-Whitaker has produced a sweeping history of these peoples' fight for our fragile planet, from colonization to the present moment. There is nothing else like it. Read and heed this book."
-Jace Weaver, author of Defending Mother Earth

"In As Long as Grass Grows, Gilio-Whitaker skillfully delineates the stakes-and the distinctive character-of environmental justice for Indigenous communities. Bold, extensive, accessible, and inspiring, this book is for anyone interested in Indigenous environmental politics and the unique forms of environmentalism that arise from Native communities. Indeed, as Gilio-Whitaker shows, these topics are intertwined with a pressing issue that concerns all people: justice for the very lands we collectively inhabit."
-Clint Carroll, author of Roots of Our Renewal

" As Long as Grass Grows is a hallmark book of our time. By confronting climate change from an Indigenous perspective, not only does Gilio-Whitaker look at the history of Indigenous resistance to environmental colonization, but she points to a way forward beyond Western conceptions of environmental justice-toward decolonization as the only viable solution."
-Nick Estes, assistant professor, University of New Mexico, and author of Our History Is the Future

" As Long as Grass Grows, in the way no other study has done, brilliantly connects historic and ongoing Native American resistance to US colonialism with the movement for environmental justice. This book helps teach us the central importance of Native theory and practice to transforming the radically imbalanced world that corporate capitalism has made into a world of balance through extended kinship with the social and natural environments on which human beings are dependent for life."
-Eric Cheyfitz, professor, Cornell University, and author of The Disinformation Age: The Collapse of Liberal Democracy in the United States

"This groundbreaking new book will ignite conversations about environmentalism and environmental justice. Dina Gilio-Whitaker's beautifully written account of environmental politics compels readers to understand how Indigenous people and the nonhuman world are caught in the gears of settler colonialism-and how an indigenized environmental justice framework can powerfully reframe our debate and our relations to one another and to the natural world around us. As Long as Grass Grows is perfectly timed to offer a fresh and captivating take on some of our most urgent issues of environmental and social justice."
-Traci Voyles, author of Wastelanding: Legacies of Uranium Mining in Navajo Country

Author's Note

INTRODUCTION
The Standing Rock Saga

CHAPTER ONE
Environmental Justice Theory and Its Limitations for Indigenous Peoples

CHAPTER TWO
Genocide by Any Other Name
A History of Indigenous Environmental Injustice

CHAPTER THREE
The Complicated Legacy of Western Expansion and the Industrial Revolution

CHAPTER FOUR
Food Is Medicine, Water Is Life
American Indian Health and the Environment

CHAPTER FIVE
(Not So) Strange Bedfellows
Indian Country's Ambivalent Relationship with the Environmental Movement

CHAPTER SIX
Hearts Not on the Ground
Indigenous Women's Leadership and More Cultural Clashes

CHAPTER SEVEN
Sacred Sites and Environmental Justice

CHAPTER EIGHT
Ways Forward for Environmental Justice in Indian Country

Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

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"Honoring Indigenous Peoples: 20 Recommended Reads," New York Public Library, book included in roundup

"10 Books Climate Activists Are Reading Now," YES! Magazine, included in "10 Books Climate Activists Are Reading Now" reading roundup

"The 10 Best Books On Climate Change, According to Climate Activists," Teen Vogue, listed in 10 Best Books on Climate Change roundup

"Coronavirus shows we must change how we live or face self-destruction," High Country News, op-ed

"The problem with wilderness," UU World, excerpt

"The Centuries-Long History of Extractive Greed," Common Dreams, book and author quoted in article

"As Long As Grass Grows: Dina Gilio-Whitaker," Real Food Media, podcast interview

"Books to give activists as they prepare for the upcoming election," Mashable, included in gift guide roundup

"Native Authors of California: A Shortlist," California Humanities, included in reading rounding featuring Native authors from CA

"12 Books by Indigenous Writers to Read this Indigenous Peoples Day," Literary Hub, listed in Indigenous Peoples' Day reading roundup

