NEW SURVEY ON HOW MUCH BLACK PEOPLE CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT TO BE RELEASED

by Madam Toussaint on September 29th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Posted In: GREEN, BLACK PEOPLE, GREEN, CLIMATE CHANGE-GLOBAL WARMING

man-woman-child
Photo Credit: “man, woman and child” by Tracy Collins I chose this photo because sometimes I think we forget why the environment is important and who we take care of the environment for.

Former Special Advisor for Green Jobs to the White House Van Jones was and I’m sure still is a strong advocate for Black people understanding the need to be more concerned about the environment. All of this understanding should be placed in the context of the quality of life we enjoy, or don’t enjoy, for ourselves, our loved ones and our communities.

The Commission to Engage African Americans on Climate Change under the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies is set to release its second poll to gauge how involved with and concerned about the environment African Americans are. Given all of the changes we may have all experienced and today’s economic climate I am somewhat interested in seeing what this year’s findings are because this info is central to what sofreshandsogreen.com is about.

“The Seed, I Can Understand it, The Next Movement (SoulStage)” by The Roots

The New Birth version of Bobby Womack’s “I Can Understand It” is one of my favorite songs of all time and I was so impressed the first time I saw Black Thought sing this live with The Roots. They also perform “The Seed 2.0″ with Cody Chesnutt. I chose this song because my hope is that Black folks will understand we have more to lose than just about anybody in the climate change game. Sometimes we put surviving above everything else but environmental issues factor into survival. And we should do this for the seeds, the children, who just live in this world and didn’t make it.

I don’t know if enough African Americans were surveyed here for me to accept these findings as a good enough gauge of where we are but you can see the terms of the survey for yourself at jointcenter.org/climate.

Last year’s survey found:

  • A majority of African Americans (54%) characterize global warming as a major problem with another 24% thinking it a moderate problem.
  • African Americans between 35 and 64 years of age, and those with a college degree were more likely to believe global warming a major problem.
  • There is a strong consensus (81%) among African Americans that the federal government should take strong action to deal with global warming.
  • A majority of African Americans (57%) also say they think the marketplace can effectively deal with global warming but faith in the marketplace trails support for strong government action by 24 percentage points or about 30%.
  • A majority (53%) of African Americans view global warming as an issue of fairness and justice.
  • Younger African Americans (56-57%) and blacks living in the northeast (60 percent) view global warming as a fairness issue somewhat more than black seniors and African Americans living in the western states (44%).

    • FACT: President Bill Clinton launched the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) in 2005 as a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, designed to formulate and implement
    solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Member
    organizations are asked to make a “commitment” to action in order to address
    global challenges. Each commitment must be “new, specific and measurable.” ~ Reuters

    Do these findings sound about right to you?

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