Speaker 1: If you feel like it's hotter than it has ever been,
Speaker 1: you are not alone. Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios.
Speaker 1: I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Sipher.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Ramsey's job. Big shout out to
Speaker 1: my man c Ward, who is still out of the
Speaker 1: country doing exactly what he does best, changing the world.
Speaker 1: He will be back with us next week, so stay tuned.
Speaker 1: But we do have a special guest in the building.
Speaker 1: She goes by the name of doctor Takola. She is
Speaker 1: a sustainability scientist and she is Westside right on time,
Speaker 1: because today we are going to be talking about two
Speaker 1: very important things. The first is environmental racism and the
Speaker 1: second is climate change and sustainability.
Speaker 2: So welcome to the show. Thank you, of course.
Speaker 1: And I gotta be honest, this isn't your first time
Speaker 1: on the show. You've been on the show a few times,
Speaker 1: but this is your first time functioning in this specific capacity,
Speaker 1: basically helping out humanity en mass keep from running into
Speaker 1: this brick wall that everyone wants arms us about. Right, yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So we're going to have a lot to talk about
Speaker 1: with Like I said, environmental racism. That's something that we
Speaker 1: broached on the show from time to time. However, today
Speaker 1: we're hoping to do a little bit more of a
Speaker 1: deep dive really explain what it is and how it
Speaker 1: affects marginalized people, in particular Black people around this country,
Speaker 1: and the healthcare outcomes and so forth and so on
Speaker 1: that people may not be made aware of in your
Speaker 1: regular travels, and of course, naturally the climate change and sustainability.
Speaker 1: We're also going to be spending some time talking about
Speaker 1: the first sit in protest of a whites only library
Speaker 1: that's for our way Black History fact. That's something that
Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about for some time as well,
Speaker 1: because we're kind of coming we're rounding a corner as
Speaker 1: a show, and we're releasing a book and so making
Speaker 1: sure that our people have access to the books. It's
Speaker 1: been something very important and so finally we get to
Speaker 1: share that with you. But first and foremost, we are
Speaker 1: going to talk about the excellence in particular Shikari Richardson.
Speaker 1: Like Drake said, he's like Shikari smoke Mhan and off
Speaker 1: the track. Well, she has been true to that bar
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read from people. She is now the world's
Speaker 1: fastest woman. The American spent her twenty three flu past
Speaker 1: her competition this weekend and ran the final one hundred
Speaker 1: meter race in ten point sixty five seconds to win
Speaker 1: gold at the World Athletics Championships on Monday night in Budapest, Hungary.
Speaker 1: Her time was a record for the women's one hundred
Speaker 1: meter at the World Championships.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: I would say never give up, richards had said afterwards.
Speaker 1: According to the Associated Press. She goes on to say,
Speaker 1: never allow media, never allow outsiders, never allow anything but
Speaker 1: yourself and your faith determine who you are.
Speaker 2: I would say, always fight, no matter what fight.
Speaker 1: Richardson's gold medal win caps off a two year comeback
Speaker 1: after she was left off the Team USA roster for
Speaker 1: the Tokyo Olympics in banned for a month using marijuana
Speaker 1: or using marijuana, a controversial suspension that was debated across
Speaker 1: the sports world and even saw President Joe Biden questioning
Speaker 1: the US Anti Doping Agencies rule on the drug. Hence
Speaker 1: Drake's bar smoke him on and off the track. I
Speaker 1: thought that was so clever, because you know, he's on
Speaker 1: a tracking, she's on a tracking. He smokes other mcs
Speaker 1: and she smokes other athletes, you get it anyway. On
Speaker 1: Monday Night, the Dallas, Texas native outran five time world
Speaker 1: champion Shelley Ann Frasier Price and former Olympic gold medalist
Speaker 1: Sharika Jackson to win the gold. Quote she is the
Speaker 1: best in the world, NBC sports announcer Lee Diffey proclaimed
Speaker 1: after Richardson crossed the finish line, covering her mouth in
Speaker 1: shock as she looked up to.
Speaker 2: The scoreboard to see the race results.
Speaker 1: And if that's not of any excellence, if that's not
Speaker 1: a comeback story, I don't know what is.
Speaker 2: So once again, shout out to Shikari Richardson.
