Global warming very much a Black issue

Currently, America's efforts to satisfy its gluttonous appetite for energy lies in increased drilling productions, when the answer does not lie on the slopes of Alaska but on the assembly lines in Detroit." Bush's decision, in light of the possible effects of global warming on human lives, is a "human rights violation," the demonstrators agreed. "The fact that the U.S. has rejected this global treaty signals that America is completely insensitive to the consequences of our energy choices and how they affect people and nations," Tidwell said. "Global warming will disproportionately affect the world's poor people [and] it is a human rights violation to knowingly contribute to global warming while doing nothing to address [its] painful impact." And this is also an environmental justice issue, since many fossil fuel plants are located in minority and poor areas like Baltimore, which is 60 percent Black."Baltimore is ringed by these coal-fired power plants, which create local breathing hazards like asthma," said Gary Skulnik of the Clean Energy Partnership. "They don't put the coal-burning power plants in the affluent parts of the state." [more]