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New Haven Climate Movement leader Adrian Huq: Covid and climate change are discriminatory crises.
Pollution can lead to respiratory illness, which leads to a higher chance of dying from Covid-19. Earth Day turned 50 in New Haven on Wednesday with that connection in mind.
Sunrise New Haven held an Earth Day rally as a livestream to comply with local and state orders to avoid spreading Covid-19. The crisis was on the organizers’ minds; each of the dozen speakers described the parallels between the virus shutting down workplaces throughout the region and the discriminatory effects of climate change.
“I would like to recognize that we are currently living through two crises,” said emcee Adrian Huq.
Huq is a senior at Metropolitan Business Academy and a leader in youth-led New Haven Climate Movement.
Yale graduate union member and East Rock Alder Charles Decker walked the roughly 150 attendees through a series of similar maps of New Haven. The first was a redlining map of neighborhoods where banks restricted homeownership opportunities. He then cycled through neighborhood rates of unemployment and asthma. The last image was of the neighborhoods Covid-19 has hit hardest.
Huq with Alder Ron Hurt (top right) and Alder Charles Decker.
City of New Haven
Covid-19’s disproportionate impact on minority neighborhoods.
“What you’re seeing is that these maps time and time again look the same,” Decker said.
“The map of areas devastated by climate change is going to look exactly the same unless we act now,” said Hill Alder and New Haven Rising organizer Ron Hurt.
In Hurricanes Maria, Sandy and Katrina, black and brown communities were hit the hardest and had the least resources to rebuild, Hurt explained.
(Read Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers’ Monday speech on the same themes here.)
The many activists represented on the livestream pitched the concept of a “Green New Deal” as the action that would solve both kinds of problems. By disinvesting from fossil fuels and investing in green jobs, the region could rebound from the Covid-19 recession and prevent more health and climate disasters in the future.
“This is a way for people to change their economic status in a way I have never seen before,” said Black Lives Matter New Haven leader Ala Ochumare. “Unlike the original New Deal, it does not leave out black and brown people.”
Highlighting the disinvestment side were Yale Endowment Justice Coalition members Anna Albright and Hamzah Jhaveri. They are pushing for Yale to disinvest from fossil fuels and Puerto Rican debt.
“It’s not even a good financial choice! Oil and coal have underperformed the market,” Albright exclaimed.
On the reinvestment side of the coin, the solution comes down to jobs, the activists said. This is the promise of a state bill titled a Green New Deal for Connecticut, Senate Bill 354.
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State Rep. Robyn Porter.
State Rep. Robyn Porter, who co-chairs the legislature’s labor committee, which is currently looking at the bill, described its benefits. It would funnel jobs and training in renewable energy sectors to low-income and marginalized communities, especially those “most likely to live in the shadow of a power plant,” she said.
A “Just Transition Office” in the Department of Labor would oversee this process. The jobs provided would be required to have fair wages and other labor practices detailed in the bill, Porter said.
At the local level, Huq said, climate-change activists want to see progress towards green jobs too.
Huq and other high school activists have pressed New Haven to put together a Climate Emergency Mobilization Task Force and devote 0.1 percent of its operating budget towards reducing its carbon emissions.
Huq said that Mayor Justin Elicker has set aside the requested amount, but for an infrastructure project rather than hiring paid, climate-focused staff (Elicker plans to cut positions elsewhere within the city). Huq said that the organization is now advocating for a permanent “climate justice and green jobs” fund.
Elicker’s response has been that he would love to fulfill those goals but the large number of tax exempt properties in the city, specifically those affiliated with Yale, have limited the amount the city can spend.
Emily Hays Photo
Spring outside Yale’s gates.
Activists on the livestream called for Yale to step up its voluntary contributions to the city as well as hire more residents from New Haven’s poorest neighborhoods for the jobs available at the university. (Read about Yale’s response to voluntary contribution calls here.)
While on the call, Huq and others asked attendees to fill out petitions to Elicker, Yale and Gov. Ned Lamont supporting the demands of the rally.
Hurt said that if Yale had met New Haven Rising’s demands on this front before the crisis, New Haven neighborhoods would be better prepared to weather the current public health crisis.
“Over 100 people would have enough to pay rent and mortgage and would not have to worry about how to pay bills if they get sick,” Hurt said.
Previous articles about political organizing during the pandemic. Series logo by Amanda Valaitis.
• YNHH Workers Win Covid-19 Pay Bump
• Pride Center Pivots Towards Virtual Support
• Can Covid Spawn Public Health “New Deal”?
• One Year Later, Protesters Pack Zoom
• Pandemic Prison Protests Pioneered
• “Food Garage” Feeds Families During Covid
• Pro-Immigrant Crew Tackles Covid Crisis
• Mutual Aid Teams Tackle Covid-19 Challenge