If you're from Newark or Los Angeles, Miami or New Orleans, when it comes to climate change it sucks to be you.
A real estate web site, listwithclever.com, crunched the numbers from the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative to rank American cities according to their climate change risks and preparedness. It sounds counterintuitive but they found where the risks are greatest the preparedness is poorest.
When examining the 20 cities Clever spotlighted by income, those with higher rates of poverty rank lowest in readiness and highest for risks. The top five low-readiness/high-risk cities have large black and Latino populations, while the five cities at the top of the rankings for climate readiness that rank lower on risk have larger white populations.
When looking at the poverty rates of the largest 100 cities, the pattern still follows: The poorer the city, the higher its vulnerability to climate change, and the lower its preparedness for those impacts.
...Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption should help reduce future climate change impacts, and those efforts are necessary. But places like Newark, New York City, and many cities across the South are experiencing climate change right now. It’s great that Seattle and Austin are getting their acts together, but the poorer, less-white cities are where the needs are greatest.
Related to your post, I was watching a story last night about Puerto Rico. As they prepared for Dorian, drone footage showed that many houses still have tarps covering their roofs consequent to Maria two years ago. One man interviewed said he never even got a tarp. I can't imagine this happening if this were a non-Hispanic locale.
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ReplyDeleteYou can't imagine it, Lorne, because it wouldn't happen in any US jurisdiction other than Puerto Rico.
And we have the effrontery to say "Democracy" is the fairest of all forms of government there is. Sheesh ! anyong
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ReplyDeleteI believe progressive democracy is the fairest form of government, Anyong. Unfortunately we lost the last vestige of that about 40 years ago.
The book "The Water Will Come" Authors name escapes me right now...talks about all the money still being spent to keep Miami going with its multitude of exclusive condos and expensive areas. Miami relies on the Tourist Trade. The real thing is, should a storm take Miami down totally...this could happen....the area would go back to what it was before the money kings made it what it is today, a money back trap. Ayong
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