“This is a moment of reckoning for racial injustice and health disparities. Doing nothing about air pollution, which so clearly has a greater impact on Black Americans, is racism in action.” — Catherine Garcia Flowers, a field organizer in Houston for Moms Clean Air Force, an advocacy group, in  “Climate Change Tied to Pregnancy Risks, Affecting Black Mothers Most,” NY Times, June 18, 2020.

“This really does set the stage for an entire generation.” — Dr. Nathaniel DeNicola, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and co-author of “Association of Air Pollution and Heat Exposure With Preterm Birth, Low Birth Weight, and Stillbirth in the US”

If you go to a panel on Climate Change, you may run into an all-white slate of environmentalists–a practice that has to change. (White people–refuse to be on a panel or in a reading line up, etc., that is all white. Just let the organizers know you won’t be part of an all-white lineup, and give them the names of other experts in your field whom they might contact. If you don’t have that list, get busy–and enjoy–building it now.) Everyone, please know that that optical misrepresents who is already suffering dire and direct consequences of climate change and who is most willing to take action about it. If you’ve been participating in or supporting the #BlackLivesMatter movement, you may not realize you are on the current edge of climate activism, too. 

A new study of more than 32 million births in this country reveals that air pollution caused by the climate crisis is associated with preterm birth, low birth weight, and stillbirth in the U.S., and “African-American mothers and babies are harmed at a much higher rate than the population at large” (NYT, June 18, 2020).

Meanwhile, a nationally-representative survey of public opinion reported in the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications uses a six-part scale to divide reaction to climate change, from Alarmed, then Concerned, all the way down to Doubtful and, finally, Dismissive. Two 2019 surveys found that Latinos and African-Americans are more likely than whites to be Alarmed or Concerned, while whites are more likely to be Doubtful or Dismissive. (Sound familiar?) 

The study also found that, “[c]ompared to Whites, Hispanics/Latinos and African Americans also report greater willingness to join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming.” in “Which racial/ethnic groups care most about climate change?”

The current empowerment of a movement led by Black Americans and made up of a refreshing range of folks bodes well for a planet desperately in need of leadership that knows what the crisis is and stands ready to solve it–to defund the defunct, to divest from fossil fuels, to refocus on what matters with the Green New Deal–all urgent actions required now.

That’s just one more reason why The Daily Dose supports: