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Using the National Climate Assessment in Classroom and Communities

Black Mesa Water Coalition

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Climate Change to Have Disproportionate Impact on U.S. Latinos

San Antonio, Texas, is one of two U.S. cities with a majority Latino population. 

Climate Change to Have Disproportionate Impact on U.S. Latinos
At work is a variety of factors particular to the fastest-growing American demographic.
May 19, 2014 By Kristine Wong

Although dramatic weather trends possibly related to climate change have been well documented across Latin America—Venezuela recently began rationing water, and precipitation and heavy storms caused flooding in the La Plata River Basin on the southern end of the continent—the effects of global warming on Latinos in the U.S. have been less explored.

Yet more than 50 percent of the population lives in California, Texas, and Florida, states expected to bear more than their share of climate change effects in the 21st century. That and other factors may make Latinos in the U.S. just as vulnerable to a warming planet as their counterparts in other countries.

Additionally, Latinos are disproportionately represented among those at lower income levels (one of four lives below the poverty level, compared with one in six overall), which makes people less resilient, and they are more likely to live in polluted environments or work outdoors, where they’re vulnerable to heat and air pollution (which has a high correlation to greenhouse gas emissions).

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, half of U.S. Latinos live in areas where air quality is below acceptable levels, and the population is more likely to experience health effects such as asthma hospitalizations and asthma deaths, according to the Office of Minority Health. Preexisting medical conditions like these make them susceptible to the effects of heat waves, added Dr. Patricia Romero Lankao, a research scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research and a member of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change. Studies have also shown that low-income urban neighborhoods, such as Phoenix’s Urban Core, heat up more quickly than wealthier neighborhoods because there is less green space.

“We know that we’re already experiencing respiratory illnesses, heart illnesses, heart problems, and waterborne diseases as a result of climate change,” said Adrianna Quintero, a senior attorney for NRDC and the founder of Voces Verdes, a coalition of Latino leaders and organizations advocating for policies that address climate change and support renewable energy. “So it’s really about exposure, and by virtue of working in agriculture, landscaping, and construction in larger numbers than many other populations, it becomes a much greater risk.”

Guido Franco, a senior engineer at the California Energy Commission and a coauthor of the section of the 2014 U.S. National Climate Assessment that focused on effects on California and the Southwest, outlined the cascading effects of high temperatures in the area, which he described as the driest and hottest area in the United States.

“High temperatures will result in higher levels of pollution, especially for ozone. Without climate change, without increased temperatures, the level of ozone will be not as high,” he said.

Higher temperatures “will also lead to shifts in the distribution of disease-transmitting mosquitoes,” the climate report stated.

Two factors among Latinos that will help them adapt to these changing conditions, Lankao said, are their social networks and family support.

“[It’s] one of the key drivers of the capacities [these] populations have to adapt and to respond to these challenges,” she said.

Still, Quintero was resolute. “All of these hazards are going to continue to increase if we cannot take action right now to reduce carbon pollution that causes climate change,” she warned.

This Oakland Project Is Connecting the Dots Between Climate, Food, and Health

(Photo: Ashel Eldridge)

This Oakland Project Is Connecting the Dots Between Climate, Food, and Health
S.o.S. Juice, a grassroots nonprofit started in 2012, creates solutions to the community's biggest problems.

Ashel Eldridge, April 17, 2014 takepart.com

In 2012 I started S.o.S Juice, which stands for System out of our System, an Oakland-based nonprofit that sells organic raw vegan juice, smoothies, tonics, and elixirs and popped up in areas that lacked healthy options for locals. In the early days, I’d set up a juice bar outside a fast-food restaurant and encourage people to make a healthier choice. Instead of opting for a processed product that was both bad for their health and bad for the planet, I got them to try fresh juice and gave them information about wellness.

Soon, S.o.S. expanded from pop-up juice bars to farmers markets, and my team now hosts monthly food justice, health equity, and spiritual liberation events at a local community center, United Roots Oakland. We bring in a variety of speakers, from activists to hip-hop artists, to educate the community on the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Over the past two years we’ve reached thousands of people.

It’s hard to feel like it’s ever enough. Nearly 50 million Americans are food-insecure, and many of them are low-income individuals and people of color. Yet, a full 40 percent of food in the U.S. is wasted—97 percent ends up in landfills, producing methane and contributing to climate change. It’s clear that we have an infrastructure problem, and our communities need a way to ensure environmental, economic, and health resiliency.

For me, I loved educating young people about climate for the five years that I worked at the Alliance for Climate Education, a national organization whose mission is to educate and inspire young people to break through the challenge of climate change. However, one day last year after I left a low-income, majority-minority high school, I felt like I wasn’t doing enough to get at the root issues of climate change: racism, classism, homophobia, and the many other preventable sicknesses that plague our society.

