Greetings Kos Community, I’m one of the newest additions to the Daily Kos staff. Feel free to learn more about me on my masthead bio. I’m very excited to be joining the team, to continue the fight for equity and justice. I grew up and continue to live in California’s Central Valley where we have some of the most polluted air, which is why I wanted to share a little about how Trump’s dirty budget and dirty climate policy are disproportionately impacting Latino communities with my first blog.
I look forward to blogging on a variety of topics such as Education, Healthcare, Voting rights & suppression, Reproductive rights, Democratic party, CA legislation, Agriculture & farmworkers rights, Workers/unions, the economy, and Immigration.
The U.S. is one of the highest carbon dioxide emitters in the world. Trump’s climate change policy is going to make it worse. That’s dangerous for the entire nation, but it disproportionately impacts Latinos.
According to a study done jointly by NRDC and Voces, the top 5 polluted cities in the U.S. average a majority Latino population. Exposure to contaminated air and water causes serious health problems such as asthma and various cancers. Latino lives are also impacted by dramatic changes to the weather. These weather changes cause severe damages to communities’ basic infrastructure and jobs. This goes to impacts Latino’s ability to produce and provide for their families sustainably.
The Environmental Defense Fund writes: Latinos in the United States feel the effects of climate change more acutely than the general population. Latinos are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change because of where we live and work. More than half (55%) of Latino-Americans live in three states that are already experiencing serious effects related to climate change: historic drought in California, record-breaking heat in Texas, and increased sea level rise and flooding in Florida. Furthermore, Latinos are more likely to work in the industries that are deeply affected by the effects of climate change such as agriculture, manufacturing, and construction.
Latinos care about their environment and how it affects their families. In the Univision Climate Change/Global Warming Study conducted May 2017, powered by Media Predict www.univision.net to study CA Hispanic Attitudes toward Environmental Issues, they discovered that 9/10 hispanics believe that climate change/global warming is real and that it is the responsibility of the president and federal government to do something about it. In addition to that Hispanics also surveyed 5% points higher than non-Hispanics when it came to the belief that climate change is real.
What have the president and the Republican-led federal government done about it? They’ve made plans to make it worse. Trump's dirty budget has deep cuts to the EPA Budget that threaten the health of our families and most vulnerable communities. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, if the President succeeds in his plan to cut EPA’s budget by almost a third, the result will be more asthma attacks among children, more toxic pollution in our communities, and more lead in our drinking water.
These changes have serious economic impact implications. Health problems caused by pollution greatly set families back. Not just in medical bills, but in wages lost because of sick time. Apart from healthier communities, greener technology and jobs are better for everyone. Greener jobs are more sustainable and they provide better wages. Loss of those green jobs negatively impact entire communities as well.
What can Latino leaders do to combat this assault on our population? We need to stand up to our leaders and demand measures to defend clean energy, fight for strong pollution clean-up legislation, and support policies that will prepare Latinos for the new careers in clean energy. We need to take steps to make our community aware of all the ways that the Trump administration is attacking our community. These impacts are the cause of life and death situations for our families. These decisions have serious implications in the lives of people in our communities. We need to stand up and defend those lives impacted by these atrocious decisions and demand better plans.
For more information on what you, your community, and/or your organization can do to support cleaner healthier communities for everyone, visit EDF.org or NRDC.org.
The 2018 elections are not far away and we need to hold decision-makers' feet to the fire to ensure that our families’ lives are not put on the line.