Manny Salgado was featured in a Forbes story about the effort to protect massive amounts of critical environmental data the Trump administration has been trying to purge.
Caleb Smith was quoted in an Inside Climate News article on the impact extreme heat and air pollution is having on our communities: “Harlem residents have been disproportionately impacted by climate change due to extreme heat. It’s rooted in environmental racism and practices like redlining. It doesn’t even take what the National Weather Service calls an ‘extreme heat emergency’ for heat to start having serious impacts on health.” They added: “The next mayor must recognize that climate change doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s directly tied to cost-of-living issues and equity.”
Lonnie Portis was quoted in a Harlem World article on our coalition’s call for increased funding for parks, especially those in Northern Manhattan: “It’s no mystery why the communities that lack access to abundant and healthy parks and green spaces are the same communities disproportionately impacted by air pollution, extreme heat, and stormwater flooding. That is why we support the call for the next Mayor and City Council to address these inequities, and committing funding to support parks – especially in communities of color and low-income, where the need is the greatest – is a good first step.”
Lonnie was also quoted in a City Limits article on the slow progress of New York City’s electric school bus program, with the state law we helped pass requiring all school buses across the city to be powered by clean electricity by 2035: “We have been consistently calling for an oversight hearing to take place at City Council this entire year, but it hasn’t happened yet. Oversight hearings are the best way to let the public and local stakeholders know what the current state of these electric school buses are. Where are we in this process? How much money has been spent?”
An article in E&E News about CEEJH INC’s 11th Annual Environmental Justice and Health Disparities Symposium, at which Leslie Fields spoke, reported that our research found that “more than 80 percent of registered voters deem it at least “somewhat important” to prioritize action on environmental justice.”
Inside Climate News reported on the Stolen Futures dashboard and StoryMap (see below) we created with NRDC.
Chris Dobens appeared on Atlas Public Policy’s Buildings Hub Live video podcast discussing our building decarbonization and electrification work, including the passage of New York City’s Local Law 154 and New York State’s All Electric Building Act along with the Public Health Law Center’s Senior Staff Attorney Daniel Carpenter-Gold who discussed the litigation that protected both of these laws. Dobens explained the significance of the laws, noting that 71 percent of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions, the air pollution that contributes to climate change, are produced by buildings burning fossil fuels – and that both air pollution and the climate change disproportionately harm communities of color.
Our efforts to protect the Endangerment Finding got a shoutout in a Word in Black Op-Ed by ally Mustafa Ali. Learn more about the Endangerment Finding and our efforts to protect it here.
As part of our Climate Week NYC events, we participated in a talkback with the audience after performances of Sulfur Bottom, a play about a family that battles the environmental injustice of the cumulative impacts of pollution in their small town. Staff who attended were moved by this play and its depiction of environmental racism. Broadway World reported on our partnership along with the show’s extended run. Get Tickets for Future Shows