"Indigenous Peoples' Day, Scientific Knowledge, & the Teachings of Plants," Pluralism, Pragmatism, and Progressivism (a Patheos blog), quoted and mentioned in piece

"Environmentalism and Native People," KPFA/Against the Grain, interview

"How to Indigenize the Green New Deal and Environmental Justice," High Country News, op-ed

"The Contemporary Adventure Canon," Outside, write-up in reading roundup

"As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice," Bioneers, excerpt

"For Further Reading: New Native Histories of North America," Beyond the Spectacle (University of Kent blog), included in reading roundup

"When Grass Stops Growing," The Progressive, interview

"Decolonizing Surfer: Dina Gilio-Whitaker," OC Weekly, interview

"Book talk to focus on environmental conflicts in Native American history," Daily Bruin (UCLA Newspaper), write-up about UCLA author event

"We've spent 100 years growing a tinderbox across the West. Now it's wildfire season," Grist, book cited as source in video segment about Native American prescribed fires

"#ColorlinesReads: Get Some Perspective With These 5 Books," Colorlines, included in reading roundup

"CSUSM professor probes environmental impacts on Native Americans in new book," The Coast News Group, write-up

"What would an indigenized environmental justice movement look like?" KALW/Your Call, interview

"Dina Gilio-Whitaker," Cultures of Energy, podcast interview

"Steelworkers Strike Deal With Harley, Tracing Environmental Injustice Against Native People," WPR/The Morning Show, live interview

"Mainstream Settler Society Needs a Land- and Place-Based Ethic," Powell's blog, essay

"8 Must-Reads by Women Who Take on White Supremacy and Patriarchal Power," YES! Magazine, featured in reading roundup

"The Story We've Been Told About America's National Parks Is Incomplete," TIME.com, excerpt

"David Treuer on uncovering the untold Native American histories of 'Heartbeat of Wounded Knee,'" Los Angeles Times, Q&A with David Truer

"17 books every activist should read in 2019," Mashable, included in reading roundup

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the story of native peoples’ resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions

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and a call for environmentalists to learn from the indigenous community’s rich history of activism

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The story of Native peoples' resistance to environmental injustice and land incursions, and a call for environmentalists to learn from the Indigenous community's rich history of activism Through the unique lens of "Indigenized environmental justice," Indigenous researcher and activist Dina Gilio-Whitaker explores the fraught history of treaty violations, struggles for food and water security, and protection of sacred sites, while highlighting the important leadership of Indigenous women in this centuries-long struggle.

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One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet

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One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet

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Anuradha Rao | 2020

Amazon

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Jewell Parker Rhodes | 2012
Amazon

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Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation

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Poisoned Water: How the Citizens of Flint, Michigan, Fought for Their Lives and Warned the Nation

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Candy J Cooper | 2020
Amazon

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'Climate Change Is Racial Injustice': Students Speak Their Truth In Winning Podcast

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'Climate Change Is Racial Injustice': Students Speak Their Truth In Winning Podcast

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Sequoia Carrillo + Elissa Nadworny | NPR | 2020

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The club was supposed to meet once a week. But for many of the members of Men in Color, Wednesday afternoons turned into Monday afternoons and Thursdays too.

"After school, we were always in Mr. C's room," says Jaheim Birch-Gentles, a recent graduate of the High School for Innovation in Advertising and Media in the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn. He's referring to one of the club's advisors, Mischaël Cetoute. The club served as a safe space for students to talk through issues and ideas.

Those afternoon meetings gave rise to the Flossy Podcast, where the students tackle big social issues mixed in with their lived experiences.

Their episode about climate change and environmental racism is one of this year's grand-prize winners in the NPR Student Podcast Challenge. It was created by Jaheim and fellow club members Joshua Bovell, Brianna Johnson, Jamar Thompson, Kamari Murdock, Isaiah Dupuy, with theme music produced by club member Ieszan McKinney.

