If you’re a Black American worried about a data center coming to your neighborhood, the questions are immediate and seemingly boundless. Will electricity bills rise? How much water will it use? And will elected officials listen before approving it? A new nationwide election dashboard from the NAACP and the Memphis, Tennessee-based Black environmental organization Young, […]
Environmental Justice
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
For Black Voters, Climate Action Means Little Without Relief From Rising Costs
For Elijah Lee, protecting the environment has always been about what’s happening close to home. He grew up in a predominantly Black, low-income community in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, and went to school next to a paper mill that filled the air with pollution. He always wondered why it seemed like the only employment option […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
A Late Hurricane Shows the Danger of a Warming Gulf for Black Communities
It may have been a quiet hurricane season up until Hurricane Isaias hit parts of Florida and Alabama over the weekend. For Gulf Coast residents, the impact was another clear example of how human-caused ocean warming is changing what was deemed normal for generations. With more than a month until hurricane season ends, Isaias’ wrath […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice, Politics & Policy
Residents Stopped a Data Center, but a Gas Plant Still Threatens This Black Community
For nine months, the Rev. Edward Moultrie of St. Paul CME Church and his congregation filled county meetings, urging officials to reject a proposal for a massive data center near their church and homes. They warned that the project near Walterboro, South Carolina, would threaten the waterways they rely on and bring pollution to their […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
Trump Moves to Strip Pollution Limits from Power Plants Near Black Communities
Black neighborhoods will feel the brunt of the Trump administration’s recent move to end federal limits on carbon pollution from America’s power plants, residents and environmental advocates said. The Environmental Protection Agency announced earlier this month that it will repeal rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Health, Politics & Policy
In LA, Some Black Residents May Soon Receive Environmental Reparations
As a child in the 1950s and ’60s, Regina Martin became so used to the oil pumpjacks near her home that she assumed every child lived beside them. Everyone was made “sick to [their] tummy” by the sulfurous, rotten-egg smell that never seemed to leave, she thought. Only until she was grown did she begin […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Unsafe Water
Federal Court Rules There Is No Constitutional Right to Safe Drinking Water
A federal appeals court has used a decades-long water crisis in one of the Blackest cities in America to rule that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee Americans the right to clean and safe drinking water. The Sept. 4 ruling came even after Jackson, Mississippi, residents alleged officials knew the water was contaminated and assured […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
Federal Government Moves to Limit Public Input on Data Center Projects
Americans don’t agree on much, but that’s not the case when it comes to data centers. Seven in 10 Americans oppose building data centers for artificial intelligence in or near their communities. Despite this, the federal government is moving to make it easier for them to be built. And in some places, residents won’t even […]
Posted inEconomic Development, Environmental Justice, Politics & Policy
Meta’s Data Center Will Be the Biggest in the U.S., but No One Knows Who They’re Hiring
Across a rural pocket of cotton and soybean fields in northeast Louisiana, Meta, the eighth most profitable company in the world, is attempting to build America’s largest data center. The project, which is located in Richland Parish, an area home to three times as many Black residents as the national average, has seen its anticipated […]
Posted inExtreme Weather, Infrastructure, Politics & Policy
From Memphis to Gary, Black Communities Are Being Left in the Dark
In the pews of a Memphis, Tennessee, church on Monday morning, the Rev. Earle J. Fisher wasn’t getting a headstart on next Sunday’s sermon, he was preparing a resource hub. “This can’t be my normal Monday because like so many others, we’re without power,” said Fisher, who teaches at LeMoyne-Owen College, an HBCU in Memphis. […]
