Union of Concerned Scientists
As Hurricane Sandy dissipates and recovery efforts begin, people are asking what role climate change plays in influencing such storms.
Oceans have absorbed much more of the excess heat from global warming than land and scientists understand that when hurricanes form, higher water temperatures can energize them and make them more powerful. Warming is also causing the atmosphere to hold more moisture and concentrate precipitation in stronger storms, including hurricanes. In the case of Hurricane Sandy, it retained much of its strength as it tracked across ocean water that was 9 degrees (F) warmer than average for this time of year.
However, the evidence is unclear when it comes to how frequently major late-season hurricanes such as Sandy may form in a warming world. Several factors, including differences in wind speed and direction, can break up hurricanes.
More broadly climate change is increasing sea levels globally, which affects all coastal storms, including hurricanes. Locally, sea level rise along the Mid-Atlantic and New England coasts has been among the highest in the world. Additionally, Hurricane Sandy made landfall during a full-moon high tide, which further drove storm surges that caused extensive coastal flooding. With continued warming, such high tides will become higher and more damaging.
“Human-caused climate change is delivering a one-two punch that is chipping away at our coasts,” said Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). “Sea-level rise and more intense precipitation from a warmer, moister atmosphere make coastal storms more damaging.”
New York City, which has integrated aspects of climate change into its disaster-response planning, is currently grappling with flooded streets and subways. Ekwurzel said that climate change and aging infrastructures challenge many coastal cities.
“For the most part, our sewers, roads and transportation networks were built for our grandparents’ climate,” said Ekwurzel. “When it comes to climate change, city planners need to be our first responders.”
The link between extreme weather and climate change is the subject of much ongoing research. A special report on extreme weather from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released this summer concluded that coastal flooding and more extreme precipitation were strongly linked to human-induced climate change and are expected to get worse in the future. By contrast, scientists can have only “low confidence” when it comes to the historical link between hurricanes and climate change. In the future, the report said, it’s likely that heavy rainfalls associated with hurricanes will become more intense. Overall, hurricane strength—measured as wind speed—is likely to increase while the frequency of hurricane formation is likely to either remain unchanged or decrease.
UCS created an infographic that puts the report’s conclusions about weather extremes and climate change since 1950 in context.
The size of the circles relate to the strength of the evidence for the connections to climate change of observed extreme
events since 1950. Assessment based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change SREX report (2012).
Figure source: Union of Concerned Scientists.
Last year, UCS prepared a backgrounder on Hurricane Irene which broadly applies to Sandy, too. It covers global sea-level rise, increasing rainfall for hurricanes and the hard economic choices coastal communities face in a warming world.
Earlier this month, UCS released a letter from more than 120 city and county officials and scientists in Florida calling on the presidential candidates to discuss sea-level rise.
So, what role does climate change play in altering the characteristics and impacts of extreme weather and climate events? What approaches exist for reducing vulnerability and exposure and for managing impacts and disasters associated with extreme events? Scientists discuss the findings of a new international report that brings together, for the first time, expertise in climate science, disaster risk management and adaptation. Watch the video below:
Visit EcoWatch’s CLIMATE CHANGE page for more related news on this topic.
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Fall is with us and winter is around the corner, so the season for colds and flu has begun — joining COVID-19. monstArrr / Getty Images
By Gudrun Heise
Just as scientists are scoring successes in coronavirus research, new problems are on their way. Fall is with us and winter is around the corner, so the season for colds and flu has begun — joining COVID-19.
