Via Sam Smith, this important insight from "Facing South:"
According to new figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau, our country still has a poverty problem: over 38 million U.S. Americans live below the poverty line, 13.3% of the population.
What's striking is how completely the South dominates the list of states ravaged by poverty. Despite all those banks in Charlotte and all that Coke in Atlanta, eleven of the 15 states with the highest poverty rates are in the South:
STATE & PERCENT LIVING IN POVERTY
1 - Mississippi, 21%
2 - Louisiana, 20.2%
3 - New Mexico, 18.4%
4 - District of Columbia, 18.3%
5 - West Virginia, 18%
6 - Texas, 17.5%
7 - Arkansas, 17.2%
8 - Alabama, 16.9%
8 - Kentucky, 16.9%
10 - Oklahoma, 16.4%
11 - Tennessee, 15.6%
11 - South Carolina, 15.6%
13 - North Carolina, 14.9%
14 - Montana, 14.6%
15 - Georgia, 14.5%
Or another way to look at it: every Southern state except Florida and Virginia fall in the bottom 15.
Some say the South is losing its regional distinctiveness in today's homogenized world. But the above statistics may point to another conclusion: the South still has defining features, and one of the big ones is poverty.
Where are Grist and Sightline Institute? Seattle. Where are Redefining Progress and Ella Baker Institute? Bay Area.
Where are the big and growing states that are going to determine the national averages throughout the 21st Century? With the exception of California, they're pretty much in the South.
Looking over that list, what connects the "nonsouthern" states of NM and MT? They are both "natural resource" states with significant numbers of native Americans. In other words, in many respects they are much like the states of the old South as well -- states with a thin slice of white elites profiting off the labor of a large class of darker skinned peoples.
Who/where are the environmental powerhouses of the south?
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Comments
View as Flat
Sean Casten Posted 12:30 am
04 Feb 2008
How do those two factors tie?
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Werdna Posted 2:03 am
04 Feb 2008
Andrew Eisenberg
The gateway project is wrong---http://www.livableregion.ca
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Pompey Road Posted 2:19 am
04 Feb 2008
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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johnthetreehugger Posted 2:27 am
04 Feb 2008
this kind of question ticks me off. if y'all would spend a little time on the dang internet you might just be surprised at how many groups are working on a plethora of issues across the South.
y'all need to look a little closer - there are environmental groups, social justice groups, etc...
all over the South!
interested in poverty issues - look at the organizers and attendees of last year's U.S. Social Forum - organized by Project South out of Atlanta and a bunch of others.
mountaintop removal piss you off?
ALL OF THE GROUPS TAKING THE LEAD ON THIS ISSUE ARE SOUTHERN BORN AND BRED.
google the following:
Coal River Mountain Watch
Kentuckians for the Commonwealth
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (in WV)
Mountain Justice Summer.org (with links to most ot the rest of the anti-mtr crowd listed here)
Katuah Earth First!
United Mountain Defense
Dave Cooper's Mountaintop Removal Roadshow
Save Our Cumberland Mountains
Appalachian Voices
ilovemountains.org
Appalshop.org
Christians for the Mountains
(there is also a new religious group here in Knoxville working on strip mining. i think their acronym is LEAF but i'm not sure)
energy issues:
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Southeast Energy Network
there are also anti-nuke groups in NC and GA
the one in GA came up with "No Nukes Y'all" as a slogan - which i thought was brilliant.
Also, next weekend, students in Valdosta, GA are hostin the 4th or 5th annual Southeastern Students for Renewable Energy Conference. This conference has consistantly drawn hundreds of student activists from across the south. There are student activists at every major University (and even a bunch of smaller ones in the South) - UT Knoxville, Berea College in KY, Warren Wilson in Asheville, Appalachian State in Boone, NC, Universtiy of Georgia at Athens, UNC Chapel Hill and many more.
water:
Tennessee Clean Water Network
in addition there is the Chattahootchie Riverkeeper and a bunch of other river and creekkeepers.
Forests and biodiversity:
Wild South (Public Lands issues)
Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project
Western North Carolina Alliance
Heartwood (mostley midwest, but allied with Southern groups as well)
Dogwood Alliance (tackling over cutting of forests for wasteful pulp and paper production and publically supported by the rock band REM)
Appalachian Voices
Southern Forests Network
Southwings
Wild Alabama
Cherokee Forest Voices
There even was a forest protection group in Mississippi a few years ago but i'm not sure what happened to them.
environmental racism
I can't remember the groups names but their used to be groups active in New Orleans around cancer alley, Memphis, Chattanooga and Atlanta. I'm sure some of 'em are still active.
climate
one of the US chapters of Rising Tide North America is in Asheville, NC.