The episode begins with the idea that, "climate change Is racial injustice," and focuses on the idea that pollution and the environment impact communities differently - even within Brooklyn.

"For people growing up in Canarsie, we don't really realize we're living in these areas," says Joshua Bovell in the podcast. "But then you go somewhere else, like Mill Basin, and you're like, 'Why is this so different than where I live?' "

They visited a Climate Change March in Manhattan, where they saw mostly white people demonstrating. And in their podcast they wonder, aloud, Why?

They discuss the obvious barriers: Time. Location. Education. And then they bring in their own experiences, with climate events they've experienced, such as hurricanes, and the fact that their school sits near a landfill.

Environmental racism, explains Birch-Gentles in an interview, is "something that we can actually see and taste." He points to the situation with the school's drinking fountains: "People would drink from the water fountain and afterward they really wouldn't feel good," he says. It turns out, the school had lead in its pipes. Lead is actually a common problem in schools, especially in Brooklyn's aging buildings, where about 80 percent of public schools had a faucet or fixture leaching lead, according to a 2017 report.

The students cited in their reporting research that shows climate change, including rising temperatures in cities and poor air quality, disproportionately affects non-white neighborhoods. Black communities face dangerously high levels of pollution and are more likely to live near landfills and industrial plants that pollute water and air and erode quality of life, according to a 2018 report from the Environmental Protection Agency.

For co-host Jamar Thompson, the topic is not only urgent and relevant, it's also related to what's happening now with protests and Black Lives Matter. "Racism is like a tree," he says, "and police brutality and environmental racism are just a couple of branches off that giant tree."

Young people's voices often get left out of these conversations, says Thompson, and adults need to do a lot more listening.

"They feel as though, because we are young, we don't know what we're talking about when we speak about certain things. And I feel like that isn't true," he adds. " I don't speak about things I don't know about."

When he does know something, Thompson says, or when he sees something that isn't right, he speaks up about it. That's his message for young people especially now.

The Flossy Podcast wouldn't have been possible if the club hadn't decided to build a recording studio at the school, with help from several adults. It took about two years, a big grant, and lots of hard work.

When the students pitched the idea, "I was like, 'OK, let's make that happen,' " recalls Cetoute, a restorative justice coordinator from the Center for Court Innovation who helped oversee the club. "I promise you that it was the most frustrating process in the world. But when they finally get that support, they win something. And that completely changes, for the rest of their life I think, how much they will believe in the power of their voice."

Being OK with the way they sounded was a journey, says Birch-Gentles. "When I heard how everybody else hears me, it was completely different from what I hear."

But with each episode, he says, his confidence grew. "It forced me to get comfortable because this is how I sound and it's not changing."

He ended up writing his college essay about the experience.

When he first started podcasting, "I just viewed myself as a kid from the neighborhood of Canarsie, and I'm speaking about what I've seen and my experiences."

Birch-Gentles didn't think of himself as an activist then, and even now, he resists the term.

Jamar Thompson agrees. He sees himself in much simpler terms: "I'm a person who spoke his truth and I spoke about what I felt. That's kind of more of what I am."

Truth tellers. Sharing their experiences and their opinions and inspiring other young people to do the same.

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'Climate Change Is Racial Injustice': Students Speak Their Truth In Winning Podcast

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The club was supposed to meet once a week. But for many of the members of Men in Color, Wednesday afternoons turned into Monday afternoons and Thursdays too. "After school, we were always in Mr. C's room," says Jaheim Birch-Gentles, a recent graduate of the High School for Innovation in Advertising and Media in the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn.

