Global Warming Threatens California’s Major Ethnic Populations

New America Media, News Report, Donal Brown, Posted: Feb 17, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO -- Barbara Lott-Holland’s most fervent wish is that her 11 grandchildren thrive in a habitable world. She sees a clean environment as a basic human right, one that has not been guaranteed for her and others in her Crenshaw neighborhood in Los Angeles.

When she wears white clothing while taking the bus to her accounting job, she finds that soot collects like pepper on the white. Lott-Holland was one of the representatives of racial or ethnic groups, along with the poor, who were interviewed in a recently published study of how climate change will affect the most vulnerable Californians.

Her concerns about the adverse effects of the environment on health were echoed by Francisca Porchas, who is trying to promote a better bus system in Los Angeles and helped distribute 300 questionnaires in the community. Porchas said that one of their findings was that asthma was a huge problem among blacks, who live predominantly in urban areas. The report noted that the asthma mortality rate is two and a half times higher for blacks than whites.

The report, “Climate Change in California: Health, Economic and Equity Impacts,” was released last month by Redefining Progress, an Oakland policy institute dedicated to promoting sustainability.

According to the report, global warming is expected to exacerbate existing health problems in communities, and especially at risk are the elderly, women and children. Communities for a Better Environment also found in a separate study that one out of eight children in Southeast Los Angeles is not covered by health insurance. Parents are missing work to stay with their sick asthmatic children.

One person interviewed in Los Angeles said, “My family is uninsured and makes below $20,000 a year. I can predict future costs in terms of treatment. With ground level ozone or smog increasing with the heat, my family will most likely contract some kind of respiratory problem not that we’re not suffering from the consequences of bad air already in LA.”

The report describes a number of disturbing findings, all highlighting the reality that low-income communities and people of color will bear the brunt of harmful climate changes.

Among the findings:

-- Mortality rates for blacks from heat-related affects could increase sixteen-fold for blacks, fourteen-fold for Asians, twelve-fold for Latinos, and eight-fold for whites within this century.

-- Expected increases in food and energy prices will hurt low-income blacks and Latinos more than others since they spend more of their income on these necessities.

-- As global warming disrupts farming and tourism, people of color will find it more difficult to find jobs. Nearly 77 percent of California’s agricultural labor force is Latino.

-- Increases in temperatures and flooding are expected to increase the incidence of mosquito-borne diseases such as encephalitis and West Nile Virus.

While urging immediate action to meet the challenges of global warning, Dr. Michel Gelobter, executive director of Redefining Progress, sees hope amid the gloomy predictions. “There is great opportunity,” he said, “to take action to improve the economy and create a modern post-carbon economy.”

He sees lots of cooperation between nonprofits, government and business to address environmental threats.

Ansje Miller who helped write the report said that California is a leader in investing in technologies that clean up the environment and can have a great impact not only in the United States, but worldwide.

“If we develop the technologies, then countries on the developing path don’t have to use dirtier means in manufacturing. They can go straight to cleaner technologies. It’s called tech leap-frogging,” she said.

Porchas sounded a warning in pointing out that California’s Environmental Protection Agency is now proposing a cap and trade arrangement with industry that would allow them to trade emissions. The state would place an overall cap on total emissions, then allow clean operators to sell pollution credits to operators of dirtier, less efficient facilities.

Porchas reiterated that the poor and people of color are the ones living in the communities with polluting industries and suffer the adverse health effects of dirty air.

“The people who are most affected are the least responsible,” Miller said.

These are also people who have the least money to lobby elected representatives on environmental cleanup. To gain an edge the people with the least political clout insist that the right to a clean environment is inalienable and a human right.

Along those lines, Miller sees climate issues as human rights issues. “Climate change affects people’s access to water, food, health and jobs,” she said.

Lott-Holland sees industries as unwilling to change because of the costs. “They see the economics,” she said, “that allow people no profit in cleaning up the environment. And the poor are the ones who suffer first.”

Related Stories:

Why Blacks are Breathing Dirtier Air

How L.A. Sewage Ends Up in Central Valley Farmland





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