Organizers from the Texas Organizing Project (TOP) have been working to change the balance of power in the county to ensure a more equitable distribution of disaster funding, so that the people most impacted by climate change have the most say in how that funding is spent.
The Build Back Better Act would dramatically help working people and families. Now, the passage of this once-in-a-lifetime framework is in the hands of a few legislators who are beholden to corporations and the ultrarich.
The winter storm disaster in Texas was a crisis fueled by a failure to address climate change and the influence of oil and gas companies in state and local politics.
Gulf Coast communities face the same environmental and racial injustices they faced during Hurricane Katrina—except now with the overlapping crises of COVID-19, economic collapse, and uprisings for Black Lives. Policy change must undo this injustice.
“The potential for executive action to jumpstart the transition that we need — to reorient our democracy for democratic engagement and redress historic inequities — is huge.”
The COVID-19 pandemic is an environmental justice crisis—it has exposed inequalities that have persisted in places across the country with decades of pollution.
The future of our planet demands that we recognize our historic inequities and prioritize those who have been most impacted by climate change throughout history.
"I think Greta has been able to speak truth to power in a way that has resonated with a lot of young people who are frustrated, who have lived their whole lives seeing inaction on climate change."
If we want to pass climate policies that could actually help reverse the climate crisis, then we also need to fix our democratic system that gives too much power to wealthy donors and big polluters.
The Green New Deal is a vision for comprehensive national policy that addresses climate change at the scale and scope we need, creates living-wage jobs, and addresses racial and economic inequity by investing in communities.
In disasters, vulnerable communities face an environmental apartheid, absorbing the disproportionate burden of the impact. In recovery, they face discrimination.