<p>The coronavirus is already new territory for science, and the effects of its combination with influenza are equally unknown. There is much speculation about what is to be expected and what will or could happen when these two dangerous infectious diseases come together. This is what is making it so difficult to prepare adequately for the cold time of year.</p><p>Coughing, sniffles and hoarseness in fall and winter are nothing new, and flu is also a regular feature of these seasons. But we can be vaccinated against it, and that is of advantage in diagnosing cases of coronavirus as well.</p><p>"If people who have been vaccinated against influenza still have flu symptoms, it is more likely that it is not influenza," says <a href="https://www.helmholtz-hzi.de/de/forschung/forschungsschwraund-virale-krankheitserreger/epidemiologie/gerard-krause/" target="_blank">Gerárd Krause from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in the northern German city of Braunschweig</a>. "This, in turn, makes it easier to decide matters regarding home quarantine and getting a clear diagnosis."</p>
Influenza Vaccination
<p>A flu vaccination may thus be able to narrow down the diagnostic options when flu-like symptoms occur, but whether such a vaccination also has an influence on the behavior of the dangerous new virus is — like so much else — not clear. "It is conceivable that there is an indirect effect. But it is, I believe, a matter of speculation whether it has an immunological effect in the narrower sense," says Krause.</p><p>Every winter, doctors' waiting rooms are full of people who are coughing and sniffing but who mostly turn out to have only a severe respiratory infection. According to current knowledge, the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, is also likely to be subject to seasonal fluctuations. </p><p>In winter, cold viruses, at least, flourish because cold and dry air offers ideal conditions for their spread. In addition, it becomes more difficult to air rooms regularly and intensively — an important further measure to counteract the coronavirus and contain to some extent the danger posed by aerosols.</p><p>According to the <a href="https://www.rki.de/DE/Home/homepage_node.html" target="_blank">Robert Koch Institute, Germany's public health agency</a>, between 5% and 20% of people in Germany become infected with flu viruses every year. These viruses are also dangerous and can be fatal. The flu vaccination must be adapted to the influenza viruses every year, because they mutate. But at least there is a vaccination.</p><p>Most experts agree that there is unlikely to be a vaccine against the coronavirus by the time the next wave of influenza comes around. And even if a vaccine were to be approved, many unknowns remain.</p>COVID-19 and Flu Simultaneously
<p>For example, there is a lack of practical experience in dealing simultaneously with SARS-CoV-2 and influenza. It is possible to speculate that having influenza could facilitate the entry of the coronavirus into the human body. "The general weakening of the immune system during an influenza infection could increase the susceptibility of a patient to a SARS-CoV-2 infection," Krause says.</p><p>However, it is uncertain how dangerous this double infection could ultimately be and what can be done about it. Krause is of the opinion that we must arm ourselves against all three diseases — colds, flu and COVID-19. If we have a cold, bed rest, hot tea and cough medicine usually help. We can get vaccinated against flu. But how do we deal with COVID-19?</p><p><span></span>Probably people can only hope that if they get the illness, they will have a mild form with as few after-effects as possible. Here, it will certainly help to stick to suggested rules on hygiene to reduce or prevent our exposure to the virus. In an interview with DW, Bonn-based virology professor Hendrik Streeck made it clear that COVID-19 usually takes a more severe course when there is a high viral load at infection.</p>Hygiene, Hygiene, Hygiene
<p>The same hygiene measures with which we are trying to get at least some kind of grip on COVID-19 also apply to influenza. The less we come into contact with viruses, the greater the chance that we will be spared an infection or that it will be mild.</p><p>These measures include general hygiene precautions such as frequent hand washing and the wearing of protective face masks. "The various hygienic measures against COVID-19 will also reduce the spread of influenza," says Krause. "Possibly, further connections of a more immunological nature will be discovered."</p><p>Let us hope that is the case, because the flu season hasn't even started.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Icebergs float at the mouth of the Ilulissat Icefjord during a week of unseasonably warm weather on Aug. 4, 2019 near Ilulissat, Greenland. Sean Gallup /Getty Images
Rising temperatures in the air and the water surrounding Greenland are melting its massive ice sheet at a faster rate than anytime in the last 12 millennia, according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
<p>The study, <em>Rate of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet will exceed Holocene values this century</em>, found that while Greenland is losing ice rapidly now, the worst is yet to come. At its current trajectory, the Greenland ice sheet will lose its ice mass roughly four times faster than at anytime in the last 11,700 years. The researchers say the massive dump of freshwater into the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">ocean</a> will disrupt the ocean's currents and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">raise sea levels</a>, as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/09/30/greenland-ice-melt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Washington Post</a> reported.</p><p>Advanced prediction models had led scientists to conclude that Greenland's melting ice, which is currently the largest contributor to sea level rise, is raising sea levels by 0.7 millimeters each year. And, by the end of the century, that number could increase anywhere from four to ten times its current contribution.</p>
