Audience: African Americans

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls – including a major new report from the Pew Research Center about the clean energy transition, two new polls assessing Americans’ climate attitudes from conservative perspectives, and new polling about energy insecurity among low-income Americans.

Land Justice can only be achieved through three goals: Reparations, Regenerate the Commons, and Landback. The organization Nuns & Nones has created three creative guides—on each of these themes—to imagining land justice. Our nation was built on stolen lands, with stolen labor, carrying a legacy of violence that continues to this day, so Reparations calls for those who have profited from this injustice to repair past and ongoing harms. The climate crisis is unfolding in our daily lives, so the Regenerate the Commons (“solidarity economy”) movement is building real alternatives to capitalism, seeking to shift wealth into shared ownership and governance, and to prioritize planet and people over profits. Through the process of colonization, Indigenous people were forcibly removed from billions of acres of land that they depended upon and belonged to, so the Landback movement can heal the harms of colonization, support regenerative stewardship of the land, and help us evolve into a new era of right relationship. These guides provide thorough arguments for each of these themes.

Integrated, year-round community organizing is necessary to create people-powered political representation in the Midwest. Midwestern state economies have destabilized, and this has caused shifting politics, such as formerly Democratic or swing states now voting mostly for Republicans. This report dispels multiple myths about Midwestern politics, such as: some states swung irreversibly to the right; Midwest states can be won either by engaging only people of color, or by frantically chasing white Obama/Trump voters; retail politics can work in the Midwest by “treating” white voters with messages about the economy and Black voters with messages about race, while ignoring Native, Latino, AAPI, and other voters; and we can win Presidential, US Senate, or Gubernatorial races by dumping billions of dollars into paid advertisements each cycle, rather than building the human capacity to lead and govern. This report argues for intentionally, consistently organizing people into membership organizations, unions, and community institutions in order to move constituencies of people into political action and create political homes. Overall, this report argues for “state ecosystems” of democratically accountable movement groups to engage in electoral politics.

BIPOC Americans generally favor renewable energy over natural gas. This survey from February 2022 found that even though 44% of BIPOC respondents considered natural gas to be “clean energy” (compared to 24% who did not), majorities still believe that increasing domestic production of wind and solar energy is the better way to create good jobs (62% to 19%), can provide cheaper electricity (33% to 26%), and is more reliable (35% to 18%), compared to natural gas. Further, respondents were more likely to say they currently use and would prefer (in the future) to use electric instead of gas appliances. This survey asked lots more questions about the use of and views about electric appliances and energy sources of electricity.

Energy insecurity is prevalent among low-income households in the U.S. More than 28% of low-income households surveyed recently reported being unable to pay their energy bill, and nearly 20% received a disconnection notice. Black and Hispanic households experience higher levels of energy insecurity: from November 2021 through January 2022, almost 40% of Hispanic respondents and more than 26% of Black respondents were not able to pay an energy bill. Energy insecurity is especially widespread among households with children. Households often forgo other basic household needs to pay their energy bills. To cope with the expense of energy, households often adjust the temperature in their homes to uncomfortable levels and accumulate utility debt.

This post includes climate and environment headlines, data points, and key takeaways from recent public polls – including new polling about Build Back Better and clean energy incentives, a new poll of Black and Latino Americans about climate and environmental justice issues, new findings from Yale and George Mason’s long-running “Six Americas” tracking study, and a newly released summary of the past year’s polling on climate and environmental issues.
You can also find a press release on the EPC’s end-of-year polling takeaways here, which was put out this week by EDF Action, the League of Conservation Voters, NRDC, Sierra Club, and the Climate Action Campaign.