As I drove away from the school, I reflected on how my grandmother died from diabetes and my grandfather, who was a powerful preacher, died from cancer. I also recalled the way my aunt, a Black Panther, denounced oppressing another animal on so-called Thanksgiving. These issues and the fight to solve them feel like they're in my blood.

That’s why I want to scale up my efforts to make a larger, more holistic impact. I want to promote health for low-income communities, support sustainable agriculture, and create green career paths. I’ve come to the realization that my community needs something bigger than juice—we need an urban pharmacy.

I’m in the process of launching Urban Fx—Urban Farmacy Oakland—to solve issues of food waste, food security, community health, climate, and employment. The project will be supplied by its own net-zero co-op commercial kitchen and distribution facility that creates community resiliency through a regional food hub, selling locally sourced foods and healing products.

I envision Urban Fx working as a membership-based net-zero facility that processes, stores, and inventories foraged, donated, and locally grown quality organic seeds, starts, food from urban gardens, small farms, and food businesses within a 180-mile radius. We’ll map and register our local food assets. Food waste will then be turned into a compost product via vermiculture stations positioned around the perimeter of the facility.

All told, I want to create a home base for locals to heal themselves, learn about healthy lives, and build a community of entrepreneurs, food justice advocates, urban farmers, nutritionists, and spiritual leaders.

Because it’s tough to ask people to care about climate when they’re worried about food and shelter, Urban Fx needs to create green jobs for people recently released from jail and low-income, low-skilled individuals. Job training will include experiential education in nutrition, agriculture, and entrepreneurship. I even have plans to refurbish one into a food truck and mobile education platform.

With S.o.S. and Urban Fx, I’m just one community activist trying to chip away at some big problems. This idea is ambitious—I have plenty of work to do—but I’m not waiting for someone to do to or for my community. What would this look like in your neighborhood?

Local View: Fight global warming at home

Local View: Fight global warming at home
ROGER HOLMES, April 10, 2014 journalstar.com

This week the United Nations will release its latest assessment of global warming. By all reports, it will paint a frightening picture of the future on a heated-up planet. Without drastic measures, it will say, our fate is sealed. Are we capable of such measures?

Many, apparently including the editorial board of the Lincoln Journal Star, think not. Adaptation, not fundamental change, is either all that is warranted or all that is possible.

I am not yet ready to run up the white flag. While some of the effects of global warming have been made unavoidable by years of collective indifference to this man-made calamity, there is still time to mitigate rather than capitulate.

Measures to slow or halt global warming will not be easy or inexpensive; they will require sacrifice and fundamental changes in the way we live. But no one should imagine that “adaptation” will be any less disruptive or painful.

The task is as vast as it is daunting. We all contribute to global warming every day — we heat our houses with gas; we run our appliances and machines with coal-fired electricity; we buy food, clothing, computers and most everything else, the production and shipping of which rely heavily on fossil fuels.

You can, of course, not buy that pair of imported shoes, dial back the furnace a degree or two, or buy locally grown produce. These individual actions help. But, as the U.N. report will indicate, we are in need of more, much more. Sound impossible? Remember that in a matter of months, we redirected almost the entire U.S. economy to the production of materiel and services for fighting World War II. Global warming poses no less dangerous a threat and will require a similar commitment to remedy.

What can be done? We don’t have a lot of time to ponder answers. The processes driving global warming are relentless and cumulative. So, rather than waiting for a national or even state initiative, I think we, the citizens of Lincoln, can ourselves initiate some of the bold action required.

Every day almost every adult in Lincoln is directly responsible for spewing greenhouse gases into the air. All it takes is a turn of the ignition key in your car. We, and our fellow U.S. citizens, produce nearly half of the greenhouse gases released in the world by cars and light trucks. There is something we, here in Lincoln, can do about this.

We can challenge ourselves and our elected officials to reduce by half the number of personal vehicles on Lincoln’s roads in 10 years. This is doable entirely on our own. We wouldn’t need to negotiate with distant power plants, await the creation of electric or hydrogen-fueled cars, or find local sources for all the goods we depend on. We have only to figure out how to get where we want to go — half the time — by means other than our personal cars. Those means are already at hand; what we have to provide is the effort and ingenuity to put them together.

And, most of all, the commitment to do so.

What good would it do? Admittedly, our efforts alone would hardly remove a ripple from the sea of greenhouse gas emissions. But what if we inspire other towns and cities to action? We, as members of the worldwide community, have to start somewhere. Why not at home?

Graphic: Pessimistic or Optimistic?