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Canarsie Studios

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Climate Change & Environmental Racism by Canarsie Studios

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This Is Why Climate Change Is an Existential Threat to Black People

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This Is Why Climate Change Is an Existential Threat to Black People

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The Root | 2019

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This Is Why Climate Change Is an Existential Threat to Black People

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Climate Justice and Air Pollution in Illinois | Youth & Climate

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Climate Justice and Air Pollution in Illinois | Youth & Climate

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Alliance for Climate Education | 2018 |

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Climate Justice and Air Pollution in Illinois | Youth & Climate

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Why Climate Change is Anti-Justice | Hot Mess 🌎

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One reason why coronavirus hits Black people the hardest

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One reason why coronavirus hits Black people the hardest

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Vox | 2020

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One reason why coronavirus hits Black people the hardest

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Environmental racism and the struggle for climate justice

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Environmental racism and the struggle for climate justice

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Skip to main content

Climate change threatens all people, creatures, places, and systems on the planet, but not all impacts are distributed equally. Climate justice considers that climate change has unequal social, economic, health, and other effects on underprivileged populations. As well, in the U.S., the coronavirus' uneven impact on Black and Hispanic Americans and the recent reckoning with racial justice issues expose how the climate crisis disproportionately impacts these U.S. populations. Christina Kwauk, a fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings, interviews two people to unpack the issues on climate justice in the U.S. and around the world. Justin Worland is a D.C.-based correspondent for Time magazine covering issues on energy and the environment. Marinel Ubaldo is a climate activist from the Philippines and a founder of Youth Leaders for Environmental Action Federation. She also organized the Philippines' first youth climate strike in 2019.
Related: Why the Larger Climate Movement Is Finally Embracing the Fight Against Environmental Racism Education's role in building back better for the planet
Subscribe to Brookings podcasts here or on iTunes, send feedback email to BCP@Brookings.edu, and follow us and tweet us at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

The Brookings Cafeteria is part of the Brookings Podcast Network.

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Christina Kwauk, Marinel Ubaldo, and Justin Worland

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Environmental racism and the struggle for climate justice

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Skip to main content Climate change threatens all people, creatures, places, and systems on the planet, but not all impacts are distributed equally. Climate justice considers that climate change has unequal social, economic, health, and other effects on underprivileged populations.

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Making The Climate Movement Anti-Racist w/ Dr. Robert Bullard

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Making The Climate Movement Anti-Racist w/ Dr. Robert Bullard

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Sociologist and Environmental Justice Activist Dr. Robert Bullard came of age during the Civil Rights Movement. Back then, the conversation around how racism and environmentalism intersected hadn't gained much traction.

But Dr. Bullard began to make those connections through his research. He began to notice in cities across the country - from his hometown of Houston to Alabama to Louisiana - the ways in which black neighborhoods were made to bear the brunt of industrial pollution.

Dr. Bullard has dedicated his career to fighting environmental racism, and he believes that fight may have reached a turning point.

We spoke to him about why the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have taken place over the past few weeks feel unique - even from other racial justice milestones he's witnessed.

And he gives us his take on what a President Biden could do to turn hopeful words into concrete action.

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Making The Climate Movement Anti-Racist w/ Dr. Robert Bullard - Climate 2020 Podcast

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Dr. Bullard has dedicated his career to fighting environmental racism, and he believes that fight may have reached a turning point. We spoke to him about why the recent Black Lives Matter demonstrations feel unique - even from other racial justice milestones he's witnessed. And he gives us his t

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The Inseparable Link Between Climate Change And Racial Justice

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The Inseparable Link Between Climate Change And Racial Justice

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NPR

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subscribe to Short Wave podcast

subscribe to Short Wave podcast

Marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson wrote a Washington Post op-ed about the ways the fight around climate change and racial justice go hand in hand. Host Maddie Sofia talks with her about that and how Ayana says the fight against climate change could be stronger if people of color weren't being constantly exhausted by racism.
Read Ayana's op-ed here:
Follow Maddie (@maddie_sofia) and Ayana (@ayanaeliza) on Twitter. Email the show at shortwave@npr.org.
This episode was produced by Brit Hanson, fact-checked by Rebecca Ramirez and edited by Viet Le.

