By Darryl Fears and Dino Grandoni, The Washington Post, September 2, 2021
Racial minorities in the United States will bear a disproportionate burden of the negative health and environmental impacts from a warming planet, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday, including more deaths from extreme heat and property loss from flooding in the wake of sea level rise.
The new analysis, which comes four days after Hurricane Ida destroyed homes of low-income and Black residents in Louisiana and Mississippi, examined the impacts of the global temperature rising 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to preindustrial levels. Itfound that American Indians and Alaska Natives are 48 percent more likely to live in areas that will be inundated by flooding from sea level rise under that scenario, Latinos are 43 percent more likely to live in communities that would lose work hours due to intense heat and Black people will suffer significantly higher mortality rates.
The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees C since the Industrial Revolution began, and is on track to warm by more than 1.5 degrees by the early 2030s.
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