• Green New Deal

EJ Bills Introduced In Congress Now Set the Stage For Next Year

• communities of color
• Cory Booker
• Environmental Justice
• indigenous communities
• Kamala Harris
• low income communities
• pollution
• Tammy Duckworth

Environmental Justice legislation is getting lots of attention this year as numerous bills are pending in Congress on a topic that, until now, barely received attention. Yesterday, Senator Cory Booker and Representative Deb Haaland rolled out a bill that would put $100 billion dollars toward eliminating pollution that has disproportionately harmed communities of color.

Why This Matters:  Lisa Friedman of  The New York Times wrote last month that by putting Senator Harris on the ticket with him, Vice President Biden signaled that environmental justice will be high on their agenda.

• Forests

Urban Areas In U.S. In Need Of Tree Equity To Mitigate Heat Island Effect

• 1 trillion trees
• canopy
• conservation
• Environmental Justice
• heat islands
• tree

US cities are spending millions in order to plant new trees, which represents “one of the best solutions cities have for fighting the ‘urban heat island effect’ in neighborhoods that are often blanketed with pavement and lack of greenery.” Climate change too.

Why This Matters: As we have reported previously, urban heat islands disproportionately affect Black neighborhoods due to a history of redlining and structural discrimination.

• Politics

Democratic National Convention: Night 2 Recap – A “Side” of Climate Change and Calamari!

• #climatecrisis
• #DemConvention2020
• clean energy
• climate change
• democrats
• Environmental Justice

Climate change, clean energy, and green jobs and infrastructure were mentioned numerous times during the evening — they came up right off the bat in the “chorus” of bright stars in the Party who delivered the opening Keynote address. It received many additional mentions in the numerous short speeches and testimonials about the Vice President.

Why This Matters:  The COVID crisis, health care, and national security were the issues of the night.  But climate change made it into the discussion.

• Sustainability

6 Former EPA Administrators Call For Agency “Re-Set;” As EJ Orgs Sue Chicago For Environmental Racism

• conservation
• environment
• Environmental Justice
• environmental racism
• EPA
• pollution

This week, six former Administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it is time to conduct a sweeping overhaul of the agency.  They called for a “reset” to move the “EPA in a new, forward-looking direction to address the environmental challenges we face today and those that lie ahead.

Why This Matters:  The “formers” who come from both political parties are right.  Our 50-year-old system of pollution protection laws, regulations, and agencies is outdated and ineffective to fight the pollution and climate challenges we face today and going forward.

• People

A Green Energy Future Must Be an Inclusive One

• diversity
• Environmental Justice
• green energy
• inclusion
• just transition
• renewable energy

by Julia Fine, ODP Contributing Writer A transition to renewable energy in America will have a multiplier effect beyond merely reducing our emissions. . As Jennie Stephens, a Professor at Northeastern University, told Yale Climate Connections, this transition can also create positive social change in other arenas. In her words, “We really need to think […]

• Air

Even As Air Pollution Drops, Communities of Color in the U.S. Still Breathe Dirtier Air

• #environmentaljustice
• air pollution
• Black Americans
• Environmental Justice
• particulate matter
• PM 2.5

Although absolute disparities in terms of exposure to air pollution have fallen, relative disparities remain a new study published this week in Science showed. What they found, in the words of Emily Holden in The Guardian, was that “wealthy white Americans are still getting to breathe cleaner air than lower-income communities of color, despite significant nationwide reductions in pollution since the 1980s.”

Why This Matters: We see time and time again how intimately intertwined environmental justice is with racial justice. It is not enough that the absolute disparity of air pollution has fallen.