Speaker 1: You have made us all proud and even when you
Speaker 1: were going through your drama, we still held you down
Speaker 1: on this show and we're going to continue to support
Speaker 1: you now. Doctor to Coola, I love saying that when
Speaker 1: I when I first met you, you weren't doctor Tacola yet,
Speaker 1: and so that's a tremendous accomplishment. And again, you've been
Speaker 1: on the show to talk to us about social justice activism,
Speaker 1: these sorts of things, but we're now introducing a side
Speaker 1: of you to the world that is very special, and
Speaker 1: this is something that has always been near and dear
Speaker 1: to your heart as long as I've known you. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about your educational background and why you chose
Speaker 1: to study to become a sustainability scientist. Now that's such,
Speaker 1: that's so impressive. So give us that background.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, I've always had a passion for, uh,
Speaker 3: the environment, passion for wildlife and getting into the field
Speaker 3: as an undergraduate as environmental scientist. Initially I was actually
Speaker 3: in wildlife biology, and I kept finding that this kind
Speaker 3: of roadblock, like climate change is gonna call animals. So
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter how many trees that plant, it doesn't
Speaker 3: matter how much like restoration that we do. It's like
Speaker 3: if climate change is still here, like that's the problem.
Speaker 3: And as I learned more and as I grew in
Speaker 3: my analysis, I realized one my father is actually a
Speaker 3: refugee from Ethiopia, and he the way he said he
Speaker 3: left when there was like, uh, they took out the king,
Speaker 3: like kind of stuff hit the fan, and and he's
Speaker 3: like I fled for more. But when I started learning more,
Speaker 3: what really caused the political instability, At the root of
Speaker 3: it was the drought, a drought caused by climate change.
Speaker 3: And so even himself. He is an I consider a
Speaker 3: climate refugee. And so I started realizing that this is
Speaker 3: so much more than like we always talk about climate
Speaker 3: change that was gonna affect the polar bears, but it's
Speaker 3: it's affecting people. It's affecting the most vulnerable people, it's
Speaker 3: and it's gonna be It's the defining issue of our time,
Speaker 3: and especially as we think about going forward, we are
Speaker 3: gonna hit twenty thirty is one of those milestones that
Speaker 3: if we don't make certain behaviors before then, if we
Speaker 3: don't change our fuel systems before then, we'll h It
Speaker 3: really changes our future and the livability of our future.
Speaker 3: And so in as an undergraduate, as an environmental scientist,
Speaker 3: I found myself doing all this research and doing this
Speaker 3: studies around like Okay, when is the last you know,
Speaker 3: the last starfish going to die? When is the last
Speaker 3: rhino going to die? And I was like, this is depressing.
Speaker 3: I want to do something, you know, I've always been
Speaker 3: an activists and so looking at like what can we
Speaker 3: do about it? And I was told actually when I
Speaker 3: was interning for NOAH, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, and
Speaker 3: was able to see the zoo plank thing starting to
Speaker 3: dissolve and they make up the bottom of the food chain,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, we're the federal government. We have to
Speaker 3: do something. And they're like, it's not our job as scientists.
Speaker 3: We're going to write another report. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm in the wrong field. Then, so I got into politics.
Speaker 3: I started doing activism around the climate, and really what
Speaker 3: switched me to sustainability is that sustainability as a science
Speaker 3: is really more a solution oriented. It's like, what do
Speaker 3: we do about it? We're not just going to report
Speaker 3: how bad the problem is. We're going to do something
Speaker 3: about it. And that's always been my mission to take
Speaker 3: the science to the sidewalks. For too long, communities of
Speaker 3: color have felt like, oh, this is a white people think.
Speaker 3: But not only are we dying at the highest rates,
Speaker 3: but also like we deserve to be at the table
Speaker 3: because when our communities come forward, we come with innovative solutions.
Speaker 3: And so that's why I wanted that's why I went
Speaker 3: to sustainability science because I want to be a part
Speaker 3: of the change and I want to be solution oriented
Speaker 3: to the climate crisis.
Speaker 1: Sure, now, for a lot of folks, you know, before
Speaker 1: we get to like the most vulnerable people, because obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, environmental racism as a term exists for a reason.
Speaker 1: But before we get there, In recent even weeks, but
Speaker 1: certainly recent months and years, we've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: very intense things happen around the planet. I want you
Speaker 1: to speak to our listeners a bit about any connection
Speaker 1: that there may be between some of the more recent
Speaker 1: goings on and this this climate change issue, and and
Speaker 1: and well, and then I have to follow up question
Speaker 1: after we've done so.
