January 2018

With the rise of climate change, resilience, and adaptation as pressing environmental issues over the past decade, subject-matter experts have continuously failed to include people of color and poor working-class people (often termed vulnerable or at-risk populations) in discussions that frame the underlying agendas of climate policy. It has been the experience of many, as…

Four years ago, after another summer of wildfires, I looked out from my spot at the Plumas County Public Health Agency and could still see smoke covering the American Valley and as far as the eye could see on the horizon. Not long after that, I traded in my office overlooking the Plumas National Forest…

“Perhaps the most important [intersection between homelessness and watersheds] that we don’t think about enough is the flood risk that is faced by the people experiencing homelessness. If they have placed themselves in stream ways or along the riparian corridors of our region, we have a Mediterranean climate here so many of our streams are dry most…

“Once a system has been working or functioning a certain way for long periods of time, we start to normalize the outcomes and the processes, and they become accepted as natural. Even if we can observe that people are suffering as a consequence. It doesn’t matter in some ways if it’s racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism –…

Originally published on the Union of Concerned Scientists Blog Climate activism tends to frame climate change as a problem to be solved by fighting against it, raising calls to reduce emissions in order to minimize or avoid the consequences of climate change (“climate mitigation”). Cutting emissions is certainly important, as lower emissions will lead to smaller temperature increases,…

Originally published on Thomas Reuters Foundation News With President Trump attempting to reverse global progress on climate change, it has never been more important to give a voice to those living on the frontline. Almost 41 million people have been affected by flooding and landslides in Bangladesh, India and Nepal in recent months. The UN…