Issue: Environmental/Climate Justice

In this webinar, the Lab team is joined by the Regulatory Assistance Project to explore recommendations from the new report Energy Infrastructure: Sources of Inequities and Policy Solutions for Improving Community Health and Wellbeing.
In addition to the report, participants also learn from advocates across the country fighting for an equitable clean energy future. Contributing speakers shared their reflections and lessons learned from a variety of perspectives on what it takes to achieve energy equity, including how they’re financing low-income solar, how they’re growing solar through state-level policy, and how to work in strong coalition.
Contributing speakers include: Donna Brutkoski, Communications Associate, Regulatory Assistance Project; Yesenia Rivera, Director of Energy Equity and Inclusion, Solar United Neighbors; and Jacqueline Hutchinson, Vice President of Operations, People’s Community Action Corporation.

This article draws from an interview with Kim Wasserman, executive director of Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), based in Chicago, Illinois. Kim Wasserman and LVEJO (pronounced “ell-VAY-ho,”) have spent nearly two decades “fighting the bad” in Chicago’s predominantly immigrant community of Little Village, engaging in a 12-year campaign to shut down two coal plants that ranked as the top three for most polluted in the US and contributed to some of the highest asthma rates in the country.  After the conversation with Kim, the article captures are the main lessons the author learned about how to be an environmental justice leader.

Be careful about emphasizing climate threats, as this can increase racism and xenophobia among certain people. People who are informed about the negative effects of climate change (such as wildfires, floods, resource scarcity, etc.) may become more hostile towards immigrants and less likely to support or value the pursuit of racial equity. This effect was stronger among those with a pre-existing belief that some groups in society should be able to dominate others.

Survey of Detroit adults sought to measure concern for and perception of the impacts of climate change and other environmental threats like pollution, flooding, and storms, how these threats impact different racial/ethnic groups, and how adults’ views on these issues vary by race and ethnicity. 

From a nationally representative poll of registered voters fielded from Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2020, more than eight in 10 (82%) say achieving 100% clean energy should be the primary goal of U.S. energy policy, and more than six in 10 (63%) say developing more renewables should be the priority when seeking to address U.S. energy needs, compared to gas (15%) or nuclear (9%). Almost six in 10 (58%) say increasing production of renewables is more likely to create a greater number of good jobs than increasing production of fossil fuels (25%). 

From a nationally representative poll of registered voters fielded on Oct. 13, 2020, three-quarters (73%) of voters say they are worried about climate change, including 87% of Black Protestants, 82% of nonwhite Catholics, 77% of white Catholics, 76% of Jews, and 57% of white evangelical Protestants. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of voters want a multi-trillion-dollar federal economic stimulus to invest in clean energy infrastructure as part of COVID-19 recovery, including 72% of Black Protestants and 54% of white evangelical Protestants.