As wildfires ravaged California this summer, and the media would show video footage, first hand accounts, and stories of those who may have lost their homes, or were lucky to not have theirs engulfed in flames. Something the media has not discussed is that with the California wildfires, “Low-Income Californians Feel Twice The Burn,” writes Ana B. Ibarra.
Low income areas are at a higher risk because of environmental hazards that already exist. It’s in poorer communities where you will have toxic waste sites, poor water quality, and these communities are more likely to not have air conditioning.
As it turns out, it’s minority, low-income communities are targets for companies to dump their hazardous waste:
Several decades of research in the field of environmental justice has established clear patterns of racial and socioeconomic disparities in the distribution of a large variety of environmental hazards. Hazardous waste sites, polluting industrial facilities and other locally unwanted land uses are disproportionately located in nonwhite and poor communities.
Researches from the University of Michigan and Montana University looked into the location of hazardous waste:
The researchers found “a consistent pattern over a 30-year period of placing hazardous waste facilities in neighborhoods where poor people and people of color live.” Racial discrimination in zoning and the housing market, along with siting decisions based on following the path of least resistance, may best explain present-day inequities, they concluded.
“Dairy farms, packing sheds and oil fields, particulate and ozone pollution already poses a health threat,” writes Ibarra. This means that area’s in California where unhealthy air can remain trapped for days, the wildfires make it that much worse. Especially in areas like the San Joaquin Valley, where roughly 26% of “school-aged children have asthma.”
Even if this were to be the worse climate change gave us. This is a reality that would still have a negative impact on our resources, environment, and health.
The reality is if we don't act, this is just the beginning...
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