Just Released! Order “Waking Up to Climate Change” by George Ropes, and receive 25% Discount. Learn More

HOME          CATEGORIES          OUR TAKE

Its an Emergency: People at Risk by CityTech blogger Angel Orellana

Many African Americans live in a place where they are exposed to toxic air pollution from from the fossil fuel industry. The study revealed that “more than 1 million African Americans live within a half-mile of natural gas wells, processing, transmission, and storage facilities, and 6.7 million live in counties with refineries, potentially exposing them to an elevated risk of cancer due to toxic air emissions.” This means that a lot of African Americans that live near these fossil fuel wells are exposed to hazardous air pollution which could result in cancer or health diseases. The president of the National Medical Association Doris Brown, is worried about air pollutants that the people are breathing, because in the future it could cause health diseases. The study used the U.S. EPA National Inventory and the National Air Toxic Assessment data which concentrates on emissions and health by county to make an astonishing find. The study found that the oil and gas emissions were attributed to 138,000 asthma attacks and 100,000 missed school days each year among African-American children. This is a big problem because kids are not only sick, but then fall behind in school. It is also an environmental issue because it affects the atmosphere which results in greenhouses gases and global warming. We have to find ways to reduce emissions or stop the fossil fuel industry because in the future it will affect a lot of people’s lives.

Photo Credit: Credit: Bill Abbott/CC-BY-SA-2.0

Comment on this article

ClimateYou moderates comments to facilitate an informed, substantive, civil conversation. Abusive, profane, self-promotional, misleading, incoherent or off-topic comments will be rejected. Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (New York time) and can only accept comments written in English.

6 Responses

  1. This is a really important issue and you provide a helpful introduction. Environmental justice is often overlooked studies on environmental degradation. Thank you for bringing up these points and providing helpful statistics. It’s good that you tie in the personal to the broad implications at the end, as well. I hope this topic will gain more mainstream attention and that meaningful work can be done to help low SES and minority communities faced with dangerous products of a broken system.

  2. Environmental racism is especially prevalent in New York City. Much research on environmental racism focuses on air pollution and exposure to hazardous materials. However, little formal research has been done to analyze spatial equity of urban green spaces and their accompanying ecological benefits. In a course research paper, I am currently using GIS and EJScreen to determine any patterns in NYC of urban green space distribution. So far, data found has suggested that higher income areas in New York generally have greater urban green space than their lower income counterparts in the same borough.

  3. I think this is an example that humans are not only destroying the Earth with the release of greenhouse gases they are also killing humans because the gases that are release to the air is causing people to get sick for example in the blog the author said the people they have a elevated risk of cancer because they live near the industries and also the little kids are getting sick because of all this pollution I hope people stop this because they are not only destroying the Earth they are also killing their own people.

  4. Thank you for bringing this important issue about how environmental effects on humans have been caused by the fossil fuel industry. As we may know, human activities are very important to the society we live in. The burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of carbon dioxide which leads to global warming. Therefore, we should take actions not only for toxic pollution caused by the fossil fuel industry but also to other risk factors that are doing harm to our community.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE


More Posts Like This

CITY TECH BLOG

My Take On Climate Change

My take on the subject of climate change is very mixed and can branch off to many problems that we would all face as humans. With the earth warming up and sea levels rising, the earth has changed and impacted humans and our environment in many ways. Ice

CITY TECH BLOG

My Take on Climate Change 

Since the 19th century, human science and technology has developed rapidly. And now the cost is emerging, and that is climate change. It manifests in many ways; we have all seen more extreme weather and disasters in recent years compared to a decade ago. Narrowing it down, the

CITY TECH BLOG

My Take On Climate Change

During my life, many loved ones, friends and colleagues have discussed environmental and climate issues with me. I have read many sources online and followed the suggestions of the city (of New York). My household recycles and composts. I have also heard from sources online that these measures