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.

When was the last time you talked to your electricity provider about something besides a service or billing problem? Put another way, does your utility ask for your opinion on its plans for the future? Do you feel like your concerns are heard?

There has been a lot of news lately about projects that focus on modernizing the electric grid, with some of it focused on legitimate concerns of customers that feel alienated and confused about what these projects mean for them. Electricity providers should respond to these concerns by communicating with customers about the grid modernization process.

Read more at The Huffington Post.

Climate change is more than an environmental issue. It is a human rights and economic justice issue. Why? Because though climate change impacts all of us, different nations, and different communities within nations, experience the effects of climate change in varying ways, some worse than others.

This point was clearly made at last month's U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen, where it quickly became evident that the rich and powerful nations — particularly the U.S. and members of the European Union— dictate the debate at the expense of poorer countries. That needs to change.

I was part of the only African-American delegation at the conference as a member of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies' Commission to Engage African Americans on Climate Change. We were there because African Americans have a dog in this fight. We produce less greenhouse gas emissions (about 20% less than other Americans, according to a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation study), but we bear a greater burden in terms of pollution and climate change.

 

Read more at USA Today.

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.

As a result of the BP oil rig explosion, millions of gallons of oil per day spewed into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of two and a half months, creating widespread economic, environmental and health consequences. Regional community advocates report that minority communities — Asian American, African American and Latino — have been disproportionately impacted. While they have been hit the hardest, communities of color are receiving fewer resources for recovery and their neighborhoods are more likely to be targeted for disposal of toxic oil.

WASHINGTON — This year the United States is experiencing one of the hottest summers on record. Whether that can be attributed to climate change is a question that is being debated. But whatever the reason for extreme weather conditions, whether it is hurricanes or sweltering heat, one thing is certain, researchers say: their impact is greatest on children and other vulnerable populations.

This article was previously available at diverseeducation.com.

WASHINGTON, DC – Children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, and only coordination across disciplines will make it possible to limit the negative impact on their health and well-being, according to members of a panel of experts convened today by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Washington, D.C. – Climate change is predicted to increase the intensity and negative impacts of urban heat events, prompting the need to develop preparedness and adaptation strategies that reduce societal vulnerability to extreme heat. The potential health impacts resulting from climate change are essential to policy discussions about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and about social adaptation to climate change. Children represent a particularly vulnerable group that is likely to suffer disproportionately from both direct and indirect adverse health effects of climate change.

WASHINGTON, July 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Climate change is predicted to increase the intensity and negative impacts of urban heat events, prompting the need to develop preparedness and adaptation strategies that reduce societal vulnerability to extreme heat. The potential health impacts resulting from climate change are essential to policy discussions about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and about social adaptation to climate change. Children represent a particularly vulnerable group that is likely to suffer disproportionately from both direct and indirect adverse health effects of climate change. Anticipated direct health consequences of climate change include injury and death from extreme weather events and natural disasters; increases in climate sensitive infectious diseases; increases in air pollution-related illness; and more heat related, potentially fatal, illness. Within all of these categories, children experience greater vulnerability in comparison to other groups. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies has brought together experts to discuss these issues with key stakeholders and provide policy solutions.

Read the Full Story at PR Newswire, TheStreet.com, Yahoo! News.

Politics will slow immediate substantive change to the nation’s energy and climate policies, but slow change is better than none, and a disaster like BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico helps push things along, a panel on environmental policy issues said Thursday.

“Politics is the art of the possible,” Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy for the Center for American Progress, said at the forum sponsored by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Weiss joined a panel of experts on the environment as part of the Center’s speakers series on critical issues in climate change. The focus was on the green economy, clean energy and the implications on policy changes in those areas in light of the oil spill in the Gulf.

Read more at The Washington Informer.