<p>This new paper found that prediction to be a severe underestimation. It revised that prediction and accounted for a wide range of greenhouse gas emissions to conclude that Greenland's contribution to sea level rise will actually be much worse. By the end of the century, it will lift sea levels between 2 to 10 centimeters every year, according to a commentary in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02700-y#:~:text=Briner%20et%20al.4%20have,about%206%2C000%20gigatonnes%20per%20century." target="_blank"><em>Nature</em></a>.</p><p>The Washington Post noted that while Greenland is the largest contributor to rising sea levels, the melting ice sheets in <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/antarctica">Antarctica</a> may raise sea levels even more.</p><p>"We have altered our planet so much that the rates of ice sheet melt this century are on pace to be greater than anything we have seen under natural variability of the ice sheet over the past 12,000 years," said Jason Briner, a geologist at the University of Buffalo and lead author of the paper, as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/30/greenlands-ice-melting-faster-sea-level-rise" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> reported.</p>
<p>Briner pointed out that the current ice melt is not due to the natural variability, which is why it is so different from historical patterns. This melting is strictly man-made, which is unprecedented in the history of the world, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/30/weather/greenland-ice-sheet-melt-carbon-emissions-climate-change/index.html" target="_blank">CNN</a> reported.</p><p>The commentary in <em>Nature</em>, written by Andy Aschwanden from the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, noted that there is really only one way available to us to stop the acceleration of sea ice loss from Greenland.</p><p>"Thanks to the work of Briner and colleagues, we are now one step closer to the goal of accurately and confidently predicting mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet," Aschwanden concluded. "However, we are also increasingly certain that we are about to experience unprecedented rates of ice loss from Greenland, unless greenhouse-gas emissions are substantially reduced."</p><p>To conduct the research, the scientists used a combination of on-the-ground observations in southwest Greenland and advanced computer modeling. The geologists looked at the composition of Greenland's boulders to determine when ice was there and when it melted away. That analysis allowed them to put together an uninterrupted history of Greenland's ice sheet and a predictive model for the next century, as The Washington Post reported.</p>
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A grim new assessment of the world's flora and fungi has found that two-fifths of its species are at risk of extinction as humans encroach on the natural world, as The Guardian reported. That puts the number of species at risk near 140,000.
<p>The new report, <a href="https://www.kew.org/sites/default/files/2020-09/Kew%20State%20of%20the%20Worlds%20Plants%20and%20Fungi.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">State of the World's Plants and Fungi 2020</a>, and an accompanying <a href="https://youtu.be/fTHKjZyuUos" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">short video</a> were published by Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, and depict an international effort from hundreds of scientists from 42 countries who analyzed the health of thousands of animal species. The researchers looked at how people are interacting with plants, how plants and fungi are being used, and what opportunities people are missing, as <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/two-fifths-of-world-s-plants-at-risk-of-extinction-report-warns-1.4368362" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Irish Times</a> reported.</p>
<p>The report highlights that plants are crucial to sustaining life as they provide food, medicine, raw materials, fuel and food. And yet, the report notes, "Never before has the biosphere, the thin layer of life we call home, been under such intensive and urgent threat. Deforestation rates have soared as we have cleared land to feed ever-more people, global emissions are disrupting the climate system, new pathogens threaten our crops and our health, illegal trade has eradicated entire plant populations, and non-native species are outcompeting local floras. <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/biodiversity">Biodiversity</a> is being lost – locally, regionally and globally."</p><p>The report notes that scientists are racing against the clock to rescue plant and fungi species and they are also working to figure out how to leverage plants and fungi to combat the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-crisis">climate crisis</a> and food insecurity, according to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54344309" target="_blank">BBC</a>.</p>
<p>When Kew issued its first report in 2016, it found that 20 percent of plant species were at risk. That number has doubled in just four years. However, that does not mean that twice as many plant species are at risk. Instead, the huge jump in percentage is due to advances in assessments that now make a more accurate account for plants that were over- or underrepresented in the 2016 report, according to The Irish Times.</p><p>The fact that 40 percent of plant species are at risk paints "a very worrying picture of risk and urgent need for action," according to Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, as The Irish Times reported.</p>
