This week we celebrate Earth Day, an international campaign for environmental awareness and protection. While this is a time to celebrate our planet, we are also reminded of the great environmental risks facing communities of color and their resilience to protect both the planet and their communities. We need to address environmental justice in communities of color and recognize their valuable contributions toward a larger climate movement. This should be part of the policy discussion going forward.

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Conservatives claim the enforcement of clean air laws will amount to a loss of jobs and a “death for business across the country.” But communities of color rejected that argument. A recent poll conducted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies demonstrates that the majority of African-American voters believe the United States should pass legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and that clean energy will create more jobs and combat climate change. A large majority of the respondents believe everyone can do something to combat global warming. Similar majorities and views are found within the Latino and Asian communities as well.

Read more at the Center for American Progress.

As we consider the trajectory of green jobs over the past 18 months and where it appears to be headed, there is indeed a good story to tell. However, in order to appreciate it, we must come to terms with several setbacks.

Across the country, African American communities are suffering the consequences of the recession. Black unemployment is projected to hit a 25-year high and is nearly twice the national average, and joblessness is almost twice as severe for black men ages 16-24.

But people are not the only ones suffering. Our planet is in peril, too. The true threat of global warming, affirmed by the scientific community, does not go away when politicians and pundits stop talking about it or try to discredit it on cable television. The dirty economy, based on drilling and burning, is a direct threat to the health of all people, and especially to that of African Americans and other people of color.