environmental justice

Where are low-income and minority greens in the media?

Once again this year, the spring season brought a flood of green-themed magazines to super-market checkout stands and airport news racks all across the country.

And once again, the faces of non-white and non-affluent Americans were almost entirely missing.

Our new environmental movement is rapidly gaining visibility and momentum. That is very good news. Life-or-death ecological issues finally are starting to get the attention they so urgently deserve. And we can all celebrate that.

But now we would be wise to start paying closer attention to the kind of coverage that we as environmentalists are getting. Because I see a disturbing pattern of exclusivity that is starting to set in. And that kind of elitism can sow the seeds for a very dangerous, populist backlash, down the line.

To see what I mean, just flip through the pages of Vanity Fair's recent green issue (the one with Leo DiCaprio and that cute polar bear cub on the cover).

DC lobbying effort May 12-16

Citizens from Appalachia were at the UN's meeting on sustainable energy policy this week to challenge the clean-coalers, and were received really well by the other delegates. Coal advocates were hard-put to refute the evidence that coal kills communities. Now the effort moves to D.C. from May 12-16 for the 2nd Annual Mountaintop Removal Week lobbying effort.

Organized by Appalachian Voices, the effort will advance the Clean Water Protection Act toward passage and help end mountaintop removal coal mining. Call your senator or rep to support this effort and/or take action here. 'Cuz when you blow off a mountain's top and dump it in the valley, it's gonna foul the water a wee bit. This bill is as much about social justice as it is about the environment.

Will it be adaptation, mitigation … or neither?

Despite a lot of talk, this nation has done little to restrain global warming, either in terms of mitigating carbon emissions or adapting to the climate changes that will come.

Some nations around the world -- wealthy nations such as Australia and the Netherlands -- are beginning to adapt, while poorer nations -- such as Malawi and India -- can't afford to.

In a superb piece of reporting last month in The New York Times, four writers reported on "the climate divide," elegantly laying out the issue. Andrew Revkin followed up this week with a look at an ensuing dispute over what to do about it -- a debate between rich and poor nations at the U.N. Revkin quietly watches the delegates debate over cheesecake with raspberry sauce. It's an emblematic image, and a must read.

[Environmental disaster] hits [minority group] harder than whites, study finds

In coming years, expect many, many more headlines like this. Why, if you squint really hard, I bet you’ll even see a pattern emerge!

New report from Apollo Alliance on good green jobs

The Apollo Alliance and Urban Habitat have a new report out today on the coming green economy and the immense job potential for traditionally excluded groups — low-income, heavily minority urban communities. The report sets out a vision for green jobs in the U.S. and outlines the green industries that already exist in the country, […]

Canadian Sophia Rabliauskas fights to protect her First Nation territory

Sophia Rabliauskas. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize. The boreal forests of Canada, which stretch across the midsection of the country, are blessed with abundant wildlife, pristine wetlands, and vast carbon-storage capacities. For Sophia Rabliauskas, these abundant forests are also home. She’s a member of the Poplar River First Nation, and she grew up in its traditional […]

On Revkin’s piece on poverty and climate change impacts

(A topic I return to every once in a while. See here and here.)

The link that Jason posted Sunday deserves a closer look, if you missed it over the weekend. Revkin has written an excellent, if somewhat depressing, piece on the fact that while climate change is overwhelmingly the responsibility of the world's rich nations, the nations that suffer most will be the world's poorest.

It also reminds me of something else I heard Tim Flannery say last week: whatever else we know about climate change, we know that it will stress nations, and stressed nations sometimes do horrible things. The solution to climate change must therefore necessarily be a multilateral one.

Right before my very eyes: Ethiopia

The vista of Ethiopia's ancient Rift Valley, speckled with shimmering lakes, stretches before me as our motorized caravan heads south from Lake Langano, part of a study tour on population-health-environment issues organized by the Packard Foundation. Sadly, the country's unrelenting poverty and insecurity are as breathtaking as the view -- Ethiopia currently ranks 170 out of 177 countries on the UN Development Programme's Human Development Index.

Sustainable food meets social justice

Grassroots organic is alive and well, even in the concrete jungles of New Haven and Boston. Today I spent an hour and a half at a talk called "Food Policy: Addressing Social Justice in the Sustainable and Local Food Movements." The event's keynote speakers were two women who work for urban sustainable food initiatives.

One of the organizations, CitySeed, is located in New Haven, Conn. At the talk, CitySeed's executive director, Jennifer McTiernan, spoke about how her organization works with Connecticut politicians to give low-income eaters access to fresh food and urban farmers' markets.

The other organization, The Food Project, hails from Boston, and works to integrate urban youth into their network of small scale organic production. Their speaker was a woman named Rebecca Nemec, who works as a policy fellow for the Project.