How to make sure racial justice is part of climate activism

Naomi Hollard was on her way to a climate summit, passing through one of Michigan’s most polluted zip codes, 48217, in southwest Detroit, when her throat started burning. Her view out of the car window was even more harrowing. Miles of toxic industrial facilities lined the landscape, and oil and gas refineries spewed black clouds into the air — right next to schools, sports fields, and family homes.

“And who lives in those homes, breathing the air filled with sulfur and seeing the petroleum coke spill into the riverbank?” Hollard said. “Black and brown communities.”

Hollard, a 21-year-old activist with Sunrise, a national movement that pushes for the passage of the Green New Deal, was first inspired to join the climate change movement when she feared for her family's safety after Hurricane Maria hit the island of Guadeloupe in 2017. Half of her family lives in the Caribbean, a region in which significant storms and hurricanes would directly threaten the livelihood of her family should climate inaction continue, Hollard says. Read more...

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