dense city neighborhood
The bad news regarding climate change just keeps coming. Susie Cagle, writing in
Grist, tells us about a new study which shows that racial minorities are more likely to feel the worse effects of climate change.
A new study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives digs deep under the sidewalks and streets that are soaking up all this new heat in our cities — and finds that not all neighborhoods and racial groups are faring equally. According to the research, blacks, Asians, and Latinos are all significantly more likely to live in high-risk heat-island conditions than white people.
At first glance, this seems to make some sense: Due to a long history of racist policies and lending practices, people of color are more likely than whites to live in poor neighborhoods. Neighborhood infrastructure in poor areas is mostly made of concrete and asphalt (with some soil here and there, often tinged with heavy metals). Those “impervious surfaces” conduct heat like crazy, and turn these areas into "heat islands" surrounded by their richer, greener neighbors. But this study found something entirely new: The heat-island effect and lack of neighborhood trees is more closely correlated with race than it is with class.
The results of this study are not surprising. Living in a neighborhood with space and cooling dense, green tree growth helps its residents stay more comfortable and healthy in extreme hot weather. But
cities don't tend to invest in trees for poor neighborhoods, where residents without their own private green space aren’t in a position to invest for themselves.
The authors say this is the first study of its kind. They compared Census population data with the 2001 National Land Cover Dataset, mediating for factors such as income, home ownership, and density. Richer folks of color who own their homes are less likely to live in a heat island than the poor, but still significantly more likely than whites. The study doesn’t point to causality, but does mention past and present lending practices which have concentrated people of color in dense, urban neighborhoods that may or may not receive the same level of civic investment as other areas.
Fighting to mitigate climate change is not just an issue for elite environmentalists—it needs to include all of us. For the
most vulnerable will be the ones who will suffer the most severe effects.