Brought on by years of incessant flooding, Timothy Williams’ home is sinking — and fast. Over the past few years, it’s sagged nearly 2 feet deeper into the constantly swelling and shrinking clay soil across rural Coffee County, Alabama. He’s not alone. Roughly a dozen of his neighbors in the historically Black community have spent […]
Adam Mahoney
Adam Mahoney is the climate and environment reporter at Capital B. He can be reached by email at adam.mahoney@capitalbnews.org, on Bluesky, and on X at @AdamLMahoney.
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
Biden’s EPA Has Resolved Only One Civil Rights Complaint Brought Since 2021
The Environmental Protection Agency’s recent dismissals of three cases that would fix some of the problems in “Cancer Alley” underscores a difficult complaint process that works against Black communities’ best interests. They fall in line with a history of neglecting marginalized residents and failing to fully realize the legal power of the Civil Rights Act […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
Biden’s Big Plan for Environmental Justice May Actually Increase the Racial Pollution Gap
A Biden administration initiative that assured at least 40% of federal investments in climate and clean energy would reach “disadvantaged” communities may prove costly to environmental justice goals because of a metric related to race, a new study reveals. A policy analysis published in Science this week and conducted by a dozen of the country’s […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
How to Protect Yourself During Record-Setting Heat Wave
The dangerous heat wave sitting over two-thirds of the country comes two weeks after the globe’s average temperature was the highest recorded in 12,000 years. In Phoenix, one of the fastest-growing cities for Black people, temperatures have topped 110 degrees for three weeks straight. In Houston, the heat index pushed 110 degrees for multiple days. […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice
Combating Climate Change Begins With Reparations, Bay Area Residents Say
Freda Linder walks daily past a small sign donned with 20 words in Crescent Park Apartments, a majority-Black housing complex in Northern California’s Bay Area. “WARNING,” the placard reads. “This area contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.” Linder lives in Richmond, a city of […]
Posted inCulture, History
Activist Recounts the Forgotten History of Black-Native Solidarity
In 1966, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, Black mega-celebrity and activist Dick Gregory was sentenced to 90 days in the Thurston County jail in Washington for illegal net fishing. As a coordinated movement of sit-ins for voting rights and desegregation spread across the South like wildfires, “fish-ins,” an effort for increased native […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
Black Joy Can Be Found in Nature’s Simplicity
Chris Allen is most at peace outside. Like a disproportionate amount of Black Angelenos, he is considered unhoused. Having called a shelter home on and off for nearly two years, he’s lived through everything from rat infestations to consistent police violence. But his time outside, something as simple as sitting at a bus stop or […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
How Biden’s Goal to ‘Electrify Everything’ Contributed to a Flooding Crisis
Sometimes, even when it’s not raining, 78-year-old widower Willie Horstead Jr. thinks he hears the floodwaters seeping beneath his home, sucking the metal box deeper into Alabama’s rich soil. When it does rain – which is often in Coffee County, Alabama – the U.S. Army veteran is afraid he’ll fall through the floor of his […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
The Ways Pollution and Climate Change are Linked to Policing and Incarceration
Hurricane Ida was the second strongest storm to hit Louisiana over the last three centuries, dwarfing the beast that was Katrina. As virtually every Gulf Coast city was put under evacuation orders, thousands of incarcerated people were forced to stay put, some in flooded facilities that lacked electricity and running water, and had sustained intense […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Unsafe Water
Dirty Water, Distrust, and a Crisis
Black Americans struggling to live through a water crisis are urging the rest of the country to recast what is viewed as violence. “People just don’t get the big picture,” says Brooke Floyd, coordinator for the Jackson People’s Assembly, a social justice organization in Jackson, Mississippi. “There are a lot of things that are making […]
