One of America’s more pernicious white supremacist policies was the discriminatory practice of redlining, a systematic denial of financial and other services based on race or ethnicity. This is typically associated with mortgages and other loans based on certain locations rather than on an individual’s creditworthiness. But it’s also been seen for personal, business, and student loans.
Robert Bullard
Redlining means what it says, as Darryl Fears at The Washington Post reports. In the 1930s, the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) literally colored red maps of areas it considered unworthy of loans because of “infiltration of foreign-born, Negro, or lower grade population.” HOLC also gave letter grades: As for solidly white areas and Ds for largely non-white areas. The result—the very much intended result—was to make it harder for Black and Latino would-be home buyers to obtain mortgages. While the practice has been officially dead since 1968, the impacts are still very much felt. A study released last week found it still has a harmful impact on the people who live in such areas, the majority of whom are Black or Latino.
The analysis, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters, found that, compared with White people, Black and Latino Americans live with more smog and fine particulate matter from cars, trucks, buses, coal plants and other nearby industrial sources in areas that were redlined. Those pollutants inflame human airways, reduce lung function, trigger asthma attacks and can damage the heart and cause strokes ...
This groundbreaking study builds on the solid empirical evidence that systemic racism is killing and making people of color sick, it’s just that simple,” said Robert D. Bullard, a distinguished professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University and the author of “Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality.”
The Post spotlights an area I know well, Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, where I lived for a year during the breakup of my marriage a decade ago. Latinos make up the vast majority of the 86,000 residents of the area. After HOLC mappers ostracized it as one of the least desirable for investment, it was encircled by four major freeways. Los Angeles overall suffers from above-average pollution, but CalEnviroScreen, a mapping tool for tracking by census tracts, gives most of Boyle Heights the highest pollution score available—100%.
Residential houses are situated next to an oil refinery in Los Angeles’ Wilmington neighborhood.
Co-author Julian D. Marshal said the study delivers the kind of information that can produce solutions. “One way is to document that the disparities we see today have a long history. The decisions and the actions we’re talking about were made by people who are no longer alive, and yet we’re suffering the consequences of this structural, race-based planning,” he said.
However, whether in sprawling Los Angeles or much smaller cities, Fears writes, racial inequality is so “baked in” that Black and Latino Americans who live within the very same HOLC grade as white people still breathe more polluted air because they live closer to pollution sources within the area.
Jean Chemnick went to the heart of the problem two years ago in her article, “America is still segregated, and so is pollution.” In 1860, despite the international slave trade having been illegal for nearly half a century, the schooner Clotilda arrived near Mobile, Alabama, with its cargo of 110 African children kidnapped from Benin at the behest of landowner Timothy Meaher. He had wagered $1,000 with some northern businessmen that he could smuggle slaves and get away with it. And so he did, scuttling the Clotilda in Mobile Bay.
After five years in chains before Emancipation, the newly freed slaves set up their own town, Africatown, a few miles from Mobile, leasing the land for homes and farms from none other than Meaher. But businesses also got leases. One was a paper mill that began operations in 1928.
Joe Womack, executive director of the advocacy group Africatown-CHESS, told Chemnick that the mill filled air, waterways, and lungs with ash. He said nobody told the residents the mill was a health hazard. Owned by International Paper Co., the mill pulled up stakes in the 1990s. In 2017, 1,200 residents sued, asserting that the operation had damaged their health. The company said they had no evidence.
Womack said, "I imagine that’s probably the same thing in a lot of areas where Blacks live. Others don’t want these businesses located in their areas near their homes, bringing down the values and polluting the air. So they move to the place of least resistance. And a lot of times, that’s in the Black neighborhoods."
“In a matter of weeks, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have gone from high-minded if watery talk of net-zero pledges to expediting permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure, inking previously unthinkable long-term supply contracts, and trying to ramp up drilling as quickly as possible. You’d think fossil fuel executives would be ecstatic over the reversal. But if CERAWeek was any indication, politicians’ new willingness to greenlight gas terminals and oil wells has made executives cocky, but not happy: They’ve got scores to settle.”—Kate Aronoff, 2022
SHORT TAKES
At Civil Eats, Steve Holt writes that the new Boston mayor “is embarking on the most ambitious food policy agenda the city has ever seen, and one that could serve as an example for cities nationwide.”
