About this episode
What is the LCFJ?The Latino Climate Justice Framework (LCJF) prioritizes environmental justice while helping to protect disproportionately affected individuals–commonly Latine people. Specifically, LCJF works with communities that “face numerous climate-related issues, from extreme heat affecting outdoor workers and poor air quality in neighborhoods near industrial facilities, to increased vulnerability to natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and wildfires.”The ParticularsLCJF has three areas of focus with different goals for how to better the health of the environment and the Latino community. Chapter one of the LCJF identifies how fossil fuels disproportionately expose the Latine community to toxic pollutants. LCJF believes that carbon capture methods are an extremely passive solution that do not address the problem; instead they hope to prioritize renewable energy while enhancing affordability and accessibility to these amenities by “ramping up recycling, reusing batteries and solar panels” and “ensuring equitable investment”.The second chapter outlines how “latinos are 21% more likely than white individuals to reside in urban heat islands” and “only 19% of Latino/a/e children have nearby recreational green spaces, compared to 62% of white children.” They follow up with recommendations for how they hope that plans for “prioritizing urban greening projects in Latine neighborhoods with the highest heat risk and lowest tree canopy and green spaces” would improve air quality in their neighborhoods, while reducing health risks. The last chapter outlines how Latines have an extremely sacred relationship with land and water. However, due to “patriarchal and white supremacist oppression” they have been deprived of their access to nature. Moreover, they acknowledge that Earth has been losing vital biodiversity for those very same reasons. Thus, they hope to reduce this problem by opposing efforts to extract natural gas and oil, build the US Mexico border on sensitive lands, and “sprawl development on public lands.”The Upsides The LCJF aims to mitigate climate change by reducing pollution from fossil fuels through stringent regulations and pro
