Peggy Shepard

pressing New York City to fix the North River sewage treatment plant in the Hudson River that was ruining our quality of life by emitting toxic fumes.

And we began to ask ourselves a number of questions.

How could we transform the New York City diesel bus fleet to clean fuel buses, since we housed over 740 of the city diesel bus fleet in uptown depots?

How could we have a waterfront park along the beautiful Hudson River instead of a parking lot?

And how could we get environmental justice on the agenda of New York City, the state and the federal government to invest in sustainability in our communities?

I know that it only takes one person to reimagine what's possible.

And some policy change takes decades.

It took us 18 years to transform the New York City diesel bus fleet to hybrids.

However, it took only a few months to ensure that all New York schools are tested for lead in drinking water.

I know that so much is possible when we have the right political moment.

But to capitalize, we must mobilize a critical mass of people to create real change and to monitor that our policies are implemented in the way that was intended.

And environmental justice groups have done just that.

in a number of ways.

So we've created working groups and campaigns amongst people who have a real stake in the outcome, those most affected by harm or new policies, and we engage them in environmental decision-making.

Those are the people who have the lived experience who can best advise on climate adaptation and resilience planning.

Now, if their perspectives had been known and integrated into the interagency emergency response planning in New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina, then thousands of families would not have been stranded on their roofs waiting for rescue or sleeping in a sports stadium because the city would have already known that lower-income families living in a flood zone did not have a car to evacuate the city alive.

or a credit card to access a hotel room.

Another tactic we engage is we engage community in educational workshops that help them better articulate the data, testify at hearings, train residents to become citizen scientists who collect their own air and water quality data to influence policymakers and elected officials.

And those officials should resource every community to develop a climate action plan

that addresses neighborhood-level response and challenges to extreme weather events.