Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) released a new environmental justice plan this week as she continued her quest for her party’s 2020 presidential nomination.
The plan is “aimed at bolstering and protecting vulnerable communities on the front lines of the climate crisis,” CNN reports.
“Our crisis of environmental injustice is the result of decades of discrimination and environmental racism compounding in communities that have been overlooked for too long,” Warren wrote in a post on Medium. “Industrial pollution has been concentrated in low-income communities for decades—communities that the federal government has tacitly written off as so-called ‘sacrifice zones’. But it’s not just about poverty, it’s also about race.”
The release Wednesday “offers new insight into how she would use presidential powers to orchestrate what climate activists often call a ‘just transition’ toward a green energy economy,” CNN says. “While covering a broad range of policy issues, the post is primarily focused on what her administration would do to prioritize neighbourhoods, cities, and entire regions with heavy minority populations—many of them still suffering from the effects of racist policies like redlining, which often placed families of colour in harm’s way.”
Warren’s campaign “has frequently sought to weave in detailed proposals directed specifically at communities of colour,” CNN adds. Her Medium post states that “one-size-fits-all” solutions can “open up space for the exploitation of those minorities and the poor. Because of that, Warren argues, more narrowly targeted policies are required.”
I read your newsletter regularly and am grateful to find news grounded in science facts and supported by respected organizations.
I want to draw attention to the Toronto 2016 statistic and relevance to the new billions of trees for Canada
Toronto Neighbourhoods with less than 5% tree canopy have 5x more heat related hospital ambulance calls.
There are many research papers that document the well-being of individuals to the green environment through the multitude of ecosystem services trees provide.
However, there is a great need for citizens to be involved to ensure the trees are actually planted and SURVIVE to provide future thinking about tree species to be planted.
Communities need to be supported not only to plant, but to maintain and monitor the trees they plant to track the success of their plantings.
Building community through tree planting builds healthy and resilient communities better prepared to manage climate change impacts.
Using an basic excel database that allows for cumulative data for later analysis is key to planning our future forests. Our policy is that tree planting programs must have 10% of the trees properly monitored using a common protocol to collect data and to make meaningful decisions.
ACER has worked with schools , municipalities and conservation authorities to train, equip and support their planting programs and monitoring of forest biodiversity since 1987. Trained volunteers use international protocols from Environment Canada and the Smithsonian Institution.
All reports and data on the trees monitored are posted for sharing.
Thank You
Hope you can make this info into an item for the Energy Mix
Alice Casselman
Founding President
Association for Canadian Educational Resources
http://www.acer-acre.ca
905-601-7685