Thread by @RadioMirage

Currently watching this briefing that is focusing on how Climate Change and Extreme Heat is an environmental justice issue. Working class and low income people of color are most vulnerable. Especially farm workers and warehouse workers.

We've reported on this @NPRCodeSwitch If you haven't listened to this episode, please do:

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@NPRCodeSwitch Krisitina Dahl, Senior Climate Scientist from the Union of Concerned Scientists says by the end of this century if nothing is done to reduce emissions, 60% of the U.S. will experience heat that is so extreme there is no way to quantify it on the current heat index.

@NPRCodeSwitch #housingsegregation in everything.

African Americans are more vulnerable because of where they have been forced to live, says Kristie L. Ebi, Professor of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences and of Global Health, University of Washington

@NPRCodeSwitch Arizona has the most heat related deaths, right now. The poorest people live in the urban centers with the least amount of trees. Concrete everywhere makes things HOTTER.

@NPRCodeSwitch People with chronic health issues are more vulnerable to extreme heat. The African American community and the Latinx community suffer, disproportionately, from Asthma, for example.

@NPRCodeSwitch Andrea Delgado, Government Affairs Director, United Farm Workers (UFW) Foundation says farmworkes have the highest rates of heat related illness in the country, RIGHT NOW. They are predominantly Latinx and indigenous from Mexico.

@NPRCodeSwitch Delgado says they need basic things to survive the extreme heat: access to potable water, shade and rest but there are few regulations to protect farmworkers from extreme heat, which is only getting worse.

@NPRCodeSwitch Ric O’Connell, Executive Director, GridLab says electricity bills are expensive and will only get more so as AC becomes more necessary. Places where bills are already high: Southern California, Arizona, Florida, South Texas - low income residents feel this most!

@NPRCodeSwitch ..if they even have AC...once again, you should listen to our podcast episode on this, where reporter @Mollydacious talks with Latinx folks in Southern California. There are regulations where there must be heat in apartments, but not AC.

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@NPRCodeSwitch @Mollydacious Ways to address extreme heat's impact on communities of color and low income communities: Kristi L Ebi says RAISE AWARENESS, open more cooling shelters and transportation to and from those shelters, information about where people can cool off, she says, it's nice to say...(cont)

@NPRCodeSwitch @Mollydacious ...give everyone AC, but that will stress the electricity grid and we will experience more brown-outs. Andrea Delgado from UFW says make sure representatives from vulnerable communities have a seat at the table and listen to what they need.

@NPRCodeSwitch @Mollydacious Kristi L Ebi says urban planners, city planners need to be thinking about the issue of extreme heat and ways to combat it.

@NPRCodeSwitch @Mollydacious Ric O’Connell, Executive Director, GridLab says we need to create a low carbon grid AND access to more AC...at the same time.

@NPRCodeSwitch @Mollydacious House Natural Resources committee and Arizona congressman Raúl M. Grijalva says there's a tendency to deal with climate change as something amorphous that we can debate forever. And, he says, we can't. "My god, we have people dying, we have people getting sick..."