Last month Wu announced two new city operations—the Office of Food Justice and the GrowBoston: Office of Urban Agriculture. Their mission? Taking on food access and production, respectively, in a city with a huge gap between the wealthiest and poorest residents:
Beyond signing her name to food-related policies, Wu has ardently educated herself about Boston’s food justice and urban agriculture landscape and supported its growth, advocates say. As a young city hall staffer, she shadowed a dietician in charge of food access programming at Boston Medical Center and, in the early days of the pandemic, helped connect an Eastie Farm food distribution program with unreached families in need.
“We’re thrilled for Mayor Wu to be in this position,” says Erin McAleer, executive director of Project Bread, a nonprofit that addresses food insecurity in Massachusetts and worked with Wu while she was a city councilor to increase awareness of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, among Boston residents. “She understands food insecurity as a systemic issue, not an individual failing,” said McAleer. “She recognizes the power of policy change, but she also recognizes the importance of community-informed solutions.”
The Congressional Progressive Caucus, which represents 98 liberal members of Congress, presented President Joe Biden on Thursday with a 55-item list of recommendations for executive orders. They cover a lot of ground, from forgiving student debt to health care, from overhauls of policing and immigrant law to calling for the president to declare a national emergency on the climate crisis, spark a renewables revolution, and bring an end to oil and gas leasing on public land.
Declaring an emergency is something climate hawks such as People vs. Fossil Fuels and the Build Back Fossil Fuel Coalition have been seeking for some time. E&E Daily reported Wednesday (paywall):
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), a senior Natural Resources Committee and CPC member, envisions a sweeping order that would utilize the Defense Production Act to eliminate global and domestic reliance on Russian energy, expand the use of renewables and strengthen the administration’s authority on environmental rulemaking.
“It’s not a [Joe] Manchin workaround,” said Huffman, referring to the West Virginia Democratic senator who is blocking "Build Back Better" legislation and its hundreds of billions in climate spending. “It’s important not to think of this as alternative to 'Build Back Better'; I still hope we can get those tax credits and other pieces.”
Julia Bernal, executive director for Pueblo Action Alliance, told Common Dreams:
“Biden must take bold action by declaring a climate emergency and investing in real clean energy and actually sever the dependence of fossil fuel economy. Indigenous, frontline, youth and grassroots led movements have been demanding that the federal fossil fuel leasing program be reformed to ensure that communities have [equitable] access to clean energy grids and participation in planning processes. It’s important for this administration to adopt the principles environmental justice movements have thoroughly implemented as their center frontline communities and equity to further meaningful climate solutions.”
Last year, Dan Farber at Legal Planet wrote an analysis of objections to declaring a climate emergency, concluding:
People who believe that declaring a climate emergency would solve all our problems are off-base. But so are those who seem to think the sky would fall. An emergency declaration is a tool that would have some utility, and a political move that might or might not be productive. It’s certainly not the ideal process for making policy. It’s also not nearly as desirable as getting meaningful climate legislation through Congress. Nonetheless, we may reach the point where it will be hard to justify turning down any available tool, including this one.
While the California Public Utilities Commission has yet to decide whether it will follow a proposal to slash payments for electricity generated from rooftop solar installations, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill to do the same thing in the Sunshine State. They aren’t the first states where right-wing forces tied to the fossil fuel industry have sought to make rooftop solar less attractive to utility customers. This is done by imposing fixed fees and reducing payments under “net metering” programs. This effort at rolling back the clock has been going on for a decade. Attacks in several states—including Nevada and Arizona—stem from the efforts of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Koch Industries, and the Edison Electric Institute. See Earth Matters: Cal. solar proposal follows right-wing ALEC model:
ALEC has been out to throttle distributive—that is, small-scale, decentralized—energy for more than a decade. Its first target were the states’ renewable portfolio standards mandating a certain percentage of electricity be generated from renewable sources by a certain deadline. That campaign pretty much failed, so another tack was developed. Since 2012, ALEC’s renewables-busting target has been net metering. To roll it back, the council has written model legislation that seems in part to be the work of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), an association of investor-owned utilities. What CPUC developed looks very much like that model.
