Seattle has adopted a 40-page Equity and Environment Agenda. There’s a reason why that first word is first: Seattle didn’t create this document in a vacuum. It’s an impressive piece of work. The cliché has it that the devil is in the details of any policy or pact. True, but the devil is even more woven into implementation and enforcement. How well those are achieved will demonstrate whether this agenda is just a will-o’-the-wisp or the real thing. Clayton Aldern at Grist reports:
“Seattle’s environmental progress and benefits must be shared by all residents no matter their race, immigration status, or income level,” said Murray, speaking to press on Friday.
Sudha Nandagopal, the program manager for the city’s equity and environment initiative (and recently featured on the Grist 50 list of green leaders to watch!) led the development of the agenda by convening a group called the Community Partners’ Steering Committee. The coalition of 16 community leaders was charged with engaging communities of color and other groups disproportionately affected by environmental concerns.
“We had everything from karaoke nights to first graders drawing pictures of their favorite things to see on their way to school,” Nandagopal says. The result is “a call to action for government, non-profits, philanthropy, business, and community to work together in recognition that no single organization can reverse environmental injustice.” Nandagopal and the other authors lay out a series of policy-planning goals and strategies for integrating equity into the city’s environmental programs. For Nandagopal, that means making sure communities of color, immigrants and refugees, low-income communities, youth, and low-proficiency English speakers have their voices heard.
Portland has recently integrated equity considerations into its climate action planning. San Diego reconsidered its work in this area after environmental justice advocates criticized the city’s climate plan for its failure to prioritize neighborhoods most affected by climate change.
Seattle’s new agenda sought to avoid those kinds of shortcomings right from the start. “Historically, environmental justice has been held by community, not by government,” says Nandagopal. Getting the government approach right meant acknowledging this community ownership. “It was a question of trying to broaden how we think about environmental issues in our city and how we connect with people on a one-to-one level.”
Out of this community-centered effort emerged an over-arching social philosophy for developing an action agenda:
The Community Partners Steering Committee has worked with the community and the City to develop the Equity & Environment Agenda. The Goals, Strategies, and Opportunities for Leadership came from the engagement process. Many specific actions that came up from community during the course of the Agenda creation will be available online and require additional scoping and stakeholder engagement to determine feasibility and implementation.
No single organization can reverse environmental injustices or ensure equitable environmental benefit. Only by engaging government, philanthropy, historically white-led environmental organizations and communities most affected can we create change at scale. The Agenda provides Goals and Strategies which serve as a blueprint for the City to lead by example and for sectors to work together to advance environmental equity in Seattle. While all the strategies have a role for the City, many require collaboration and partnership across the environmental movement to succeed.
Communities of color, immigrants, refugees, people with low incomes, youth and limited English–proficiency individuals tend to live, work, play, and learn in specific areas of our City. Targeted investments will likely be necessary to advance the goals and strategies of the Agenda in these geographic areas to address disparities, mitigate impacts, and share benefits while minimizing displacement. However, geographic considerations should not substitute for race, as many of the concerns of communities would persist even if they moved to a new location.
Specific cultural and population approaches that are not geographically based must remain a priority, especially as communities move to new areas and new people arrive. Additionally, actions must focus on multi-generational approaches, especially the engagement of and support of youth. All implementation in this work will require consistent, creative engagement, with a feedback loop between community and government as well as a focus on both the process of developing environmental programs/policies and on the end results.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2005—Fake GOP letters:
Batswala Dala, France Amoore and Tom Shane all have published letters to the editor in Bay Area newspapers. Trouble is, none of the men exist.
Under dozens of pseudonyms, Kyle Vallone has orchestrated the publication of scores of letters to the Times, San Francisco Chronicle and the Tri-Valley Herald during the last decade. A Times investigation found that the San Ramon man submitted more than 100 letters under fictitious identities to the three newspapers. Vallone estimated that he has had a hand in 200 bogus letters published in Northern California newspapers.
Vallone said the idea occurred to him while he was working on a Republican campaign in 1994. He and other workers would write letters on behalf of a candidate and send them to a "tree" of supporters who would sign their names and send them to newspapers. It occurred to him that he could skip a step, make up fictitious identities and send the letters via e-mail. He used free e-mail accounts and various voice-mail systems, his cell phone and home phone numbers to pull off his hoax.
"That probably wasn't the correct thing to do, but we were just having fun. It wasn't like something that we really took seriously," Vallone said.
The funniest part of the story, however, are the newspaper editors acting shocked, shocked! that anything like this was happening.
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