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The Inseparable Link Between Climate Change And Racial Justice : Short Wave

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Marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson wrote a Washington Post op-ed about the ways the fight around climate change and racial justice go hand in hand. Host Maddie Sofia talks with her about that and how Ayana says the fight against climate change could be stronger if people of color weren't being constantly exhausted by racism.

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Anti-Racism as a Climate Change Organization

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Anti-Racism as a Climate Change Organization

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350.org: A global campaign to confront the climate crisis

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We are standing up to the fossil fuel industry to stop all new coal, oil and gas projects and build clean energy future for all.

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A global push for racial justice in the climate movement

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For years, mainstream environmental movements around the globe have excluded people of color, who are disproportionately impacted by climate change. Today's global Black Lives Matter protests have amplified calls for institutions of all kinds - including environmental groups - to challenge and dismantle chronic systemic racism.

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"I need you to understand that our racial inequality crisis is intertwined with our climate crisis."

-Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

The work of 1% for the Planet doesn't start and end with planting more trees, cleaning our oceans, protecting wildlife, curbing carbon emissions or banning plastic straws.

The climate crisis is much more complex and intertwined with many injustices and social inequities. From food insecurity and hazardous pollution to crippling natural disasters, the negative impacts of the environmental crisis affect people of color at much higher rates than other communities.

At 1% for the Planet, we state our purpose plainly: We exist to ensure that our planet and future generations thrive. However, achieving this goal requires a multi-faceted approach that addresses both environmental and social justice.

We've outlined a list of nonprofit organizations that work at the pivotal intersection of race and the environment. These organizations work on a range of issues from food insecurity and urban agriculture, to representation in the outdoors and leadership in climate advocacy.

We're amplify the voices and grassroots organizations addressing injustices. While the list of supported nonprofits in our network continues to grow, we encourage you to committed to using our platform to refer any organization that works on social and environmental justice to join our network.

Nonprofits fighting for social & environmental justice

We recognize that we cannot solve the climate crisis without recognizing the disproportionate impact of environmental issues. Justice does not work unless it works for everyone. The nonprofit organizations outlined below work at a pivotal intersection: social and environmental justice.

National, Oakland, CA

Outdoor Afro celebrates and inspires Black connections and leadership in nature. With 80 outdoor leaders in 30 states, the nonprofit is changing the face of conservation while connecting thousands of people with the outdoors each year. Last year, Outdoor Afro brought together the first ever all Black expedition team to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Regional, Minnesota, USA

MN350 brings Minnesotans together to unite against pollution and build a better future for generations to come. Sam Grant, the Executive Director of MN350, was among one of the first climate activists to call for the prosecution of the police offices implicated in the murder of George Floyd. The organization also provided food and first-aid care to Black Lives Matter protestors.

Local, Portland, OR

OPAL stands for "Organizing People, Activating Leaders," and this is exactly what the nonprofit is doing. Founded in 2006 by and for people of color and low income, OPAL is a grassroots-driven hub fighting for Environmental Justice for all. OPAL builds power for environmental justice and civil rights by creating meaningful opportunities for their members to be directly involved in the decisions impacting their communities.

National, Bay Area, CA

WeGotNext uses storytelling to inspire individuals and remove barriers from outdoor spaces to empower environmental advocates. The nonprofit passes the mic to historically underrepresented communities in outdoor and environmental spaces to share their stories of activism and outdoor adventure. These stories help others see themselves in nature and inspire more advocacy, activism, and adventure.

Regional, California, USA

Communities for a Better Environment is fighting to achieve environmental health and justice by building grassroots power in and with communities of color and working-class communities. CBE provides residents in highly polluted areas in California with organizing skills, leadership training, and a foundation in activism and advocacy.

Local, San Francisco, CA

Urban Sprouts is building healthy and thriving neighborhoods through community and garden-based education in San Francisco. The nonprofit is using food and food gardens to connect communities to nature in urban settings. Food gardens are used to provide school programming, nutritional education, job readiness programs, and more. The mission brings food and food- based education to 2,000 people per year.