Speaker 3: July was the hottest month on Earth's record. We've never
Speaker 3: experienced that before, and that's directly caused by humans. It's
Speaker 3: directly caused climate change is because of the fossil fuels
Speaker 3: that we put in the atmosphere that's causing this now
Speaker 3: the Maui's fire, it's again was not only caused by
Speaker 3: climate change, but also colonialism because once the colonizers took
Speaker 3: over Hawaii, colonizers being the United States, they changed the
Speaker 3: management and so indigenous, the indigenous people of Hawaii had
Speaker 3: a different management technique that was protecting the island. Once
Speaker 3: they started creating monocrops, they started removing the water from
Speaker 3: the areas that made it more vulnerable. Then you add
Speaker 3: climate change that's why Maui burned out. Then you look
Speaker 3: at a lot of the things like the Hurricane Hillary
Speaker 3: that just hit, that was the first hurricane that hit
Speaker 3: in over eighty years in California, that again was caused
Speaker 3: by climate change. So the wildfires that are affecting really
Speaker 3: the whole world, but more specifically, we know in Canada
Speaker 3: they had caused.
Speaker 4: Smoke.
Speaker 3: In New York, we're seeing it in Seattle as well.
Speaker 3: We're seeing it in California. These wildfires, again caused by
Speaker 3: climate change, made worse by western or colonial management techniques.
Speaker 1: So now I want to shift our focus to Eventually
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the environmental racism, right, but
Speaker 1: before we get there, let's talk about how this affects
Speaker 1: poor people, maybe unhoused people. You know, you and I
Speaker 1: both live in a place that's very hot, and so
Speaker 1: I was reading something recently that I was really kind
Speaker 1: of reading a piece that gave me some insight into
Speaker 1: what day to day life is like for folks who
Speaker 1: are unhoused. And because most people just kind of live
Speaker 1: their lives and don't really take a moment to I
Speaker 1: guess pull back the curtain and examine the humanity that
Speaker 1: there's a human being there that is only fiscally poor
Speaker 1: and as a result to that suffering at the worst
Speaker 1: end of you know, everything that's happening with respect to
Speaker 1: the climate. I want to get your thoughts on kind
Speaker 1: of what that must be like or give some insight
Speaker 1: to our listeners on how they're affected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the unsheltered communities, communities who do not have housing,
Speaker 3: who are living outside, are the most vulnerable to climate
Speaker 3: change because climate change is causing increased natural disasters. If
Speaker 3: you don't have shelter, that means that you're facing that
Speaker 3: with no protection. And Phoenix or the last in July,
Speaker 3: they just released the they call it the transient death list.
Speaker 3: I don't like to use that term, but the unsheltered
Speaker 3: death list they just released. Over three hundred and twelve
Speaker 3: people died in Maricopa, over two hundred in Phoenix. And
Speaker 3: the thing that is difficult in determining these deaths, they
Speaker 3: won't immediately call them heat deaths. They you know, have
Speaker 3: to do all sorts of optopsies and investigations. But it
Speaker 3: does feel like a smoke screen to really, because over
Speaker 3: two hundred people dying in in one city in one month.
Speaker 4: Is a crisis.
Speaker 3: But they're saying, oh, well, they had drugs in their system,
Speaker 3: so it could have been the drugs. But you know,
Speaker 3: we know, like if you're living outside, you're gonna have
Speaker 3: to take coping method methods. You know, maybe it's drugs,
Speaker 3: maybe it's alcohol, but that doesn't that's not why they died,
Speaker 3: you know, and it could have been a contributing factor.
Speaker 3: But we know that this is definitely was caused by.
Speaker 4: The extreme heat.
Speaker 3: And so when whether it's you know, extreme heat, whether
Speaker 3: it's the hurricanes, whether it's flooding, all of the people
Speaker 3: who don't have shelter, they're gonna die first. And the
Speaker 3: worst part is that our society has deemed them unworthy
Speaker 3: because of you know, the capitalist society we live in.
Speaker 3: They're like, well, if you don't, if you don't succeed
Speaker 3: in capitalism, blame yourself, pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Speaker 3: It allows us not to have humanity for them, because
Speaker 3: two hundred people dying in a month, that should be
Speaker 3: a crisis. There should be you know, federal funds, there
Speaker 3: should be an emergency, we should do something. But because
Speaker 3: of this narrative, they're able to say they're not worthy.
Speaker 3: And then when we look at who makes up the
Speaker 3: unsheltered populations, by and large across the United States, black
Speaker 3: and Indigenous people are the people dying for are at
Speaker 3: the highest rates of being unsheltered. And so this is
Speaker 3: again homelessness, this is this is communities of color issue.
