Expanding climate change mitigation approaches beyond greenhouse gases to also target related pollutants would have enormous public health benefits in the nation's most disadvantaged communities, according to a report released today by E3 Network and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

The report, Cooling the Planet, Clearing the Air: Climate Policy, Carbon Pricing, and Co-Benefits, found that the same industrial facilities that emit carbon tend to generate other harmful pollutants that actually pose a more immediate and direct threat to the health of nearby residents.  Adding these harmful 'co-pollutants' to a climate change mitigation strategy would have an almost immediate positive health impact on the health of millions of poor and minority Americans.  The research showed that the benefits would be comparable in economic value to the benefits of the carbon reduction by itself.

Read more at Environmental Expert.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, one of the nation's leading research and public policy institutions and the only one whose work focuses primarily on issues of particular concern to African Americans and other people of color, has named Dr. John B. Horrigan to head its Media and Technology Institute, which is a hub for research on how minority Americans use media, broadband and other emerging communications technologies as avenues of advancement.

Dr. Horrigan, who for nine years was Associate Director for Research at the Pew Internet & American Life Project, recently served on the Federal Communications Commission's team that developed the National Broadband Plan (NBP), where he created the research agenda for the Plan's digital inclusion elements.  He also designed and conducted the FCC's first national survey on broadband adoption and usage, the findings of which were highlighted in the NBP's first working paper.

Read more at Yahoo News, Marketwatch, and the Sacramento Bee.

Speaking at a forum at Howard University on the effective use of social media, political communications experts urged college students and other young voters to transform their Facebook and Twitter contacts into powerful political networks in advance of the 2012 elections.

The non-partisan forum on Wednesday was convened by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Media and Technology Institute, in partnership with Howard's School of Communications, NAACP, National Action Network, Voto Latino, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Hip Hop Caucus, IMPACT, Politic365 and BET Networks. "African Americans in particular are over-represented on sites like Twitter," said political commentator Jamal Simmons. "Transforming the contacts to good works can make a significant impact if this year is anything like the last election when African Americans played a critical role in getting this president elected."

Read more at Yahoo! News.

America's Wire today released a story on the growing number of hospitals that are closing or moving out of minority neighborhoods, leaving huge voids in health care services, especially trauma treatment, for residents of these communities. 
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"This problem has been escalating dramatically and is a consequence of a system where health care is a market commodity that is bought and sold by those who can afford it," Brian D. Smedley, vice president and director of the Health Policy Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, says in the article.

Continue reading at PR Newswire.