Local, Harlem, NY

Located in the heart of Harlem, Harlem Grown is inspiring youth to lead healthy lives by providing mentorship, education, and hands-on experiences in urban farming. Harlem Grown operates with the goal of increasing access to and knowledge of healthy food for Harlem residents, all while providing engaging and educational garden-based development programs to Harlem youth.

Local, Los Angeles, CA

Ron Finley, "the Gangsta Gardner", grew up in South Central Los Angeles, where fresh food was hard to find. In 2010, he decided to address the problem by planting food along L.A. parkways. The city pushed back, but Ron pushed harder for his community to have the right to fresh food. Today, through the Ron Finley Project empowers others to not just plant fresh food for their communities, but to enjoy it, and make food and nutrition a community backbone.

National, Washington D.C, USA

LCVEF plays a major role in the environmental movement's effort to make progress in the climate fight, as well as fighting for land and water rights. The nonprofit strives to put environmental issues at the forefront of political action, and is inspiring communities to speak out against environmental injustices.

Local, St. Louis, MO

Urban Harvest STL empowers communities to cultivate equitable access to healthy, sustainably grown food and enhance biodiversity in cities. The organization grows produce in seven urban farms in the heart of St. Louis and donates the majority of the harvest to nonprofits and communities with limited or no access to fresh food.

Local, New York City, NY

Just Food supports community leaders to advocate for and increase access to healthy, locally-grown food, especially in underserved NYC neighborhoods. Each year, nearly a quarter million New Yorkers access fresh food in their neighborhood through Just Food's network of community food projects. The nonprofit also empowers youth to get involved through education and training programs inspiring youth activism and leadership.

Regional, New York City, NY

City Blossoms provides bilingual affordable after-school, in-school, and summer programming to predominantly Latino and African-American youth ranging from ages two through teens. City Blossoms serves neighborhoods in which children and youth may not otherwise have access to green space. Since 2009, the nonprofit has worked on 42 sites in Washington DC, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.

Regional, Washington D.C, USA

Since its founding in 2001, City Slicker Farms has been at the forefront of sustainable urban farming and food justice, gaining national recognition as a leader in supporting low-income communities of color to grow food in the city. To date, City Slicker Farms has built over 400 backyard and community gardens, producing about 300,000 pounds of nutritious food while offering education to thousands of community members.

Local, Washington D.C, USA

The City Kids Wilderness Project, Inc. (City Kids) provides out-of-the-classroom education to underserved and at-risk youth in D.C.. Programs aim to prepare youth for adulthood, getting off on the right foot and ensuring that participants are ready to be active and connected community members.

International, Colorado, USA

Earth Guardians is empowering and training diverse youth to be effective leaders in the environmental, climate and social justice movements. To do this, they utilize the power of art, music, storytelling, civic engagement, and legal action. In learning these key skills, youth are able to step forward to dream up and implement solutions to some of the world's most pressing issues, starting in their own communities.

Local, Louisiana, USA

Louisiana Bucket Brigade uses grassroots action to hold the petrochemical industry and the government accountable for the true costs of pollution and bring light to the communities being impacted the most. By taking action, Louisiana Bucket Brigade fights to free neighborhoods from industrial pollution and hasten the transition from fossil fuels.

Regional, Oakland, CA

The Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment fights for a future where nature is protected, environmental justice is prioritized, and the people's rights are ensured. The nonprofit amplifies the voices of youth leaders in low-income communities and communities of color in Oakland, CA, so that they can become fierce advocates for the health of their communities.

Regional, New York City, NY

Teens for Food Justice is a youth-led movement with the goal of ending food insecurity and breaking the cycle of diet-related illness that impacts low-income communities, particularly those of color. TFFJ trains youth in hydroponic farming and growing and distributing fresh produce to food desert communities.

Local, San Diego, CA

Project New Village is committed to improving fresh food access in Southeastern San Diego and paving the way for healthy neighborhoods centered around social equity. To do this, PNV implements resident-led, community-rooted experiences that build stronger neighborhoods, improve the neighborhood food supply chain, and stimulate collective investment in better health and maximize the impact of investment to address social inequities.