Speaker 1: Sure, now let's take this a step further. Okay, I
Speaker 1: want to do a bit of reading. I'm going to
Speaker 1: read from n our DC dot org and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk a bit about environmental racism. These things are connected,
Speaker 1: but it's going to sound like a shift in topic.
Speaker 1: But following the lead in Flint, Michigan's water, the toxic
Speaker 1: petrochemical plants in Louisiana's cancer Alley, the raw sewage backing
Speaker 1: up into homes in Centreville, Illinois, and the oil and
Speaker 1: gas projects that overburden some US tribal reservations. Looking at you,
Speaker 1: Dakota Access pipeline, all have at least one thing in common.
Speaker 1: There are all examples of environmental racism. The phrase environmental
Speaker 1: racism was coined by civil rights leader doctor Benjamin F.
Speaker 1: Chabis Junior. He defined it as the intentional sitting sorry,
Speaker 1: the intentional sighting of pollution and waste facilities in communities
Speaker 1: primarily populated by African Americans, Latinos, indigenous people, Asian Americans,
Speaker 1: and Pacific Islanders, migrant farm workers, and low income workers.
Speaker 1: Study after study has since shown that those communities are
Speaker 1: disproportionately exposed to fumes, toxic dust, ash, soot, and other
Speaker 1: pollutants such as hazardous facilities locate in their midst As
Speaker 1: a result, they based increased risks of health problems like
Speaker 1: cancer and respiratory issues. Now, when you combine these the
Speaker 1: dirty business practices that lead to disparate healthcare outcomes for
Speaker 1: black and brown people in black and brown communities with
Speaker 1: the dirty business practices that contribute to climate change, you
Speaker 1: realize that black and brown people are at the receiving
Speaker 1: end of the worst of both issues. I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you a bit about maybe some of the
Speaker 1: things in your estimation that might lead to environmental racism.
Speaker 1: People feeling like they can get away with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it.
Speaker 4: Has to do with a few things.
Speaker 3: One the social determinants of health, which is a sociological
Speaker 3: term which is a lot of big words for where.
Speaker 4: Tell me where you live, and I'll tell you how
Speaker 4: you know how you're living like uh, and so based
Speaker 4: on your neighborhood that it can determine like what grocery
Speaker 4: stores do you have access to, what's zoned into your
Speaker 4: neighborhoods because a lot of black and brown neighborhoods, oftentimes
Speaker 4: there's zoned industrial. Makes the housing cheaper, so more affordable,
Speaker 4: but it also means that dirty industries can pollute there.
Speaker 4: And then you have the issues of redlining and so
Speaker 4: decades of disinvestment again cause the communities to be more vulnerable.
Speaker 4: So with all this combined, it makes our communities less healthy,
Speaker 4: so more vulnerable to these impacts. And it also means
Speaker 4: that we're gonna have more pollutants into our neighborhoods. And
Speaker 4: so when you look at in a lot of cities,
Speaker 4: be it Seattle and Phoenix, I could speak to specifically,
Speaker 4: the difference between living in the South End and the
Speaker 4: North End can have up to a decade of difference
Speaker 4: in lifespan just the same city, but we're living in
Speaker 4: two different realities based on our zip code, and so
Speaker 4: it makes a huge difference. And they're able to do uh,
Speaker 4: they like to call it, you know this colorblind racism
Speaker 4: where they're like, oh, we're not targeting them. We just
Speaker 4: happened to put this industrial.
Speaker 3: Plant in their neighborhood, you know, and so they're able
Speaker 3: to you know, they talk about racism without racis, but
Speaker 3: they're still contributing to killing black and brown lives. When
Speaker 3: in Phoenix, for example, people on the south end, they
Speaker 3: have higher rates of asthma.
Speaker 4: That means when.
Speaker 3: COVID hit, they're more likely to die, and so it
Speaker 3: has all of these additional impacts. And again, why do
Speaker 3: they have the highest rates of asthma? They have the
Speaker 3: highest rates of pollutants because it was zoned industrial.
