environmental justice

By Emily Dao We constantly hear the narrative that climate change impacts us all. And while that’s true, the issue is disproportionately impacting people of color, especially Black, Latino, and Native Americans. And when it comes to environmental justice, we just aren’t talking about social equity enough. A decade ago, Grist reporter Alan Durning wrote […]

By Rizki Nugraha, Michaela Cavanagh and Holly Young Just like his father and grandfather, Alfian has spent his whole life working as a fisherman on the banks of the Batang Hari river in Rukam, Indonesia. In the village of 1,200 residents, rows of houses sit low to the ground beside the water, buttressed on the […]

By Ilana Cohen, Evelyn Nieves, Judy Fahys, Marianne Lavelle, James Bruggers When New York Communities for Change helped lead a demonstration of 500 on Monday in Brooklyn to protest George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, the grassroots group’s activism spoke to a long-standing link between police violence against African Americans and environmental justice. Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive […]

As protests are taking place across our nation in response to the killing of George Floyd, we want to acknowledge the importance of this protest and the Black Lives Matter movement. Over the years, we’ve aimed to be sensitive and prioritize stories that highlight the intersection between racial and environmental injustice. From our years of […]

The Navajo Nation, which is spread out through the American Southwest mostly in Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, now has the highest per capita Covid-19 infection rate in the country, as CNN reported. The Navajo Nation’s alarming surge in cases is another example of an underserved and historically marginalized minority population being particularly vulnerable to […]

By Derrick Z. Jackson The Trump administration is trying mightily to gut the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the law that mandates rigorous, science-based environmental impact reviews for major infrastructure and construction projects prior to federal permitting. NEPA also reserves significant time for the public to weigh in on the impact of projects to […]

Low-income and minority communities are particularly vulnerable to the climate crisis. They tend to be the most affected by extreme weather events, by air pollution, and by chemicals in drinking water. House Democrats put forth an environmental justice bill yesterday to help marginalized communities that have been ignored in the Capitol, according to The Hill. […]

Concrete and asphalt absorb the sun’s energy. So when a heat wave strikes, city neighborhoods with few trees and lots of black pavement can get hotter than other areas — a lot hotter. “Fifteen, 18 degrees Fahrenheit difference across the city at the same time,” said Vivek Shandas of Portland State University. Over the last […]