Locals demand action as extreme weather ravages Argentina's cities

Extreme weather is ravaging Argentina's urban centers. Locals want to know how the government is preparing to protect them against flash floods, extreme heat and drought.

Locals demand action as extreme weather ravages Argentina's cities
 Eilís O'Neill, 27.02.2014 dw.de

At about 4:30 in the morning on April 2, 2013, Federico Brusau woke to the sound of a neighbor ringing his doorbell again and again. The water level in the street was rising quickly, and people were preparing for the worst.

Brusau rushed to shut the floodgates on his home and save his electronics. Then he hurried to his rooftop terrace to unclog its already-overflowing drains. By the time he got back downstairs, it was too late to do anything more.

“Everything was already covered with water,” he remembers. “It had come in over the floodgates and then through the heating vents. In less than five minutes, everything was flooded.”

The water level in the street had rapidly risen to 1.3 meters (51 inches) and spilled over Brusau's meter-high floodgates. Brusau had no choice but to retreat to his second-floor bedroom and waited for the rain to stop.

Extreme weather
Brusau, a 27-year-old who lives in the upper-middle-class neighborhood of Saavedra - one of the lowest-lying points in the city of Buenos Aires - was just one of the many people affected by last April's floods in Buenos Aires and La Plata.

The floods caused at least 50 deaths and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. Both cities, like many in Latin America, are built on flood plains. As global warming increases and extreme weather events become more common, devastating floods are likely to carry away more lives and property unless governments develop adequate infrastructure and emergency responses.

That evening, in the neighboring city of La Plata, 300 millimeters of rain fell.

Soledad Escobar, a La Plata resident, remembers stepping out of her home the morning after the torrential downpour.

“It was as if we'd been through a war,” she recalls. “The first thing I did was go to see a friend of mine who lived five blocks away who had water up to her neck. In that same block there was a woman who died, just meters from where my friend lives. She drowned in her house.”

What's to be done
As global warming increases, experts say not only Argentine cities, but cities across Latin America can expect both more droughts - like the one Argentina is experiencing now - and more storms, like the heavy rain that caused last year's deaths and devastation.

“Climate change has been underestimated,” says Antonio Elio Brailovsky, a local environment expert. “We're going to have more and more extreme events all the time.”

If local governments built infrastructure capable of handling normal storms, the effects of record-breaking rainfall wouldn't be so tragic, says Claudio Velazco, a hydraulic engineer and an expert on La Plata's drainage system. But, in dry years like this one, it's hard to make long-term investments to prepare for future storms.

The infrastructure that's needed is extensive. Environment expert Brailovsky says cities need to construct new drains in lower areas and, in higher areas, dams to hold back the water until the rain subsides.

Velazco, the engineer, says the money the local, provincial, and national governments spent on subsidies for those who lost their houses or possessions in last April's storms would have covered the cost of necessary public works projects. The government offers such subsidies because very few people have home insurance in Argentina.

Many homes are without insurance in Argentina. Fortunately, some palliative measures wouldn't require much of a budget, adds Brailovsky, the environment expert. He says zoning laws should be changed so that there aren't underground parking garages or power boxes in areas susceptible to flooding.

Making up for lost time
Plans to get Buenos Aires ready for the next storm are in the works. But the problem is, since 1940, city governments have neglected to build infrastructure to keep up with the growing population, says the city's Director of Infrastructure, Daniel Capdevila.

So, now, the city is doing its best to make up for lost time. In 2005, it hired a consultant to complete a “Hydraulic Master Plan.”

“The first thing we did was improve the Maldonado Canal, which is the watershed where one third of the population [about one million people] lives,” says Capdevila.

Next on the city's list is the Vega Canal, which drains the areas flooded in 2013. But, due to disagreements between the local and national governments, the city of Buenos Aires never got the loans it needed to finance the projects.

“The World Bank was pleased with the loan they gave us for the Maldonado, and wanted to give us money for the Vega,” says Capdevila. “But we need to work with the national government so that it backs the loan.”

Frustrated residents
Those affected by last year's floods say it's just a matter of political will.

In Buenos Aires, a group of residents from Federico Brusau's neighborhood, Saavedra, is demanding the city implement a plan to notify residents when a dangerous storm is coming and a way to send emergency vehicles to vulnerable sites when floods strike. And, if that doesn't happen soon, they plan to take their case to court.

Soledad Escobar, in La Plata, wants to see her taxes coming back to her in the form of infrastructure improvements and new public works projects - even in dry years, like this one.

“We want the government to take the problem seriously, to solve it, to listen to engineers…, to come to an agreement, to put together a task force, and to build the necessary infrastructure regardless of how much it costs,” she says.

After all, she asks, “What is the price of human life?”