<p>"We are also losing the race against time, species are probably disappearing faster than we can find and name, and many of them could hold important clues for solving many of the pressing challenges of medicine and perhaps even some of the emerging or current pandemics," he added.</p><p>The scientists involved in the research noted that more than 4,000 plant and fungi species were discovered last year. These plants are an untapped resource that holds tremendous promise as food, medicine and biofuels, according to the paper, as The Guardian reported. Some of the new species discovered include members of the onion family, plants similar to spinach, and relatives of the staple crop cassava.</p>
<p>Around the world, billions depend on plants as their primary source of medicine. The report noted that 723 species used as therapeutic treatments are threatened with extinction.</p><p>"We would not be able to survive without plants and fungi. All life depends on them, and it is really time to open the treasure chest," said Antonelli, as The Guardian reported. "Every time we lose a species, we lose an opportunity for humankind."</p>
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Flowers like bladderwort have changed their UV pigment levels in response to the climate crisis. Jean and Fred / CC BY 2.0
As human activity transforms the atmosphere, flowers are changing their colors.
<p>A study published in <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31267-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982220312677%3Fshowall%3Dtrue" target="_blank">Current Biology this month</a> found that the ultraviolet (UV) pigmentation of certain flowers had changed in response to the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate crisis</a> and the depletion of the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ozone" target="_self">ozone</a> layer. While this isn't something that would be visible to the human eye, flowers rely on their UV patterns to attract <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pollinators" target="_self">pollinators</a>. If those patterns change, it could seriously impact the ability of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plants" target="_self">plants</a> to reproduce.</p><p>"This has implications for plant reproduction of both native wildflowers and domesticated crop species that have UV floral patterning like canola and sunflowers," study coauthor and Clemson University scientist Matthew Koski told the <a href="https://newsstand.clemson.edu/mediarelations/researcher-travels-world-to-measure-how-climate-change-is-altering-the-color-of-flowers/" target="_blank">Clemson Newsstand</a>. "Altered UV floral coloration has the potential to disrupt pollination services."</p>
<p>To achieve his results, Koski traveled to Europe, Australia and North America and collected plant specimens dating from the 1940s to 2017. All in all, he and his team looked at 1,238 specimens to see how and if their UV pigmentation had responded to changes in UV exposure and temperature.</p><p>Overall, they found that UV pigmentation increased by two percent each year. This makes sense because flowers use UV pigment to protect their pollen from UV radiation, <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/flowers-are-changing-their-colors-adapt-climate-change#:~:text=Now%2C%20research%20suggests%20that%20over,UV)%20pigments%20in%20their%20petals" target="_blank">Science explained</a>. In an earlier study, Koski had found that flowers living in areas with more UV exposure, such as higher altitudes, had more UV pigment. This finding matched the researchers' prediction that flowers would evolve to make more pigment as ozone levels declined and UV radiation exposure increased.</p><p>However, the flowers' responses to both ozone and temperature changes were heavily influenced by whether the flowers had exposed pollen or not, Science explained.</p>
<p><strong>Flowers With Exposed Pollen:</strong> For these saucer-shaped flowers, like buttercups, UV pigmentation went up when ozone declined and went down when ozone rose.</p><p><strong>Flowers with Concealed Pollen:</strong> For these flowers, such as bladderwort, UV pigment levels were determined by temperature, not radiation exposure. If temperature went up, pigment levels fell, even if ozone levels also declined.</p><p>This is because concealing pollen in petals can protect it from UV exposure but also expose it to additional heat, Harvard plant biologist Charles Davis, who was not involved with the study, told Science. When temperatures rise, the extra protection risks overheating the pollen. Reducing UV pigment also reduces the amount of solar radiation the petals absorb and can therefore help keep pollen cool.</p><p>Pigment changes could impact plants' ability to attract pollinators because pollinators are attracted by a "bull's-eye" pattern that contrasts high and low UV pigment, Koski explained. Altering pigment levels could also alter the effectiveness of this pattern.</p><p>Koski told the Clemson Newsstand he hopes to continue his research, in part by investigating further how changes in flower pigmentation will impact their ability to attract pollinators. He also hopes to determine if changes to ozone and temperature alter flowers' visible hues.</p>
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A factory in Newark, N.J. emits smoke in the shadow of NYC on January 18, 2018. Kena Betancur / VIEWpress / Corbis / Getty Images
By Sharon Zhang
Back in March, when the pandemic had just planted its roots in the U.S., President Donald Trump directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to do something devastating: The agency was to indefinitely and cruelly suspend environmental rule enforcement. The EPA complied, and for just under half a year, it provided over 3,000 waivers that granted facilities clemency from state-level environmental rule compliance.