International, London, UK

The Environmental Justice Foundation believes that environmental security is a human right. They're working with those on the frontlines of environmental destruction to investigate, document and expose environmental and human rights abuses.

International, Boulder, CO

Global Greengrants Fund is mobilizing resources for communities worldwide to protect our shared planet and work toward a more equitable world. The nonprofit puts environmental justice in the hands of those most affected by empowering frontline communities to take charge and resist the development of fossil fuels. The nonprofit focuses on women's rights, land and water rights, local action, and healthy ecosystems and communities.

National, British Columbia, Canada

RAVEN (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs) raises legal defense funds to assist Indigenous Peoples who enforce their rights and title to protect their traditional territories. RAVEN hosts public education programs to collaborate with Indigenous communities and work toward eliminating environmental racism and foster a greater understanding of indigenous rights and governance.

Regional, Chicago, IL

Just Roots empowers communities to develop access to local, sustainably grown food. This organization achieves their mission through education, sustainable farming and community-building.
*Recently joined 1% for the Planet network as an approved nonprofit partner.

National, Southern USA

Family Agriculture Resource Management Services (F.A.R.M.S.) is a national nonprofit dedicated to reversing small farm land loss to ensure generational wealth and reducing hunger in rural low-income communities. The nonprofit assists farmers with retail market expansion to ensure future farm revenue and ensures quality service for participants.

Regional, Oakland, CA

Farms to Grow is a nonprofit organization dedicated to working with Black farmers and underserved sustainable farmers around the country. Farms to Grow is committed to sustainable farming and innovative agriculture practices which preserve cultural and biological diversity, the agro-ecological balance of the local environment.

Regional, Bay Area California, USA

The education program at Planting Justice activates people impacted by poverty and food injustice to create a more local and sustainable food system. By developing skills in ecological design, nutrition education, and multimedia arts, communities use urban gardens to connect with local and international struggles and movements for social justice.

Regional, Philadelphia, PA

Soil Generation is a regional network of Black farmers committed to using ecologically sustainable practices to manage land, grow food, and raise livestock that are healthy for people and the planet.

Local, Southside Chicago, IL

The Urban Growers Collective operates eight urban farms on 11 acres of land in Chicago's South Side and works with more than 33 partner organizations to create economic opportunity and boost healthy food access. Each farm uses organic methods and integrates education, leadership training, and food production.

National, Virginia, USA

The National Black Farmers Association (NBFA) represents African American farmers and their families in the United States. NBFA's education and advocacy efforts focus on civil rights, land retention, access to public and private loans, education and agricultural training, and rural economic development for black and other small farmers.

Regional, Black Belt, Southern USA

The Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund is a multidisciplinary, cooperative nonprofit ecosystem rooted in Black eco-cultural traditions and textile arts to regenerate custodial landownership, ecological stewardship, and food and fiber economies in the South.

Regional, Southeast Georgia, USA

New Communities is a grassroots organization that has worked for more than 40 years to empower African American families in Southwest Georgia and advocate for social justice. New Communities Inc. is long recognized as the first land trust organization in the US, is continuing to initiate the discussions around race equality, economic disparities and opportunities for small farmers.

International, Washington D.C, USA

Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural has served as a voice of African-American, American Indian, Asian-American, Euro-American and Latino farmers, farmworkers, and rural communities in the US, as well as indigenous and campesino groups in Mexico and beyond for 40 years.

National, Washington D.C

Soul Trak Outdoors is a D.C. based nonprofit organization that connects communities of color to outdoor spaces while also building a coalition of diverse outdoor leaders. We run a variety of programming to serve hands-on, experiential programming.

Regional, Georgia, USA

The Greening Youth Foundation's (GYF) mission is to engage under-represented youth and young adults, while connecting them to the outdoors and careers in conservation. GYF's cultural based environmental education programing engages children from local communities and exposes them to healthy lifestyle choices in order to create an overall healthy community.

