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Environmental racism

Why All Hurricanes Should Be Named ‘Jim’

October 20, 2024 Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, Black Agenda Report. , , , , , , , , , ,
The devastation effectuated by Hurricane Helene represents yet another elucidation of a quintessential climate crisis that is right here and right now. It demonstrates that climate change is not a conclusion that awaits us, but a set of present day precarities taking and altering lives right now. According to initial assessments, Helene could cost U.S. taxpayers upwards of $175 billion , and of course, there is no way to quantify the estimated 230 lives that were taken, thus far, with the death toll expected to rise. Meanwhile, Hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm, continued this season of carnage and calamity with a death toll of approximately 20 people and an estimated $50 billion in damages.

Kamala Harris’s Environmental Deceptions

August 10, 2024 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency and the strongest environmental protections the US had ever seen in response to the mass movements of the 1960s. After Nixon, environmental laws gradually improved until Bill Clinton’s administration started rolling them back, especially through global “free trade” deals like NAFTA and those of the WTO, putting the environmental movement on the defensive. Every president since Clinton, Democrat or Republican, has successively worsened environmental protections. Obama expanded fossil fuel production more than any other president in US history, and Biden continued to expand it even more than Trump had. There’s little reason to think that Kamala Harris would be different, and she’s already reversed her opposition to fracking.

Communities Protest Banking Giant’s Annual Meeting Over Environmental Racism

April 21, 2024 Hannah Sharland, The Canary. , , ,
Activists from the world are uniting against Dutch banking giant ING’s environmental racism. Specifically, at the company’s upcoming AGM they plan to call out ING’s financing of a big polluter and climate-wrecking industries harming marginalised communities throughout the Global North and South. On Monday 22 April community defenders from the US, Mexico, Brazil, Liberia, and the Czech Republic will attend ING’s AGM to call out the company’s financing for destructive big polluters. Fossil fuel finance accountability non-profit BankTrack and Netherlands climate campaign group Fossielvrij have facilitated their travel to Amsterdam, to take on the banking giant at this key meeting.

From Demolition Plans To Neighborhood Ownership

December 30, 2023 Ellie Zimmerman, Unicorn Riot. , , ,
Minneapolis, Minnesota — It’s been a long road to ownership of the hotly contested Roof Depot site for the residents of the East Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis, and they recently cleared one more hurdle in their way. On November 8, the City of Minneapolis accepted a guarantee from East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) of their contribution of $3.7 million, effectively sealing EPNI’s end of the deal to purchase the Roof Depot from the city and launch next steps toward their vision for the site. The battle over the Roof Depot began nearly eight years ago in the Minneapolis city government as residents and activists fought to stop the city from demolishing the existing building to construct a new water distribution facility.

Biden And Democrat’s Climate Agenda Increases Environmental Racism More Than It Reduces Emissions

September 7, 2023 Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
Earlier this month the Biden Administration, along with high ranking democrats including Senate Majority Leader, Charles Schumer, and former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, as well as a slew of acolytes representing centrist environmental organizations, celebrated the one-year signing of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) at the White House. It was a curious time to celebrate an ostensible climate bill during a summer of cataclysmic events fueled by runaway climate change including deadly and crippling heatwaves, wildfires that blanketed major cities with toxic smoke, and the annihilation of Lahaina, Maui.

EU Weans Itself From Russian Energy; US Pushes New LNG Export Plant

August 21, 2023 Edward Donnelly, DeSmog. , , , , ,
Chester, Pennsylvania — When Zulene Mayfield testifies next week against plans to build a $6.8 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in her Pennsylvania hometown, she will be facing off against some of the most powerful fossil fuel interests in the United States. As co-founder of the community group Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living, Mayfield has spent years fighting to protect her majority Black and low-income city from the pollution spewed by the nearby Covanta waste-to-energy facility — the country’s largest waste incinerator. Now she finds herself pitted against a new confluence of forces — a lobbying effort by a fossil fuel complex stretching from her state’s Marcellus Shale gas fields to the boardrooms of European energy companies. 

Environmental Racism Links Lahaina And Katrina

August 16, 2023 Monica Moorehead, Workers' World. , , , , , , ,
August 29 will mark the 18th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history, which devastated much of the Gulf Coast (specifically Louisiana and Mississippi) and disproportionately struck New Orleans. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that this Category 4 hurricane caused at least $108 billion in structural damage, leading to more than one million people being displaced, many permanently, especially the poor and people of color. According to livescience.com, an estimated 1,833 people died in the hurricane and the flooding that followed. (Aug. 27, 2015) That flooding, mainly caused by broken levees, overwhelmed the Ninth Ward, a predominant working-class Black neighborhood in New Orleans.

Joe Biden’s Petroleum Puppetry Is Pulling The Strings Of War And Environmental Racism

April 26, 2023 Anthony Rogers-Wright, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
Support for the Russia/Ukraine war is experiencing a precipitous decline according to polls of United Statesians taken at the war’s one year mark in February.  In fact, whereas 60 percent of those polled in May 2022 supported sending weapons to Ukraine, the February poll reveals support for the US military’s munificence plummeted to an all-time low of 48 percent. Moreover, the same poll demonstrated that less than 40% of United Statesians favor sending any government funds to Ukraine. There are myriad reasons for waning support for this war, one of them is likely associated with the price tag. According to estimates, in just a little more than one year, President Biden has approved largess of the U.S. tax payer in the sum of $115 billion.