<p>These rule suspensions ended last month, but they almost undoubtedly caused an <a href="https://grist.org/justice/the-epa-cut-back-enforcement-during-covid-these-researchers-are-assessing-the-damage/" target="_blank">increase in pollution rates</a>, as one preliminary study <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3633446" target="_blank">already found</a>. What's worse is that we'll likely never know the full extent of the damage, as the agency also suspended rules for self-monitoring (and even before the pandemic <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-epa-is-unleashing-the-pollution-that-makes-us-vulnerable-to-covid-19/" target="_blank">monitoring was already limited</a>). Analysts at the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative found that, in March and April, industrial polluters <a href="https://envirodatagov.org/more-permission-to-pollute-the-decline-of-epa-enforcement-and-industry-compliance-during-covid/" target="_blank">conducted 40 percent fewer tests</a> compared to the same time in 2019, according to self-reported data.</p><p>In a country where pollution impacts are <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/03/11/702348935/study-finds-racial-gap-between-who-causes-air-pollution-and-who-breathes-it" target="_blank">disproportionately impactful</a>, the suspension of pollution rules in the middle of a respiratory illness outbreak is unconscionable — <a href="https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">several studies</a> have found that higher pollution exposure can lead to <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abaf86/pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">higher rates of death</a> due to COVID-19.</p><p>But, given the stark differences between racial groups when it comes to pollution exposure and effects, the temporary policy is downright racist. A 2018 study from the EPA itself found that, respectively, Black and Latinx communities were <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/the-trump-administration-finds-that-environmental-racism-is-real/554315/" target="_blank">exposed to 1.5 and 1.2 times</a> more particulate matter, a pollutant that can cause damage to the respiratory system, than white communities. Another study published in the <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em> in 2017 found that Black people were <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1702747" target="_blank">three times more likely</a> to die from exposure to particulate matter than the overall population.</p><p>Under Trump, federal climate policy has only become less and less stringent — The <em>New York Times </em>has documented <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html" target="_blank">100 environmental rollbacks</a> thus far. Such rollbacks are bad news for everyone, but they're especially harmful for Black and minority communities, which have <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/03/11/702348935/study-finds-racial-gap-between-who-causes-air-pollution-and-who-breathes-it" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">borne the brunt</a> of pollution for decades.</p><p>The fact that Black and brown people suffer most under environmental degradation is not news. But the dilemmas remain in the environmental justice community as they have for many years: How do we lessen the climate burden on Black and oppressed communities? How can we achieve equitable and drastic emissions reductions and transform our entire economy before the window of opportunity to prevent irreversible climate change closes?</p>
<p>For decades, one of the only legal tools available to an environmental justice advocate was the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, was written in the late 1960s in response to historical disasters like oil spills and injustices like the destruction of poor neighborhoods to build highways. Over the years, NEPA has been an extraordinary useful framework for communities to lessen or prevent environmental impacts of federal projects — in 2018, <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-latest-attack-on-the-environment-may-be-his-most-alarming-yet/" target="_blank">a judge cited NEPA</a> when they blocked the Trump administration's attempt to fast-track the Keystone XL pipeline.<br></p><p>While NEPA has helped <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/resources/never-eliminate-public-advice-nepa-success-stories" target="_blank">countless communities</a> in protecting against potentially harmful impacts, however, it also has major limitations. Though NEPA forces agencies to consider the potential impacts of a project, it doesn't require stopping or even mitigating those impacts. This is partially what has allowed polluters to choke out disproportionately Black communities like Louisiana's "<a href="https://truthout.org/articles/petrochemical-giants-are-slowly-killing-black-louisiana-communities/" target="_blank">Cancer Alley</a>" and New York City's "<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/04/new-york-south-bronx-minorities-pollution-inequity#:~:text=The%20park%20is%20a%20little,pollution%20levels%20in%20the%20US." target="_blank">Asthma Alley</a>" in the past decades. Early this year, the Trump administration radically <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-latest-attack-on-the-environment-may-be-his-most-alarming-yet/" target="_blank">rewrote NEPA</a> so that it would give more power to polluters, limiting public input on projects and eliminating the consideration of cumulative impacts.