National, Vermont, USA

The Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform supports diverse movement towards safe chemicals and clean energy that leaves no community or worker behind

Local, Baltimore, MD

Whitelock Community Farm is a vibrant open space that grows food and activates community to promote social equity in the neighborhood. We work to promote dialogue about food access, neighborhood development, and environmental justice.

Local, Berkeley, CA

Wanda teaches how to plant the seeds of wisdom necessary to build a sustainable and just future.

Regional, Texas, USA

Black Outside, Inc has one simple mission: Reconnect Black/ African-American youth to the outdoors through culturally relevant outdoor experiences

National, Washington, USA

Community to Community works to empower underrepresented peoples to have an equal voice in decision making processes, develop cross-cultural awareness, restore justice to food, land and cultural practices, promote community relationships toward self-reliance, work in solidarity with those that strive toward human rights for all and rescue the value of feminine intellect and leadership.

Regional, Seattle, WA

Got Green organizes for environmental, racial and economic justice as a South Seattle-based grassroots organization led by people of color. The organization cultivates multi-generational community leaders to be central voices in the green movement in order to ensure that the movement's benefits (green jobs, healthy food, energy efficient & healthy homes, public transit) reach low income communities and communities of color.

Regional, Los Angeles, CA

Nature for All aims to ensure that everyone in the Los Angeles area has equitable access to the wide range of benefits which nature provides. This organization builds support to protect, create access to our forests, rivers, and parks and developing a new diverse generation of environmental leaders and stewards who connect to and care for our public lands.

Local, Cleveland, OH

Rid-All Institute turned an empty and forgotten piece of land in Cleveland's Kinsman Neighborhood into an urban farm where they grow produce to bring healthy, local food to area institutions and citizens and train others on this work.

National, Washington D.C, USA

HEAL's mission is to build collective power to create food and farm systems that are healthy for our families, accessible and affordable for all communities, and fair to the hard-working people who grow, distribute, prepare, and serve our food - while protecting the air, water, and land we all depend on.

Local, New York, USA

Soul Fire Farm is a BIPOC-centered community farm committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system.

Local, New Haven, CT

Gather New Haven promotes health, equity and justice for people and the environment by cultivating connections with each other and our local lands and waters and by inspiring us to care for ourselves, our community and the natural world.

Regional, Washington, USA

Communities of color, people with lower incomes, and indigenous people are on the frontlines of climate and environmental change-hit first by extraction, pollution, and climate change, which makes existing health and economic disparities worse. Front and Centered ensures these communities are included in the transition to a healthy, resilient and sustainable future.

Local, King County, WA

The Service Board (tSB) mentors teens to conquer personal and cultural challenges through outdoor adventure, environmental and social justice education, and public service.

National, Portland, OR

The Center for Diversity and the Environment harnesses the power of racial and ethnic diversity to transform the US environmental movement by developing leaders, catalyzing change within institutions, and building alliances.

International, Utah, USA

1% for the Planet member Alex Honnold started the Honnold Foundation to advance and increase the accessibility of solar energy. The foundation provides grants to organizations advancing solar energy. These organizations focus on environmental standards, social equity, and strong ties with the communities that they serve. The Honnold Foundation secures solar energy in communities around the world. Photo by Patrick Bentley, SolarAid.

Local, Richmond, Virginia

Blue Sky Fund is bringing youth living in urban areas to the outdoors through nature programming offered to students from elementary to high school. Programming is meant to engage students in a way that will help them succeed academically with a focus on science. Blue Sky Fund develops leadership and confidence with team activities, a strong support network, and exciting outdoor adventures.

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Nonprofits fighting for social & environmental justice

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"I need you to understand that our racial inequality crisis is intertwined with our climate crisis." -Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson The work of 1% for the Planet doesn't start and end with planting more trees, cleaning our oceans, protecting wildlife, curbing carbon emissions or banning plastic straws.