Taking Aim at Environmental Racism, Without Mentioning Race

Before we get to the news this week, we wanted to tell you about some changes we’re making to the Climate Fwd: newsletter — changes meant to help make sense of the climate crisis and what it means for you. Starting next month, Climate Fwd: will be delivered twice a week instead of once. And, Somini Sengupta, the Times’s global climate correspondent, will be your new guide to the latest news and ideas as the newsletter’s lead writer. Please stay tuned for more.

Black, Latino and other people of color are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. President Biden has vowed to address the problem, but his strategy to identify areas that need help will be colorblind: Race will not be a factor.

The reason, administration officials say, is the threat of lawsuits and a conservative-leaning Supreme Court that would be likely to reject a race-based approach to allocating federal benefits. Instead, the White House will focus on economically disadvantaged communities.

Legal scholars I interviewed for my article this week on the plan agreed. If the administration uses race to determine policy or funding for environmental programs, they said, those programs could end up tangled in court.

When I spoke to activists, though, many expressed concern. They said decades of exposure to environmental hazards, rooted in historical wrongs like racist zoning and housing policies, cannot be effectively addressed with a race-neutral approach.

Quotable: “When you look at the most powerful predictor of where the most industrial pollution is, race is the most potent predictor,” Robert Bullard, a professor and a pioneer in the environmental justice movement, said. “Not income, not property values, but race. If you’re leaving race out, how are you going to fix this?”

From the Dining Section: The faux chicken taste test

A food reporter got an early taste of the laboratory-grown meat that companies are racing to bring to market. (She had to sign a waiver first.)

From Opinion: The Joy of Cooking (Insects)

Climate-conscious cooking means getting creative. So our colleagues in the opinion section made a video about an alternate source of protein.

The West’s worst drought in 12 centuries

The megadrought that has gripped the American Southwest since 2000 has reached another milestone, and it’s hardly a cause for rejoicing. A group of scientists who study past, present and future climate in the region have found this two-decade period is now the driest in at least 1,200 years, and say climate change has a lot to do with it.

These researchers analyze historical tree-ring data to reconstruct past climate. Tree growth rings, thin or thick, are an accurate proxy for how much moisture is in the soil, which in turn is a good measure of drought. Using that data, the researchers had determined a few years ago that the current drought was the second driest and slightly less intense than one in the 16th century.

But that was before the summer of 2021, when conditions all over the West were extremely dry. Last summer put the current drought over the top, as one of the researchers told me for an article this week. It is now worse than the 16th-century drought, and may be worse than others that occurred before A.D. 800. But we may never know — that’s as far back as the tree-ring data goes.

Numbers: The Southwestern drought has been continuing for 22 years. Researchers say it is extremely likely to continue for a 23rd, and only somewhat less likely it will reach 30. Warming has loaded the dice, they say.

California makes a comeback

California is back as a leader on clean air and climate policies.

For more than 40 years, the state set the tone for vehicle pollution rules in the United States. Under the 1970 Clean Air Act, lawmakers there had special powers to set their own, stricter standards for car and truck emissions. Because California’s market was so big and important, automakers had no choice but to pay attention. But that came to a crashing halt under President Donald J. Trump, who stripped the state’s power to set its own rules.

Now, the Biden administration is restoring California’s special power. It means a revival of the state’s outsize influence on pollution rules.

The administration is also preparing strict new limits on pollution from buses, delivery vans and heavy trucks, the first time tailpipe standards have been tightened for the biggest polluters on the road since 2001. Those rules will largely be based on California’s standards.

To find out why that’s a big deal, you can read the full article here.

Background: California was initially granted a waiver under the Clean Air Act because of special circumstances like its large population and its serious smog problem in the 1960s.

U.S. coastal sea levels to rise a foot by 2050

Precise measurements indicate that the increase will happen “no matter what we do about emissions,” a new study has confirmed.

Wolves win a round in court

Last week, wolves and their supporters won an important victory: A federal court threw out a 2020 decision to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list. For more on that, and a peek at what might come next, you can read our article on the decision.

Also important this week:

• Technology can help you fight soaring energy bills. Our lead consumer tech writer explains how.

• Years of drought, fires and habitat loss have drastically reduced the population of koalas. Now, Australia has declared them an endangered species.

• President Biden came into office vowing to respect science, but vacancies in crucial jobs could hamper progress on medical and technological research.

• The French government has announced a plan to expand nuclear power.

• Germany’s next climate envoy will be an American who is a former environmental activist.

And finally:

How infrastructure funds could worsen global warming

There’s a new target in the fight against climate change: highway expansions.

For decades, states have spent billions building new roads and widening existing highways to try to fix traffic congestion. But studies show that expanding roads just encourages people to drive more and accelerates suburban sprawl, driving up planet-warming emissions from cars and trucks.

Now some states are rethinking their approach. As I explored in a new article, Colorado just enacted a first-of-a-kind climate rule that will push local transportation planners to redirect funding away from highway expansions and toward projects that cut vehicle pollution, such as buses and bike lanes. But it’s a contentious move in a state where most people still rely on cars to get around.

Why it matters: The new infrastructure law signed by President Biden gives states $273 billion over five years for highways, with few strings attached. One analysis found that this money could lead to a sizable increase in U.S. emissions if states keep adding new highway lanes. Colorado will be a test for whether a major shift is possible.

Quotable: Highway expansions are “a major blind spot for politicians who say they care about climate change,” said Kevin DeGood, an infrastructure analyst. “Everyone gets that oil pipelines are carbon infrastructure. But new highways are carbon infrastructure, too.”

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