The advocates of wrecking net metered have propagandized this as an issue of equity, but that’s nonsense. If utilities and utility commissions really cared about people who cannot afford solar or who live in rental properties where solar isn’t an option, they would be pushing community solar. Instead, they oppose that too.
Two reports show how little these attacks have to do with equity or basic economics. Vibrant Clean Energy produced one, and in Rooftop solar: Net metering is a net benefit, the Brookings Institute looked deep and found:
So what does the accumulating national literature on costs and benefits of net metering say? Increasingly it concludes— whether conducted by PUCs, national labs, or academics — that the economic benefits of net metering actually outweigh the costs and impose no significant cost increase for non-solar customers. Far from a net cost, net metering is in most cases a net benefit—for the utility and for non-solar rate-payers ...
In 2014 a study commissioned by the Nevada Public Utility Commission itself concluded that net metering provided $36 million in benefits to all NV Energy customers, confirming that solar energy can provide cost savings for both solar and non-solar customers alike. What’s more, solar installations will make fewer costly grid upgrades necessary, leading to additional savings. The study estimated a net benefit of $166 million over the lifetime of solar systems installed through 2016. Furthermore, due to changes to utility incentives and net-metering policies in Nevada starting in 2014, solar customers would not be significantly shifting costs to other ratepayers
ECOPINION
‘This is a fossil fuel war’: Ukraine’s top climate scientist speaks out, by Oliver Milman. As western governments untangle themselves from Russian oil and gas, Svitlana Krakovska argues that the roots of the climate crisis and invasion are in fossil fuels. “Both the invasion and IPCC report crystallized for Krakovska the human, economic and geopolitical catastrophe of fossil fuels. About half of the world’s population is now acutely vulnerable to disasters stemming from the burning of fossil fuels, the IPCC report found, while Russia’s military might is underpinned by wealth garnered from the country’s vast oil and gas reserves. “I started to think about the parallels between climate change and this war and it’s clear that the roots of both these threats to humanity are found in fossil fuels,” said Krakovska.
The World's Climate Refugees Must Not Be Forgotten, by May Boeve, Mitzi Jonelle Tan, and Nisha Agarwal. While providing disturbing details of the threats facing humanity on a heating planet, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has failed once again to recognize the centrality of migration. “What more should be done? First, we must safeguard both the right to move and the right to stay. Climate finance to help at-risk communities build resilience and limit migration is essential, as are improvements to disaster warning and relief systems. But we also need financing to facilitate the safe movement of people when it is necessary. Most displacement happens within countries, not across borders, so we must ensure that poorer countries have the resources to manage both short- and long-term resettlement.”
Climate change is one of the growing factors in pushing Central Americans like these people to try to immigrate to the United States.
The U.S. Government Doesn’t Control Domestic Oil Production. But It Should, by Amy Westervelt. The oil and gas industry won’t increase production because it’s enjoying the profits from high prices. “[S]ince the industry is accusing the government of meddling with production anyway, why not call its bluff and start a real conversation about nationalizing the industry and marching it toward a transition to renewable energy? What we’re seeing now is an entirely unmanaged transition, unfolding in real time. It’s painful, and the future is completely unclear, but none of that has to be true.”
The Case for Declaring a National Climate Emergency, by Jean Su and Maya Golden-Krasner. Biden’s move to ban Russian oil imports shows he can act boldly when he wants to. One emergency that Biden must now act on with similar urgency is climate change. In fact, there is no greater emergency.
The U.S. Subsidy That Empowers Putin, by David Frum. Ending America’s foolish subsidies for ethanol could aid Ukraine. The United States is supporting Ukraine with aid and weapons and punishing Russian aggression with financial and economic sanctions. But the United States can do more to resolve the global crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine: It can end the ethanol program.