Speaker 1: No, there's something that Q and I talk about on
Speaker 1: the show quite a bit. We have been rightfully critical
Speaker 1: of capitalism in general, and there's been some push back
Speaker 1: here and there because there are people who are fans
Speaker 1: of capitalism. It does have its benefits. I will see
Speaker 1: that when it's unfettered, it becomes problematic for everyone. But
Speaker 1: on this show at least, we don't reallyase. We try
Speaker 1: to have a human first approach to things, and we
Speaker 1: realize that capitalism causes really bad people to become very
Speaker 1: powerful and they are often given to their worst instincts
Speaker 1: greed and apathy, right, And so you start to see
Speaker 1: that it's, you know, when you're mentioning that, you know,
Speaker 1: people can can call it like colorblind racism. It's they're
Speaker 1: not intentionally targeting a neighborhood. They're just going where they're
Speaker 1: going to get the least funk, where they're going to
Speaker 1: get the least pushback, where the people have the least
Speaker 1: amount of political power and the least capacity, the lowest
Speaker 1: capacity to actually stop something like that from happening. In
Speaker 1: other words, the corporations go after the most vulnerable because
Speaker 1: it's cheaper to go after them. It protects their bottom
Speaker 1: line more than going after an affluent neighborhood to put
Speaker 1: some industrial waste plant there. And again the fact that
Speaker 1: oftentimes these communities are disenfranchised. It ensures that people will
Speaker 1: continue to make money hand over fist and then go
Speaker 1: live in a community where it's free from pollutants and
Speaker 1: free from really the harshest effects of climate change, and
Speaker 1: on and on, and then we're stuck at the bottom again.
Speaker 1: And so now you're starting to see why this was
Speaker 1: kind of an important topic that I wanted to discuss.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read a little bit more and then
Speaker 1: I want to get some more of your thoughts. So
Speaker 1: why does environmental racism exist? All right, It's a form
Speaker 1: of systemic racism, and it exists largely because policies and
Speaker 1: practices that if historically and to this day, favored the health,
Speaker 1: wellbeing and consumer choices of white communities over those of
Speaker 1: non white, low income communities. Case in point, General Iron
Speaker 1: is a metal shredding business that operated in Chicago's predominantly white,
Speaker 1: wealthy Lincoln Park neighborhood in twenty eighteen. Emails showed that
Speaker 1: city officials from then Mayor ram Imanuel his administration pushed
Speaker 1: the business to move out of this neighborhood, and after
Speaker 1: community members complained and to make way for a multi
Speaker 1: billion dollar private real estate development, the city then struck
Speaker 1: a deal to relocate the polluting operation to Chicago's predominantly Latino,
Speaker 1: low income and working class South Southeast Side neighborhood. So
Speaker 1: you start to realize that there's big business, there's crony capitalism,
Speaker 1: there's people that do these kind of backdoor deals, and
Speaker 1: not only like where you and I might think, well,
Speaker 1: why don't they just clean up their business practices? There's
Speaker 1: no governmental incentive to do it and really no consequences
Speaker 1: if they don't.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I recall the former president won't say his name, but
Speaker 1: him kind of dismantling certain parts of the EPA to
Speaker 1: make it easier for companies to pollute in the interests of,
Speaker 1: you know, business.
Speaker 2: And when everyone.
Speaker 1: Looks at that and it's like, okay, well that's good
Speaker 1: for business, you don't look at the effects of how
Speaker 1: does this affect the communities surround it. But those communities, again,
Speaker 1: the voices don't often make it that far. And so
Speaker 1: I'm glad that there's people like you and that you
Speaker 1: would come up on the show and help people learn
Speaker 1: a little bit more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad you about that, because the whole idea
Speaker 3: of jobs versus the environment is such a false dichotomy
Speaker 3: that was created by big businesses. But there's no jobs
Speaker 3: on a dead planet. And we're already seeing that the
Speaker 3: farmers the impacts of this extreme heat wave. So many
Speaker 3: some of the work that I do, some of the
Speaker 3: mutual aid work that we do, we bring up produce
Speaker 3: from directly from arms up to the Navajo Nation.
Speaker 4: And what we found was the farms are.
Speaker 3: Saying, we don't have the crops, they all died, and
Speaker 3: so you know, like this is that's a huge job impact,
Speaker 3: where when you're looking at the cost of rebuilding entire
Speaker 3: cities like Maui, that's a huge and economic impact. And
Speaker 3: so the longer that we put off addressing climate, that
Speaker 3: more expensive it's going to become. But it's also important
Speaker 3: to talk about you know, while it's important to recycle,
Speaker 3: it's you know, like ride your bike when you can
Speaker 3: use public transit.
Speaker 4: The reality is two thirds of emissions are caused by
Speaker 4: ninety corporations.
Speaker 3: So at the end of the day, we have to
Speaker 3: hold these corporations responsible.
Speaker 4: They're destroying our future, they're destroying everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So with that in mind, I know that there's
Speaker 1: a whole lot more for us to talk about here.
Speaker 1: So I would appreciate if you stick around because I
Speaker 1: definitely want to cover the rest of us with Yeah,