The research is sobering, but not surprising. The data tell us that communities of color are on the front lines of the environmental emergency. In the United States, racial and ethnic minorities are more than two times as likely as white populations to live with air pollution levels above the 90th percentile. In almost all large U.S. cities, the average person of color lives in a census tract with a higher surface urban heat-island intensity than those that are predominantly white, and those neighborhoods are also 50 percent more vulnerable to wildfire than those of majority-white residents. And, while property loss due to flooding disproportionately impacts poor white communities, scientists predict that, by 2050, increased flood risk will disproportionately affect Black communities. This racial divide only threatens to widen as the climate crisis accelerates.
But, as the world heats up, environmental leaders, community activists, and policy makers are working to create funding programs to address these inequities while decarbonizing the built environment.
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