While most Americans would now agree that climate change is real, a new report by the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity and UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources uncovers what researchers call a “climate gap” or hidden pattern revealing that poor people and people of color in the United States suffer more from environmental changes than other whiter and wealthier Americans.
Some key findings from the report:
- Extreme heat leads to increased illnesses and deaths—particularly among the elderly, infants and African Americans. in a study on nine California counties from may
through September of 1999–2003, researchers found that for every 10°F (5.6°c) increase in temperature, there is a 2.6% increase in cardiovascular deaths. - Risk factors for heat-related illness and death are higher for low-income neighborhoods and people of color.
- African Americans in Los Angeles are nearly twice as likely to die from a heat wave
- There is nearly a three-fold difference in the proportion of income that goes towards water between households in the lowest income bracket versus households in the highest income bracket.
Those are the problems. The report also offers some solutions:
- Close the climate gap by auctioning permits or establishing a fee and invest revenue in communities that will be hardest hit.
- Coordinate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions with opportunities to reduce toxic pollutants in neighborhoods with the dirtiest air.
- Anticipate and address inevitable job shifts and retraining needs to maximize opportunities for low-income communities of color to successfully transition to and benefit from a new, clean energy economy
- Ensure that revenue generated from climate policy will help high-poverty neighborhoods absorb the higher prices for energy and other basic necessities
Read the full report or the executive summary.
3 Comments
The saddest image on this web site is the photo of the hands holding a little tree to be planted in Oakland. No doubt someone put it there as a symbol of hope. Unfortunately it is more a sad symbol of deception.
Just how is planting 50 trees in Oakland going to help your people out of the mess they find themselves in? Who thought that up? That’s going to provide jobs and a way out of poverty and crime? Of course it’s not. It’s a great feel good for the social experimenters but it will do nothing for what ails the urban poor. Take a look at who wrote this paper. With a slight bit of token color from Dr. Pastor it is purely a bunch of white academics running an experiment on Oakland that bizarrely leads to the conclusion that what you need is Marxist, neo-agrarian, Great God Gaia, lily-white back to the earth social experiments.
You have let the white radicals co-opt some of your brightest (Van Jones) into this dead end idea that you need to tie the future of your kids to their rich white guy agendas. I mean does anyone there really think that smog is at the root of what ails Oakland? It just stuns me that after decades of following these people and getting nowhere that you would buy into something so obviously not in your best interests.
Black Americans don’t have a single problem that money won’t at least begin to cure. The observation that good paying jobs will accomplish that is axiomatic. But to get those jobs you need engineers not social workers. You need entrepreneurs not bureaucrats. You need private investment, not government handouts. Concentrate on your namesake’s nickname, “Fundi,” a Swahili word meaning a person who teaches a craft to the next generation.”
The good news is that the folks in Oakland who are actually doing something have a pretty clear and correct view of what needs to be done. Get educated. Promote a job as a way out of poverty. Partner with existing businesses. Stick to the basics. The fundamentals of success through overcoming adversity and a basically Christian culture are already in place for you. If you can survive slavery you can survive anything. So ditch these guys and get going. You’ll survive them too.
There are some really wonderful folks in West Oakland who make sure good, fresh, home-grown food is available to the community. Maybe that little tree you think so pathetic will grow up to feed family after family. Maybe you don’t know Oakland so well. At least two-three families on about every block has a fruit tree or two, and shares out the wealth. And it’s good eating!
Sure, there are mistakes, and people learn. We have a lot of creativity and can do a great deal with a little – but you have to have a little to start with, and more is better, but it all takes good stewardship, head up, feet down.
Education is very important – it’s one of the hardest things to take away from you. Support your teachers, support your neighbors, support every kind of family – you will find all kinds of people in Oakland, we are a wonderland – but, yes, jobs – and green jobs, so we don’t cause even more asthma – are the key to a renaissance that is more than a flash in the pan!
Never heard of this term used before, but it sounds terrible. Thanks for drawing it to our attention