Halper, Evan. Phillips, Anna M. Los Angeles Times. (2021, November 18). California has a new battle plan against environmental injustice. The nation is watching.
Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-11-18/california-confronts-environmental-injustice-washington-looks-its-way-for-inspiration
This article focuses on California’s recent response to oil plants that are predominantly located near low income Latine communities. It highlights how many residents of San Joaquin Valley suffer a lot more than other areas in health related issues such as respiratory illness. Residents in San Joaquin Valley are largely Hispanic blue-collar workers, and largely don’t speak out against having an oil drilling plant right in their backyard. The article discusses how California political leaders, one being Attorney Rob Bonta, have spoken out in order to ban new cement factories from being built in the area as well, to try and help these communities. Similarly, the article highlights that California is one of the prime examples of environmental injustice, specifically with air pollution and respiratory illness from oil drilling, so the next steps that California takes in this issue is heavily monitored and watched by the nation.
I found this article to also be extremely informative, and I appreciated how the author named specific people throughout as evidence to support the main argument. Reading this article made me realize how much California is guilty of environmental injustice, and just because it’s considered a “blue state” doesn’t mean that its laws and policies aren’t rooted in racism. Similarly, it did make me question the intentions of many government leaders who pledge to help create more equitable laws. There are so many instances where leaders promise to improve situations, especially those surrounding racism, and pledge to be better, but their actions prove otherwise. Even though change is slow, it seems as though we need to come up with a new system, one that doesn’t rely on the powerful and better off few, that could be more effective.
I strongly agree with your idea that there are some empty promises coming from government leaders and how solving one problem can just create another. Would shutting down certain power plants be an easy transition? Because the energy demand isn’t changing. This obviously seems like a really challenging problem.
I agree with how you described the issues stated in the article, but one question I do have is what kind of system would you propose that would suffice such demand?