By Audrey Peterman
The Environmental Justice Climate Webinar, “Think Global, Act Local” convened by the Florida State Conference of the NAACP in collaboration with Florida A&M University and the Space Coast Florida National Technical Association May 15, 2021 erased my doubt that Black people in Florida are sufficiently aware of the coming dangers and prepared to address them. While many communities may not yet know how the changing climate will affect them, it’s a huge relief to see the most pivotal organization in the Black American struggle for human rights making it a high priority.
Introducing the stellar group of scientists presenting on the webinar, Leon Russell, Chair of the NAACP declared, “Climate change presents a very present threat to this state and to many of us who live in the coastal area. We understand the science, we see the evidence. The NAACP must be on top of the game and make recommendations that ensure the necessary changes do not result in displacing Black and Brown communities.”
It’s also a great relief to know that other vulnerable communities around the country will benefit from the Biden-Harris’ administration’s intent to integrate environmental justice into their entire climate portfolio.
“This is not a box checking exercise,” said Dr. Letise LaFeir, Senior Policy Adviser to the administration, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “In compliance with the President’s Executive Order, we’re working to help shift the culture. We can see that discrimination is real, it has real and compounding consequences in the federal government. So trying to integrate equity and environmental justice, we can use science to help us get to a better place.”
The effect of unequal treatment from government agencies was chillingly on display after Hurricane Michael in 2018, said Attorney Leon Jacobs Jr. when, at the urging of a friend, he drove over to Mexico Beach in the Florida panhandle. Attorney Jacobs, President of the Board of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said redlining was shockingly on display, some areas getting help while elderly black residents of nearby communities got little if any help at all. He said while he was helping put a tarpaulin on someone’s roof an elderly Black woman came over and asked for help. When he went to her house he saw how her big glass front window had blown out, and the only help she’d received was a piece of wood left standing at her door.
Attorney Jacobs pointed out that while climate change is a scientific issue it has also now become a public health crisis, as Black and poor communities despair from the compounding effects of mental health stress, food insecurity, disease and other maladies. He said that local leaders at the county and city level are taking action on climate and cited the South Florida Regional Climate Change Compact as an example of the community coming together. But, he said, the Compact is paying very little attention to climate justice. He asked the seminar conveners and participants to help change that dynamic immediately.
Attorney Jacobs urged that we embrace President Biden’s infrastructure legislation because “we need a whole government approach. We need to go into communities, find out what makes them resilient, and help them get prepared.”
As I was unable to watch the entire seminar, I asked convener Dr. Brad Brown what he thought was most important for Floridians to know.
“I hope people would realize persons of African descent such as Nobel Prize winner Dr. Warren Washington and Dr. Samuel George Philander, a leader in climate scientist in the US and Africa, were giants in the field of developing the understanding of climate change.
“I hope they’ll see that the Biden administration has a Black female scientist, Dr. LaFeir at the top levels in NOAA and will move NOAA’s climate science to encompass environmental and Climate Justice. That African Americans such as Attorney Jacobs are leaders in the effort to slow climate change down and that the NAACP gives the highest priority to ECJ, as evidenced by NAACP’s Senior Director of Environment and Climate Justice, Jaqueline Patterson, assigning ECJ staff to Florida.
“Particularly with regards to climate change, Florida is ground zero and the Black communities need to be involved at the local level or they will be bypassed by the efforts to mitigate impacts. A world view is necessary from a Pan African perspective as the greatest impact of climate change will be on small island states and Africa,” said Dr. Brown, Secretary of the South Dade Chapter of the NAACP.
Whew! Well I guess I can lay that burden down. Floridians – and Black Floridians in particular, will have a roadmap and the strategic connections to make the difference we urgently need. I’m looking forward to the change.
Be the first to comment