There is also a Jobs with Justice campaign in TN and i'm sure other states as well.
There are also anti-war groups across the south many of which are hosting marches and rallies this March on the anniversery of the war.
There are also groups promoting sustainable agriculture and sustainable living across the south. Asheville, Knoxville and Chattanooga all boast the beginnings of a thriving local food scene that have locally oriented farmers markets and with Chatt and Knox both being homes to urban organic farming projects.
There are groups tackling almost every conceivable issue across the South.
The centers of southern progressiveness include
Asheville, NC and the area around Chapel Hill, NC.
Atlanta, Birmingham (AL), Chattanooga, Knoxville, Boone (NC) all have progressive scenes. some of 'em are small but they are there.
heck, you go visit Asheville and you might think you're in friggin' Eugene or Berkeley with all dang piercings, dreds, multi-colored hair cuts, organic produce, and more do-gooder groups than you can shake a stick at.
heck, even South Carolina has a progressive network - SCPronet if i remember correctly.
for independent media look up the Asheville Global Report and some of the remaining Indymedia.org sites in the south. Appalachian Voices publishes an excellent newspaper called Appalachian Voice which is distributed all over Appalachia. in east TN there is the Hellbender Press. Most of the groups listed have newsletters as well.
Don't see something you want to get involved in? by golly move here and fire it up.
seein' that we are overrun with corrupt politicians and a bunch of morons who think the planet is only 6000 yrs old and made for our overconsumption we could use all the help we can get.
This is only a small sample of who is active in the South. I used to know more but since i'm a radical on sabbatical so I can earn a stupid piece of paper from an institution of higher learning to certify that I know what i'm talking about regarding forests, I am no longer as connected as I was once to what is going on.
But, you can't say there is nothing going on here. There are all these awesome groups doing awesome work in communities that make any places outside of the South look like friggin' progressive Utopias.
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johnthetreehugger Posted 2:30 am
04 Feb 2008
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:22 am
04 Feb 2008
Yes, but guess what -- those people in the South are richer in another way...one in which the elite libs of Seattle and SF are not.
They have sunshine. They have warmth.
They live in the future climate of globally warmed America and so inherently, they need less to survive.
The other side of the poverty coin is: they can live there. With low end house prices at $270,000 in the Puget Sound, a poor person can't afford to be here. Add in heat and electricity and it's impossible. The smug inhabitants of these "high tech" areas are dependent on technological life support to make their lives possible.
Restore the Kuomintang!
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Tasermons Partner Posted 3:52 am
04 Feb 2008
They live in the future climate of globally warmed America and so inherently, they need less to survive.
We also have massive droughts and increasing water shortages.
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Pangolin Posted 4:16 am
04 Feb 2008
For what it's worth you're preaching to the choir on the coal mining issue. Nobody here seems very enamoured of continued coal burning. The real trick will be to convince all your southern brothers that electricity isn't some magic that comes out of the wall. It's coal and dirty air and bugs that never die back and no water in the tap.
Good luck.
Put the Carbon Back
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sterling925 Posted 5:38 am
04 Feb 2008
To put the poverty figures in perspective I'd like to point out that the national average is 13.3%. That means that #'s 11-15 (TN,SC,NC,MT,GA)are only slightly above the national average. While there are extreme examples, MS @ 21% and MD at 7.8%, 1.3 out of every 10 people in the US lives in poverty.
Does Maryland get a gold star for having "only" 428,000 people living in poverty? That's almost half of the entire population of Montana. California has 4.6 million in poverty, more than 10 times the number of those in West Virginia.
Examine the construction of your house first before launching projectiles.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/acs-08.pdf
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Pompey Road Posted 5:54 am
04 Feb 2008
On the original point, tree huggers below the mason/dixon line. Kentucky should count, I know I am not one of the white wine and cheese types but you need somebody down here in the mud also. I am working with some groups that are down here now, Sierra Club to mention one.
For the original post, we are not exactly the backwater of environmental protection but we are starting to wake up.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Pompey Road Posted 6:04 am
04 Feb 2008
Lot easier on the environment to grow it also, you may have hit upon something here.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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GreenMom Posted 10:16 am
04 Feb 2008
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gohuskies Posted 3:55 am
06 Feb 2008
http://www.sierraclub.org/environmentallaw/coal/plantlist ...
I personally am ashamed of my home state of Washington for its plans to build 3 more plants when we have so many available clean energy sources.
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