May 5, 2021: EPA EJ and Systemic Racism Series Features the Climate Safe Neighborhoods Partnership

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About this Event

Redlining data was key to Groundwork Trusts’ community organizing efforts to secure climate provisions in Richmond, Virginia’s master plan, green infrastructure in Elizabeth, NJ, and other public policy advances. Linking evidence of structural racism to current environmental conditions provides a powerful tool for communities working for transformative change. Learn about the Climate Safe Neighborhoods Partnership and how youth in two of Groundwork’s Trusts, Groundwork Hudson Valley, and Groundwork Richmond, VA, and other places are leading the way in working closely with residents and stakeholders to organize, mobilize, and effect systems change to make communities more resilient to extreme heat and flooding.

Speakers:

  • Cate Mingoya, Groundwork USA
  • Melissa Guevara, Groundwork Richmond, Virginia
  • Victor Medina, Groundwork Hudson Valley

Moderated by Charles Lee, Senior Policy Advisor for Environmental Justice, EPA


Date and Time: May 5, 2021, 12:00 – 1:00 pm EST

Register Here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/climate-safe-neighborhoods-partnership-tickets-148489944421


Background: The EJ and Systemic Racism Speaker Series will illustrate how addressing systemic racism is highly relevant to the missions of EPA and other environmental agencies. Understanding and addressing systemic racism and the roots of disproportionate environmental and public health impacts is key to integrating EJ in environmental policies and programs and achieving environmental protection for all people. We can all learn from the highly substantive and inspiring work already taking place in this arena across the nation. The objectives of this speaker series are:

  • Provide information on cutting-edge work in science, policy, and practice to strengthen the evidentiary link between historical inequities and current environmental conditions;
  • Inspire leaders and staff in government, communities, academia, business and industry, and civil society to think about how systemic racism relates to their own work by hearing from leading national policy experts, researchers and practitioners;
  • Align government leaders and staff with the leading work taking place in this area and create a cohesive environment for fruitful partnerships; and
  • Create intellectual ferment about dealing with systemic racism in a rigorous manner so that EPA and other environmental agencies can overcome their historical aversion to talking about race and systemic racism.

We begin this series with a set of five sessions that thoroughly examines the relationship of redlining and current environmental disparities. The recent National Center for Civil and Human Rights webinar on EJ, redlining and the climate crisis provides a good overview of this subject. Past and future speakers are:

  • Professors Robert Nelson, University of Richmond, and LaDale Winling, Virginia Tech, on Mapping Inequality, which provided digitized source materials of redlining maps for some 200 cities (March 4, 2021)
  • Dr. Jeremy Hoffman, Science Museum of Virginia, and Dr. Vivek Shandas, Portland State University, on research that documents redlining and the climate crisis (April 6, 2021)
  • Yana Garcia and Jaimie Huynh, California EPA, on CalEPA’s work on redlining and pollution (June 10, 2021)
  • Roundtable Discussion: Enhancing multi-disciplinary and multi-sector collaboration to address redlining and current environmental disparities (July 2021)

Future topics will include: Title VI and civil rights program, EJ research and analysis, rural inequities, and others. Suggestions are welcomed. Registration information for each session forthcoming. For information, contact Charles Lee (lee.charles@epa.gov) or Sabrina Johnson (johnson.sabrina@epa.gov).