Get ready for a very active hurricane season, as researchers are forecasting there could be nine coming this year. Since 2014, a team at the University of Arizona has accurately predicted hurricane activity in the U.S. Typically, the Gulf and East coast see roughly seven hurricanes annually, with less than half being major events, but […]
Environmental Justice
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
Chemical Plants Destroyed These Black Towns. The EPA Hopes New Regulations Will Help.
As the Environmental Protection Agency moves to curb the amount of cancer-causing pollution spewed out by 218 of the country’s largest oil and chemical plants, environmental leaders and Black residents in some Southern states say the proposal doesn’t go far enough. Roughly two-thirds of these plants are sprinkled across Texas and Louisiana, where many of […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
As Disasters Pile Up, Louisiana’s Hurricane Victims Wonder if They’ll Ever Recover
Nearly two years after Hurricane Ida gutted her home, Maria Populis cries every day because she’s lost everything – and fears she’ll be homeless. “I’m not supposed to be living on nobody’s street,” the 60-year-old grandmother says. “I feel like a failure.” The record-breaking storm destroyed her Edgard, Louisiana, home – which had been in […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice, Partner Content
History of Racism Leaves Black Californians Most at Risk from Oil and Gas Drilling, Research Shows
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. Decades before movie moguls produced celluloid heroes, oil claimed the spotlight in Los Angeles. California’s oil industry took off in the mid-1870s just 30 miles […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
What Happens When a Black Enclave Is Built by Big Oil
When Tara Bettis is at her home in Beaumont, Texas, the 57-year-old doesn’t need a clock to know what time it is. Her body instinctively knows based on the pitches of whistles and bells ringing from her neighbor’s property: a massive, land-gobbling oil refinery and chemical plant owned by ExxonMobil. “Everybody knows the whistles — […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
Want to Better Prepare Black Communities for Tornadoes? Erode the Income Gap.
The severity of the recent network of tornadoes that practically erased a majority Black rural town in Mississippi off the map would’ve leveled any community in its path — but the region’s high amount of mobile homes, low access to information networks, and poor insurance rates created a perfect storm. “Tornadic storms will continue to […]
Posted inAir Pollution, Environmental Justice
Proposed Bill Treats Environmental Justice as a Civil Rights Issue
Almost two years to the day of its last introduction, progressive leaders are reinvigorating a push to pass the Environmental Justice For All Act, a potential landmark bill that aims to address environmental disparities in majority Black, Latino and Indigenous communities. Sponsored by U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Arizona, the proposal hopes to address public health […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice
How Slavery and Sharecropping Created a Sewage Crisis in Alabama’s Black Belt
In Alabama’s Black Belt, many residents have to hold their breath every time they attempt to flush their toilets because there’s a great chance that sewage will be sent back through their toilet bowls, bathtubs, and sinks. A group of environmental justice organizations filed a civil rights complaint last week against the state of Alabama, […]
Posted inClimate Change, Environmental Justice
A Growing Call for Climate Reparations, Explained
America is finally joining the global movement of wealthy nations agreeing to pay poorer countries for the damage they’ve endured because of climate change. To the dismay of many Republican legislators, last year the Biden administration agreed to participate in the United Nations’ fund for “loss and damage,” also known as climate reparations. Although the […]
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Extreme Weather
A New Phenomenon Threatens to Disrupt Black Homeownership
As Black Americans have strived for generations to own homes — and then to afford to stay in them — a recent study has revealed a new phenomenon that threatens to disrupt Black homeownership once again. Thousands of American homes in flood-prone areas are overvalued by as much as $237 billion, making it even more […]
