A new report finds that African-Americans in the United States will suffer the effects of climate change more severely than white Americans.
They are twice as likely to live in cities where the heat-island effect makes already-high temperatures more severe. They're also likely to be "fuel poor." Increases in energy demand due to greater use of air-conditioning and population growth are more likely to affect them.
"There is a fierce urgency regarding climate change effects on the African-American community," Ralph Everett, the co-chair of the Commission to Engage African-Americans on Climate Change, told Reuters. "People need to understand what is at stake -- our very health and well-being."
A survey of 750 black adults in the U.S. found that 81 percent said the government should take strong action on climate change. Seventy percent said it was an important issue for the 2008 presidential candidates to address.
The findings were announced on Tuesday at a press conference to announce the formation of the Commission to Engage African-Americans on Climate Change, a project of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Also this week, one of South Carolina's largest coalitions of black churches spoke out on global warming, citing concerns that blacks are more at risk due to global warming. Leaders from the 2,000 churches in the state that belong to the National Council of Churches said they would urge their congregations to write to their representatives asking them to promote alternative energy and climate action.
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Colin Wright Posted 10:05 am
03 Aug 2008
An article today in the Financial Post, Oil Sands Get Nod from U.S. Anti-Poverty Group, underscores the need for more energy education. The article presents the views of a newly-formed "anti-poverty coalition led by African-American civil rights and faith leaders."
According to the FP, "The group is waging a national campaign targeting 50 `extreme' environmental organizations and 100 U.S. politicians it says are restricting energy supplies through climate-change legislation, causing oil prices to spike to levels that are `strangling' the poor." According to the coalition, all energy is good energy, because it enables economic growth, and lowers energy prices for poor people.
Climate and depletion experts need to talk to these folks--and soon! They must be helped to understand that poor people will be the most immediate victims of climate change. And that the shift away from fossil fuels is not optional in any case: the price increases in oil, gas, coal, and electricity that we are seeing are NOT due to climate regulations, but to depletion and decline.
And I know I'm guilty of this one:
Climate and Peak Oil experts chatter to each other on Internet forums peopled mostly by white, middle-aged, middle-to-upper-income managerial types. Unless this communication gap is addressed soon, the fossil fuel-promoting dinosaurs, who want to maintain business as usual even if it means societal and ecological collapse, will have powerful new allies.
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