Peggy Shepard

It should be no surprise that every community should have a right to a clean environment.

Yet some are sacrifice zones.

Sacrifice zones, communities living on the front lines of pollution and environmental hazards.

But the good news is that we have a unique opportunity to address legacy pollution as we together build an equitable and just climate future.

Now this is a story about communities in crisis.

Mostly these are communities of black and brown and indigenous peoples.

It's often a story of low-income communities, but race, race is the decisive factor.

Now studies show

that an average middle-income black family with an $87,500 income is likely to live with more pollution than a white family making $22,500 a year.

Now, my organization, We Act for Environmental Justice, works within a movement of hundreds of environmental justice groups here and abroad to address the disproportionate impact of pollution borne by our communities.

So I'm talking about environmental justice, which is a civil rights and a human rights analysis of environmental decision making with a focus on the permitting, the permitting process that gives polluters permission to pollute within a regulatory standard for air, water and soil.

Now, these permits, they're an allowance that sacrifices the health of community residents.

The cumulative effect of multiple facilities sited in a community that emit high levels of pollution in close proximity to where people live, that contributes to glaring health disparities.

Now, Harvard University studies among black Americans living in areas like Harlem and the South Bronx

Those are communities which do not meet clean air standards as set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

And those studies have found that black Americans have died of COVID-19 at higher rates than others due to living in air polluted communities.

Now, that's not a surprise since the majority of people who live in areas that do not meet clean air standards are Latinos and black Americans.

And that's the case in an area called Cancer Alley.

Now, there's a song sung by the late Nat King Cole called Unforgettable.

And that is what Cancer Alley is.