Teen View: Marginalization in Environmental Justice

By SAMANTHA SONNETT | Intern

Although the effects of pollution and climate change threaten all of humanity each day, they have a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities that have gone largely unnoticed until recently.

Many of the hardest-hit communities are low-income populations which, as reported by the International Monetary Fund, depend on natural resources to survive, such as fishermen and those in agriculture or forestry industries. Rising temperatures and pollution also create disparity in the poorest areas of dense cities, whose residents are very often mostly of color.

The Princeton Student Climate Initiative calls this “environmental racism,” which is defined as “the unequal access to a clean environment and basic environmental resources based on race.”

In Los Angeles, the inner-city areas feel the worst of it. According to the Los Angeles Times, record-setting heat waves have a greater impact between South LA and Watts, because there are less trees for shade, more pavement that permeates heat and many residents who cannot afford air conditioning.

In 2021, our city created CEMO, the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office, which has since helped to create more cooling centers, bus stop shelters for outdoor shade and access to affordable air conditioning. In addition, thanks to large federal grants last year, over 2,500 trees are being planted in disadvantaged LA neighborhoods to provide much-needed canopy shade to combat record-breaking heat.

Poor air and water quality from pollution is also a predominant issue. Polluted air is linked with heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and pneumonia in addition to other fatal diseases, as cited by the World Health Organization.

In Watts this year, the EPA ordered a scrap metal recycling plant to prevent its chemicals, along with sharp metal and lead debris, from washing down into storm drains. This industrial wastewater washes up onto a neighboring high school grounds and into the Compton River, which is a part of the Los Angeles River.

In East LA, community residents are opposing a permit renewal for the only lead battery recycling plant in the United States west of the Rockies, because its smelting process is known to release toxic and cancer-causing lead particles into the air, water and soil of surrounding neighborhoods.

Sim Bilal, Los Angeles County youth climate commissioner and lead organizer at Youth Climate Strike Los Angeles, expressed that environmental justice communities “are on the frontlines of multiple different crises.”

These regions face issues like lack of educational funding, low employment access, low healthcare access and substance abuse problems, just to name a few. Environmental justice communities are more heavily affected by the impacts of climate change because of historically discriminatory practices regarding housing, education, employment and healthcare.

Bilal and his family are from the South Bay and they have felt the direct impact of climate change and its effects. He explained that his grandparents met working in the area, and the atmosphere of burning fossil fuels, oil drilling and activities surrounding the LA port contributed to his grandmother’s development of cancer and early death at 50 years old. He said his mother suffered a similar fate, dying at only 25 due to environmental impacts on her health.

Now, Bilal explained, both his grandfather and aunt are sick for the same reason, and he has dedicated his life to fighting for environmental justice.

“People have built a life and a community [in the South Bay], and it’s not so easy to just leave,” said Bilal as he reflected on environmental problems in his home city. “It’s sad to think of how common it is and how the issue is dismissed so often.”

The issue in the South Bay is pressing and has sparked an immediate need for environmental justice; yet, the issue of environmental degradation on health and wellbeing goes beyond low-income, minority communities.

While these communities require immediate focus and should be a priority in climate action, more fortunate regions are simultaneously facing the effects of climate change. Outside of urban areas, surging global temperatures contribute directly to climbing rates and intensities of natural disasters (droughts, hurricanes, floods, etc.), a greater likelihood of food shortages, rising sea levels and countless other effects.

For example, increased levels of carbon dioxide from climate change are absorbed by the ocean, then a series of chemical reactions is succeeded by a release of hydrogen ions, lowering the pH of the water. This ocean acidification affects plant and animal life, causing issues for those that rely on the waters for food and other economic purposes—specifically indigenous populations like Native American communities.

If improvements are not made to our society’s contribution to environmental devastation, every community will suffer on all levels. The impacts of humanity’s actions are already being seen in our own town, with landslides, extreme heat and torrential weather patterns.

The easiest way to catalyze these necessary changes is to educate yourself. Learning about environmental justice, its origins and its impacts will open a world of opportunities for synthesizing meaningful contributions to the fight against climate change.

Global warming and environmental decay are issues that have impacted minority communities for much of the last 50 years, and actions must be taken. If justice is not served in one way or another, we will all succumb to the fate brought on by climate change.

Samantha Sonnett is a student at Palisades Charter High School and passionate about saving the environment. She is an activist with the American Conservation Coalition. She can often be found at the beach or strumming on her guitar. Samantha hopes that the world can continue to fight for a more sustainable future, in order to preserve the planet and avoid further climate change.