A Windfall Profits Tax Would Be an Inflation Rebate, by David Dayen. A cash benefit to families as oil prices spike would be more important than how it’s financed. “There’s a certain grimness to writing about U.S. public policy these days, in that you have to couch any prescriptions within the realities of our multi-veto-point system and a status quo preserved in amber. [...] It is in that spirit that I write about the bicameral proposal for a windfall profits tax on oil companies, which absent numerous bolts of lightning striking in Washington, D.C., isn’t going to happen. That said, what’s critical about this policy, introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), is how it actually builds on what Democrats and Republicans, on a bipartisan basis, did successfully at the outset of the pandemic to help people suffering from the economic fallout.”
WEEKLY ECO VIDEO
HALF A DOZEN OTHER THINGS TO READ
Richard Silliboy (left) and Norman Barnard (right) water hemp shortly after planting.
Micmac tribe in Maine is using hemp to remove “forever chemicals” from the soil, Can it work for PFAS-contaminated farms? By Alexandria Herr, Shannon Osaka, & Maddie Stone. “Because of their ability to bind to proteins, PFAS tend to bioaccumulate — building up in soil, water, and even human bodies. Under typical environmental conditions, they can persist for hundreds, even thousands of years. But there is hope at Loring: In 2020, researchers discovered that the Micmacs’ hemp plants were successfully sucking PFAS out of the contaminated soil. This practice, known as phytoremediation, could guide farmers across the country who have had to shut down after discovering their soil is tainted with the ubiquitous class of chemicals.”
Climate, justice, and the deep roots of regenerative farming, by Liz Carlisle. Female farmers of color are reviving ancestral methods of growing food and reclaiming their communities’ relationship to land. “Nikiko Masumoto is optimistic. The third generation to farm her family’s certified organic orchard in California’s Central Valley, the 36-year-old queer feminist performance artist–peach grower is well aware that hers isn’t the face that people typically imagine when they conjure up an image of a farmer. But she is working to change that, to build an agrarian culture that fully embraces diversity both on the land and in the community. Part of that work involves situating herself in her own family legacy on the land.”
What’s missing in California’s solar debate, by Sarah Sax. Energy justice advocates are pointing out a gaping hole in making renewable energy more accessible: community solar. “Even as community solar has boomed in other states, it’s lagged far behind in the Golden State. In 2019, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council gave California C and D grades for the two primary ways it offers community solar, and it has received similar ratings elsewhere. Energy justice advocates say that community solar is one of the most important ways to make renewable energy accessible to all, while community ownership is crucial to ensuring that solar’s benefits are more evenly distributed. ... This is especially important for renters, who make up almost half of California’s residents and are more likely to be low-income and people of color.”
The frontline of conservation: how Indigenous guardians are reinforcing sovereignty and science on their lands, by Jimmy Thompson. From catching poachers to documenting species to saving lives, guardians all along the B.C. coast are bringing back traditional practices of territorial safeguarding—and filling major knowledge and conservation gaps while they’re at it. “Up and down the coast, from the southern end of Vancouver Island all the way to Alaska, First Nations guardians are making their mark on their respective nations’ traditional territories. The idea has spread inland and across Canada, with guardians working in every province and territory in different ways. They’ve become intrinsic to national parks, resource projects, land restoration and much more.”
Part of a cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Climate-positive, high-tech metals are polluting Earth, but solutions await, by Claire Asher. “Green energy technology growth (especially wind, solar and hydropower, along with electric vehicles) is crucial if the world is to meet Paris climate agreement goals. But these green solutions rely on technology-critical elements (TCEs), whose production and disposal can be environmentally harmful. Green mining technologies and new recycling methods may reduce the impacts of TCE production. Plant- and microbe-based remediation can extract TCEs from waste and contaminated soil. But experts say a circular economy and changes at the product design stage could be key solutions.”
“Solidarity Is How We Win”: After Years of Fighting Toxic Scrapyard, Activists Celebrate a Victory in Chicago, by Keisha Reynolds. “By protesting and going out on hunger strike, environmental justice advocates helped stop a controversial metal scrapper from being built on Chicago’s Southeast Side. Their victory demonstrated the power of multiracial, multigenerational organizing, and solidarity across impacted communities. On Feb. 18, Chicago’s Health Department denied the final permit that would have allowed a metal scrapper to open a controversial facility on the city’s Southeast Side, a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood.”
ecobits
