Don’t blame Mother Nature, we need climate action

Michele L. Jawando explains how the Clean Power Plan would help protect vulnerable communities from extreme weather disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and recent flooding in Baton Rouge.

It’s been eleven years since Hurricane Katrina. For many residents of the Gulf Coast, August 29, 2005 was a nightmare. Katrina swept through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, devastating the cities and communities of New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile and all points in between. Many were left to watch the homes, businesses and communities they had worked so hard to build wash away in a single day. The effects of Katrina were especially severe for predominately African-American communities, with under-resourced communities along the Gulf suffering the biggest losses. In fact, according to reports published by the Congressional Research Service, African Americans are estimated to have accounted for approximately 44 percent of the storm victims. Subsequent studies of Katrina and the connections between climate change and extreme weather events warned us that our inaction on issues of climate change would only yield more of the same. Yet we have kept our blinders on while more hurricanes, heatwaves, droughts, and floods have ravaged our nation, and disproportionally devastated communities of color.

The above excerpt was originally published in The Louisiana Weekly. Click here to view the full article.

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