</p><p>"A big challenge is the way that NEPA intersects with other racist policies like redlining and things that existed prior to NEPA," says <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/person/hardin-sally/" target="_blank">Sally Hardin</a>, who formerly worked on the council that oversees NEPA and is the interim director on energy and environment at the Center for American Progress (CAP). While NEPA is a tool that communities can use to challenge projects such as the construction of a new oil refinery, the process requires time and resources that many can't afford; poor neighborhoods that can't afford to hire lawyers to review legalese or where citizens don't have time to show up to public hearings are more likely to find themselves with a new refinery than a wealthy neighborhood.</p><p>When communities do have the time and resources to oppose a project, though, states will find a different way to get around them. <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/how-louisiana-lawmakers-stop-residents-efforts-to-fight-big-oil-and-gas" target="_blank">Legislators in Louisiana</a>, for instance, who often receive financial incentives from oil and gas companies and chemical manufacturers, have attempted to outlaw protests against these projects.</p><p>So, while environmental advocates can use NEPA as a tool to further justice, entrenched racial and class disparities in the U.S. will be extremely difficult to undo, no matter the policy or politician. To <a href="https://www.weact.org/person/peggy-shepard/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Peggy Shepard</a>, the executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, the problem presents itself before NEPA can even come into the equation. Part of the issue, Shepard says, lies in permitting.</p>
<p>"You could have numbers of facilities emitting air toxins, numbers of facilities impacting water quality, facilities impacting soil contamination, a number of waste transfer facilities all in one community," says Shepard. "And because you're only permitting [pollution type by pollution type], you would say, 'Well, we've got one waste transfer station and it's okay, it's in compliance.' But what does it do when you've got water contamination, soil contamination, air quality, toxins? What's that soup?"</p><p>Yet another issue lies in unequal enforcement of certain laws, especially along financial lines — a 2009 study found that agencies <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/29738988" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">did not enforce crucial pollution laws</a> in poor counties as much as richer counties.</p><p>And, in some ways, unequal enforcement can be built into the laws themselves. For instance, as Climate and Energy Policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists <a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/about/people/rachel-cleetus" target="_blank">Rachel Cleetus</a> raises, the Army Corps determines and allocates resources for defensive measures for such events as flooding using a cost-benefit analysis. That analysis benefits richer communities because the market value of the property being lost is higher.</p>
<p>"There are lots of ways in which you can have neutral-sounding laws, but if you don't get out some of these underlying things and specifically target resources to set them right in some way, you're gonna end up with skewed outcomes," says Cleetus.</p><p>In Congress, some legislators are working to solve some of these problems at a federal level. Last month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California) introduced the Climate Equity Act, which would introduce the Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Accountability within the Office of Management and Budget and require relevant agencies to appoint a director of environmental justice. It would also require environmental legislation to come with an "<a href="https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/510920-harris-aoc-push-climate-equity-bill-with-green-new-deal-roots" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">equity score</a>" that rates the impact of the legislation on frontline and poor communities.</p><p>"The difficulty [with the equity score] comes in defining who those communities should be and how (and that definition should ABSOLUTELY be created by, and with, the impacted communities themselves)," says Hardin in an email to <em>Truthout</em>. The Climate Equity Act was crafted from advice from environmental justice coalitions, and though the bill likely won't pass soon, coalitions and communities most impacted must have a say in the process.</p>
