EPA Adminitrator: Environmentalists Must Reach Out to Minorities

Climate change is already impacting our rivers. In order to minimize these impacts, river and watershed groups need to urge our policy makers to take immediate action. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is encouraging environmentalists to forge new partnerships with low-income and minority groups to make sure that the climate crisis is properly addressed.

According to an email sent to me by my colleague Wendy Wilson:

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is urging environmentalists to “sell” low-income and minority groups on the idea that climate change poses a significant risk to them or face industry and other opponents of carbon regulation convincing them otherwise.

Jackson lays out her arguments on the role of minorities in the climate change debate in a recent column for the liberal Huffington Post. Her column was posted as a skeptical Senate prepares to debate climate change legislation this fall.

“If we don’t meet people where they are -- if we can’t ‘sell’ environmentalism to poor and minority communities -- then the individuals and groups opposing action on climate change, clean energy and other critical issues will. To confront the urgent environmental challenges of the 21st century, we need to make sure that every community sees their stake in this movement,” Jackson writes.

Minorities and advocates for the poor are considered key constituents for Democratic leaders in Congress, who are struggling to show that a cap-and-trade program will benefit all segments of society and not just Wall Street-type emission traders. Jackson’s column is an attempt to garner support from environmentalists in that effort.

The minority community is largely split on climate legislation, with the business-friendly Black Chamber of Commerce strongly rejecting a cap-and-trade bill. But it’s not just business groups in the minority community that reject climate legislation being considered in Congress. Many environmental justice groups are raising concerns about cap-and-trade, citing what they call disproportionate impacts on minority communities.

Meanwhile, the NAACP has lent its support to climate legislation, though it has not specifically endorsed the House-passed bill.

Read all of Lisa Jackson's Why We Need to 'Sell' Environmentalism