environmental racism

Philadelphia Oil Refinery’s Toxic and Racist Legacy Continues in Cleanup

Philadelphia Oil Refinery’s Toxic and Racist Legacy Continues in Cleanup

The sprawling Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery has poisoned the Greys Ferry neighborhood for 150 years, and continues to do so even after it closed in 2019 following numerous explosions, Reuters reports. The scale of the toxic legacy left by the East Coast’s oldest and largest refinery — including poisonous waste fuels poured onto the […]

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    A Fair Clean Energy Transition Will Make a Stronger Society for All

    A Fair Clean Energy Transition Will Make a Stronger Society for All

    By Tara Lohan When Shalanda Baker stopped in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2009 to brush up on her Spanish before heading to Colombia, she didn’t realize it would be a life-changing event. She’d just left her job at a corporate law firm with the hope of lending her expertise to communities fighting coal mines or other […]

    Biden Faces Pressure to Tackle Backlog of ‘Unfunded’ Toxic Waste Sites

    Biden Faces Pressure to Tackle Backlog of ‘Unfunded’ Toxic Waste Sites

    By Jessica Corbett A joint report on Monday highlighted the pressure that President-elect Joe Biden is already facing to deliver on his environmental justice campaign promises—particularly when it comes to the 34 Superfund sites nationwide for which there is no reliable cleanup funding—the largest backlog of “unfunded” sites in 15 years. The federal Superfund program […]

    Five Climate Change Lessons From 2020

    Five Climate Change Lessons From 2020

    By Kristy Dahl In early January of this year, fresh off the experience of writing a year-end blog post for 2019, I started a project that I thought would make writing this year’s year-end post easier. I created a little 2020 calendar on which I planned to record the one big thing that happened in […]

    Biden’s EPA Pick Michael Regan Urged to Address Environmental Injustice

    Biden’s EPA Pick Michael Regan Urged to Address Environmental Injustice

    By Andrea Germanos President-elect Joe Biden will nominate Michael Regan, the top environmental official in North Carolina, to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to multiple news reports Thursday. The news drew a range of responses from environmental campaigners, including praise that the apparent choice means the rejection of California Air Resources Board […]

    Federal Wildfire Responses Subject to Racism, Economic Disparities, Study Finds

    Federal Wildfire Responses Subject to Racism, Economic Disparities, Study Finds

    The federal government is more likely to take action aimed at reducing the severity of future wildfires in white and wealthy communities, according to new findings reported by the New York Times. Poor households and people of color are disproportionately hurt by wildfires because they are often more physically exposed and are less likely to […]

    Trump EPA Issues Last-Minute Rule Making it Harder for Biden to Address Climate and Pollution

    Trump EPA Issues Last-Minute Rule Making it Harder for Biden to Address Climate and Pollution

    By Jessica Corbett With President Donald Trump’s first term soon coming to an end, the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday finalized a rule that critics are calling a last-minute attempt to “sabotage” future efforts by President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration to tackle the intertwined climate and pollution crises. Capping off nearly four years of Trump […]

    The Climate Crisis Is Already Killing People, New Lancet Report Warns

    The Climate Crisis Is Already Killing People, New Lancet Report Warns

    The climate crisis already has a death toll, and it will get worse if we don’t act to reduce emissions. That’s the warning from the latest Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, an annual public health report released Wednesday. “This past year, we have seen the harms of our converging crises — COVID-19, climate […]

    Affordable Housing Flood Risk Is Expected to Triple by 2050

    Affordable Housing Flood Risk Is Expected to Triple by 2050

    The threat to affordable housing from flooding driven by climate change will likely triple in the next 30 years, new research shows. The study, from Climate Central and the National Housing Trust and published in Environmental Research Letters, examined risk posed not just by extreme events like hurricanes, but also at the increasingly common threat […]