Environmental Justice/Climate Change

Neighborhoods with predominantly low-income and minority populations bear a disproportionate burden of the environmental and human health impacts of urbanization. Of particular note, low-income neighborhoods with larger minority populations experience significantly more urban heat than wealthier and predominantly white neighborhoods in Los Angeles.  This inequality has for decades played a central role in Los Angeles’s history of environmental racism and discriminatory redlining policies which exclude minorities from real estate investments. Extreme heat causes an estimated 400 deaths in California per year; and kills more Americans annually than any other climate-fueled hazard. Low-income neighborhoods are frequently targeted for industrial facilities and freeways instead of parks and green spaces, leading to so-called “urban heat islands.” A UC Davis study found that California has the greatest temperature disparities in the southwest between poor and wealthy neighborhoods than any other state in the southwestern U.S. Environmental justice combines multiple social justice issues, including, economic inequality, racial injustice, and climate change.