As Hurricane Ida’s fierce winds ripped panels off of rooftops across New Orleans in September 2021, health workers and HIV activists braced for the aftermath. With power cut and roads blocked by debris, prescription refills and patients would be lost and forgotten in the storm’s chaotic wake across the South. And with record-breaking hurricanes like […]
Climate Change
Posted inClimate Change, Extreme Weather
Potential NOAA Cuts May Make Storms Like Helene Even More Devastating
As Hurricane Helene barrels across the Southeast, Black communities in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama face devastating floods and power outages, with concerns mounting over inadequate post-disaster resources. All but one of Florida’s counties were placed under a state of emergency, and tens of thousands of people living in the state’s coastal communities, which are disproportionately […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice, Rural Issues
Black Communities Left to Sink as Insurance Companies Abandon the South
On Sept. 29, Pastor Timothy Williams will lose the property insurance coverage for his home in rural Elba, Alabama. It’s another mark on a long list of recent letdowns for him in the aftermath of a persistent flooding crisis born by the expansion of a highway next to his home. Since the state raised and […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice, Partner Content
Can ‘Biden’s Billions’ Deliver True Environmental Justice?
This story was produced for In These Times’ August/September magazine edition. It is published digitally in partnership. Two days after a series of tornadoes ripped through Chicago’s South Side, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without electricity, Naomi Davis and Suzanne Waddell met in the front yard of Emmett Till’s childhood home to assess the […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice, Extreme Weather, Partner Content
As Baltimore’s Sewer System Buckles Under Extreme Weather, City Refuses to Help Residents With Cleanup Efforts
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here. A sewage cleanup program meant to assist Baltimore residents with backups in their homes has been in limbo for more than a year because of […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice, Partner Content
Facing Climate Gentrification, This Historic Black Community Embraces Conservation
Flooding the Market: First in a series originally published by Inside Climate News about climate change and coastal threats in South Carolina. TEN MILE, S.C. — At high tide, the marsh alongside Seafood Road disappears under an inscrutable mirror of water. Then, as it drains, reeds resurface and begin to trace hundreds of paths through the […]
Posted inClimate Change, Criminal Justice, Environmental Justice, Incarceration
The Growing Crisis of Heatwave Deaths in America’s Prisons
Last September, at his graduation from Northwestern University, Michael Broadway reconnected with his mother, Elizabeth, for the first time in two decades. Due to her ailing health, she couldn’t visit him. As an incarcerated man, he didn’t have the option to travel to her, either. For those two decades, Broadway was held inside Stateville Correctional […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice, Extreme Weather
‘We Can’t Wait’: How Black Neighborhoods Are Preparing for the Summer Heat
After closing out May with four days of triple-digit temperatures and New Orleans’ first heat advisory of the season, the group of mainly Black elders welcomed the “dip” in temperature on June 1. Still, it swelled to 96 degrees that morning as roughly 35 people huddled in a community center in the city’s Upper Ninth […]
Posted inClimate Change, Extreme Weather
NOAA Predicts a Record Hurricane Season. Will Black Communities Be Protected?
Edward Buckles was 13 when Hurricane Katrina hit his hometown in 2005. In the aftermath, 1,400 — mainly Black — New Orleans residents died. That spring, researchers predicted the 2005 season to be the most intense in U.S. history, but a 2007 study concluded that confusing directions from authorities, religious faith, and financial barriers led […]
Posted inClimate Change, Extreme Weather, Health, Maternal Health, Partner Content
‘How Did We Miss This for So Long?’: The Link Between Extreme Heat and Preterm Birth
This story was originally published by Grist. This story is part of the series “Expecting Worse: Giving Birth on a Planet in Crisis,” a collaboration between Grist, Vox, and The 19th that investigates how climate change impacts reproductive health — from menstruation to conception to birth. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. When Rupa Basu was […]