WE ACT for Environmental Justice’s Post

WE ACT 2024 Policy Agenda: Check out the key campaigns and initiatives that we're fighting for in 2024 at https://lnkd.in/eGnKVQe5 Our fight for environmental justice at the city, state, and federal level in 2024 is centered around these key areas: ➡ Funding A Just and Equitable Future ➡ Accountability and Public Participation ➡ Civic Engagement and Voting Rights ➡ Clean Air ➡ Energy Justice ➡ Healthy Homes ➡ Extreme Heat ➡ Open and Green Space ➡ Sustainable Land Use ➡ Waste and Sanitation ➡ Toxics ➡ Affordable and Equitable Transit ➡ Workforce Development and Education A few of our priority campaigns including #NYHEAT, #GoodCauseEviction, #SafeCosmetics, #LeadPaint Right to Know, #CommunityLandAct, and #ExtremeHeat, are highlighted! For the full list of our campaigns, including background, where we're at now, and what we're planning to do in 2024 to advance justice and equity for low-income people and communities of color, read out full agenda at rb.gy/md9b5z

In Leslie Vasquez’s community, dirty air doesn’t stand a chance. This South Bronx Unite Clean Air Program Organizer is fighting for their right to #DaretoBreathe! Leslie and her team set up air quality monitor’s across the South Bronx neighborhoods most impacted by pollution from highways and factories to defend the health and well-being of people in her community. While looking out for the South Bronx, Leslie works with over a dozen environmental justice organizations in ‘Clean Air for the Long Haul’ to push the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set stronger national air pollution standards that are going to make all of us healthier. Watch and Share — and Dare to Breathe! #EnvironmentalJustice #CleanAir #DareToBreathe

New episode of #UptownChats is out! We're continuing our mini-series about the Wrong Direction that US energy policy is going with unproven, dangerous technologies. This week, Lonnie and Jaron sit down with Dr. Ana Baptista from The New School Tishman Environment and Design Center to talk about #carboncapture: what it is and why it's no solution for #climatechange and #environmentaljustice. Listen: https://lnkd.in/eZ4ba-Tt

Join us for our annual Membership BBQ on Saturday, July 20 at The Sojourner Truth School (PS-MS 149) at 41 West 117th Street (between Lenox & Fifth Avenues) to celebrate our members and movement. We’ve got some great activities planned for all ages, including art and crafts, environmental justice jeopardy, and a film screening of Cooked: Survival by Zipcode along with great food! Join us and bring a friend! 🎊💚 RSVP: https://lnkd.in/evBg4uaz

Good news on the #NYC #composting front! ♻ 🎉 Thanks to the tireless advocacy of our coalition and the leadership of CM Shaun Abreu, New York City Council has restored more than $6 million for community composting that Mayor Eric Adams had previously slashed from our city’s budget! This is not all that we have been asking for, but these funds will make this a foundational program that will support the continued rollout of curbside organics collection across the city and help reduce pests that have been plaguing our homes, streets, and greenspaces. It will fundamentally improve waste disposal for all New Yorkers and benefit the environmental justice neighborhoods just outside of New York City that have long been burdened with our waste. Thank you New York City Council for stepping up where Mayor Adams has not!

REMINDER: Join Peggy Shepard, Solar One's Chief External Affairs Officer Sara Radelet and Career Technical Education Program Manager Michaela Ritz for a discussion of #ClimateJustice, the importance of a #JustTransition to solar and other renewable energy sources, and how investors can help advance that. Moderated by Domini Impact Investments LLC's Director of Engagement Mary Beth Gallagher, this will be an in-person event on Thursday, July 11 from 6 - 7:30 pm at 180 Maiden Lane (between Front Street and South Street in the Financial District). It is hosted by Domini Impact Investments LLC, a women-led investment firm that is committed to harnessing the power of finance to help create a better world. RSVP: https://lnkd.in/eR8VE6zG

Following a series of #SCOTUS decisions last week including #chevrondeference, WE ACT for Environmental Justice Co-founder and Executive Director Peggy Shepard responded: https://lnkd.in/eJq5hamH “These short-sighted, dangerous rulings will destroy decades of precedent and progress. Staffed with subject matter experts, many of which have decades of experience in their field, federal agencies are uniquely suited to develop and enforce regulations, not judges. The decisions to remove the essential ability of federal agencies to carry out their fundamental task of issuing regulations based on science, public health, and community needs when implementing laws will create a public health crisis, particularly in communities of color and low-income which have historically been disproportionately burdened by environmental hazards. To appease corporate interests and an increasingly extreme political agenda, these decisions will sacrifice the health and well-being of disadvantaged communities as well as rob them of their legal rights to be protected from environmental harms. The implications of these decisions also mean we will have to increasingly rely on state laws to regulate pollution and protect public health. This represents a significant federal setback at a crucial time when agency-led policies – informed by community input and data – are urgently needed to safeguard environmental justice communities. However, it also represents an important opportunity for state-led legislation to move forward and prevent further damage. We encourage unified action to challenge these decisions. We would also like to stress the importance of advocating for term limits and reforming the judicial nomination and confirmation processes. Moreover, we urge the Biden administration and federal agencies to use their power to challenge these decisions. I call on leaders from across the environmental justice and broader environmental movement, and all advocates who believe in justice and our right to clean air, water, and land, to speak out. The Supreme Court and other federal courts cannot undermine our system of checks and balances with such decisions, which work against the best interest of the people.”

Want to learn about the impacts of #ExtremeHeat in communities across the country?☀️ Join America Is All In featuring WE ACT's Annie Carforo for a virtual panel discussion Thursday, July 11 at 1 pm. They'll be talking about the risks and impacts that communities around the country are facing due to extreme heat and the adaptation strategies that can be used to protect people from the deadliest impact of climate change. https://t.co/cKIESGWRIn