• May 22, 2017

True Climate Justice Puts Communities of Color First

By Audrea Lim, The Nation

So what does police brutality have to do with issues like carbon emissions, rising global temperatures, water pollution and government-by-oil-corporations that have dominated mainstream climate discourse?

As Katherine Egland, the chair of the Environmental and Climate Justice Committee for the NAACP National Board of Directors, argues, climate change affects low-income, minority commuities first. Therefore, our initial efforts to reduce the burning of fossils fuels should also be centered on these communities. 68 percent of black Americans live within 30 miles of a coal plant, as compared to the 56 percent of whites that live in a similar proximity to these toxic environments.

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