Harlem Resists Gentrification, Environmental Racism

February 3, 2023 Richie Merino, Workers World. , , , ,
New York City - Harlem families and grassroots community groups gathered Jan. 28 on West 145th St. and Lenox Ave. in Harlem to protest the operations of a truck stop, which they say was opened in retaliation for their rejection of a gentrification project known as “One45.” Several rally speakers condemned the luxury real estate developer and former aide to Rudy Giuliani, Bruce Teitelbaum, for poisoning the community and worsening existing environmental issues, causing high rates of asthma and respiratory issues in children. The battle between the predominantly poor and working-class Black community and Teitelbaum began last year, when he proposed “One45,” a $700-million luxury high-rise residential complex that included only a small percentage of so-called “affordable” apartments. These units required a minimum household income of $112,000 to rent, whereas the median household income for the immediate area where One45 was slated to be built is only $36,804.

Barred From The Climate Conversation

September 11, 2022 Serag Heiba, Resilience. , , , ,
When Kelo Uchendu prepared for this year’s Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB56), it had been three years since his previous application for the German visa was rejected. At the time, he was the only African student selected from a cohort of engineers to attend a career-advancing programme in Dresden. That visa rejection was costly and devastating, but he did not remain idle. He founded a climate justice organisation in his home country of Nigeria to advocate for clean air, began pursuing postgraduate studies and joined the organising team of Mock COP26. He would arrive in Bonn as the policy co-lead of the UNFCCC youth constituency knowing that his hard work has finally paid off.

Environmental Racism Leads To Water Crisis in Jackson, Mississippi

September 5, 2022 Molly Rosenzweig , Left Voice. , , , ,
Jackson, Mississippi - Residents of Jackson, Mississippi, a city of 150,000 that is 82.5 percent Black, have not had reliable access to clean water for five days. On Monday, the Pearl River flooded from extreme rainfall, and caused the main water treatment plant to fail, resulting in low to no water pressure. A second treatment plant has simultaneously been having issues with its water pumps. If residents are getting any tap water at all, it’s brown. All this is happening while Jackson is facing extreme heat. Residents have faced long lines in order to get cases of bottled water, of which the city is running out. All schools have switched to remote learning since Tuesday.

Residents In Majority-Black Jackson Left Without Drinkable Water

September 4, 2022 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. , , ,
Reports reveal that people of color are especially impacted by environmental disasters. Jackson is 82.5% Black, and has been hit with multiple water crises in recent months. As of September 2, the vast majority of the residents of the city of Jackson, Mississippi—over 150,000—still have no access to safe drinking water. The Jackson water crisis began on August 30 when flooding caused the pumps at the main water treatment facility, O.B. Curtis, to fail. This left most residents without clean water and many with no water at all due to low water pressure. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves warned residents on August 31, “Do not drink the water from the pipes if you can avoid it.” 

Redlined Neighborhoods In Cities Across The US Saw More Oil Drilling

April 21, 2022 Sharon Kelly, DeSmog. , , ,
Roughly 17 million people in the U.S. live within a mile of an oil or gas well — putting them at higher risk of health problems like heart disease, breathing issues, anxiety and depression, and complications during pregnancy, a growing body of research shows. But all is not equal when it comes to who exactly lives near oil wells — and intentional racial discrimination in federal mortgage policies, reflected in a practice known as “redlining,” may have played a role, according to a new study published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology. There are nearly twice as many oil and gas wells in neighborhoods that were redlined in the 1930s, the study found. That pattern was visible in 33 cities across 13 states where oil and gas wells were drilled, and drilling in those neighborhoods intensified after the federal government issued redlining maps.

The UN’s Criminal Enterprise And Ecological Catastrophe In Haiti

November 21, 2021 Jemima Pierre, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
When we consider the current ecological threat to the earth and its inhabitants, we cannot forget the outsized place of war and empire in exacerbating climate change and enabling environmental catastrophe. The ongoing United Nations occupation of Haiti provides an example. As does the introduction of a cholera epidemic by UN soldiers. Cholera is an extension of the totality of violence - material, political, and ecological – enacted by a presumably humanitarian peacekeeping mission.

Activists Shut Down A Pipeline — But Their Fight Isn’t Over

July 28, 2021 Leanna First-Arai, Truthout. , , ,
As the dust settles on their victory, the coalition of activists and community members that opposed the Byhalia Connection oil pipeline in greater Memphis, Tennessee — which developers officially canceled on July 2 — are continuing to mobilize, because they say a risk to the land, water, climate and community remains. In step with the cancellation, Plains All American Pipeline has requested state and federal agencies to revoke necessary permits for the Byhalia Connection — what would have been a 49-mile route connecting a refinery in Memphis to an oil terminal in northern Mississippi, running through a series of majority-Black neighborhoods in Tennessee. The pipeline was a joint venture between Plains and Valero Energy Corporation.
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