<p>Though there are many hurdles to yet to clear, environmental justice movements have been making big moves across the country in the past few years. Initiatives like the <a href="https://ajustclimate.org/" target="_blank">Equitable and Just National Climate Platform</a> and the <a href="https://grist.org/justice/an-effort-to-bring-environmental-justice-for-all-goes-virtual/" target="_blank">Environmental Justice for All Act</a> have gained momentum among Democrats; and local groups are getting the attention of politicians to address some of the largest hurdles — permitting, unfair lawmaking and gaining grassroots political power.</p><p>Last week, Gov. Phil Murphy (D-New Jersey) signed an environmental justice law unlike any other in the country: Despite <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/08/27/new-jersey-legislature-sends-groundbreaking-environmental-justice-bill-to-governors-desk-1313030" target="_blank">powerful industry opposition</a> that stalled the bill for years, the new state law will <em>require</em> permits for projects like power plants and landfills to be rejected if they are to be cited in an already overburdened neighborhood. Other states require agencies to merely <em>consider</em> cumulative impacts in the permitting process with no mandate to act on that consideration — formerly, NEPA required all government-funded projects to consider cumulative impacts, but the Trump administration, in its <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-latest-attack-on-the-environment-may-be-his-most-alarming-yet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">gutting of NEPA</a> this year, rolled that rule back.</p><p>The bill was passed due to the tireless work of grassroots activists and environmental justice groups — Ironbound Community Corporation, New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance and <a href="https://www.cleanwateraction.org/releases/new-jersey-sets-national-precedent-environmental-justice-bill-signing-today" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Clean Water Action</a> — who fought <a href="https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2020/08/27/new-jersey-legislature-sends-groundbreaking-environmental-justice-bill-to-governors-desk-1313030" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">chemical and waste industry lobbyists</a> and <a href="https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/environment/2019/11/07/phil-murphy-preaches-environmental-justice-nj-but-his-actions-say-different-ford-ringwood-keegan/4124093002/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Murphy's administration</a> to push the bill through.</p>
<p>Grassroots and activist groups <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31082020/candidate-profile-joe-biden-climate-change-election-2020" target="_blank">have helped</a> Joe Biden better his climate platform, too, as he unveiled a new plan in July — his <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31082020/candidate-profile-joe-biden-climate-change-election-2020" target="_blank">environmental justice plan</a> is surprisingly good for candidate whose climate plan as a whole got an "F" from the Sunrise Movement last year. The plan includes creating and elevating climate justice divisions in the federal government and the White House, mandate pollution monitoring in frontline communities — which is currently <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-epa-is-unleashing-the-pollution-that-makes-us-vulnerable-to-covid-19/" target="_blank">notoriously terrible</a> — and spend 40 percent of the overall investments in the climate plan on disadvantaged communities.</p><p>Several of the initiatives outlined in Biden's plan are extensions of what the Obama administration already got started — expanding the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ejscreen" target="_blank">EPA's EJSCREEN tool</a> that identifies environmental justice hotspots, for instance. This is progress that should have been made years ago — and progress that could have been made under a different administration.</p><p>But Trump has reversed much of the progress on climate that the country has made not only since the Obama administration, but also from <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-latest-attack-on-the-environment-may-be-his-most-alarming-yet/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">decades ago</a> — including outright eliminating funding for environmental justice at the EPA. From here, as the climate crisis rages on, progress will be ever more vital to make. And, despite Biden's progress in climate over the course of the election, climate activists <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/joe-biden-pays-lip-service-to-climate-but-has-fallen-short-on-action/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">have their work cut out for them</a> – no matter who's in office come January.</p>
<p><em>This story originally appeared in <a href="https://truthout.org/" target="_blank">Truthout </a></em><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>
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