Rebecca Kling on centering frontline communities to address the climate crisis: Season 4, Ep. 19

In the season finale, host Rebecca Kling reflects on how the climate crisis disproportionately impacts frontline communities and why these communities should be at the center of our collective fight against the structural inequities that perpetuate the crisis.

In Massachusetts, decades-old gas infrastructure is leaking methane, a super pollutant that heats up the climate much faster than carbon. Audrey Schulman, co-executive director of the Home Energy Efficiency Team, a grassroots non-profit working on cutting emissions from buildings, is advocating for renewable geothermal heating systems, a climate-safe way to heat homes without the worry of leaks and explosions.  

On the South Side of San Antonio, a majority-Latino community lives near a coal plant that accounts for half of the city's carbon emissions. DeeDee Belmares, a climate justice organizer with Public Citizen, is working to educate and mobilize the community to retire the plant after years of toxic air and water pollution.   

Steel mills and coal-fueled industry created a dirty past for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Though the city has cleaned up its environmental act in the past few decades, there’s still work to be done. Resident Laura Jacko fights for her neighborhood’s future. 

Bill Halter has worked in the White House, sat on boards of tech companies, and served as lieutenant governor of Arkansas. In all these pursuits, he says he tries to “do well by doing good.” This led him back to his hometown in Little Rock to become CEO of Scenic Hill Solar, where business is booming.

Christopher Basaldú lives in Brownsville, Texas, where the oil and gas industries dominate. But to Christopher, the danger of the status quo is clear. A proposed export terminal for fracked gas threatens to destroy his tribe’s connection to spiritual and cultural sites.

Flare stacks, refineries and other signs of extractive industry have taken over much of the Gulf Coast of South Texas. But one pristine stretch of the shoreline remains intact near Brownsville. Bekah Hinojosa and her community are fighting locally, nationally and internationally to keep it this way.

Check out Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition at bearsearscoalition.org or on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

For Mary Lyn Stoll, the damaging effects of dirty energy and injustices caused by climate change are abundantly clear. But as a professor of ethics in Evansville, Indiana, the heart of coal country, teaching climate ethics is a lot more complicated.

Víctor Guzmán nunca esperó encontrarse esposado. Siendo padre y miembro vocal de la comunidad de Salinas en Puerto Rico, Víctor quiso una comunidad segura y saludable para sus hijos y para todos los puertorriqueños. Pero cuando las plantas térmicas de carbón empezaron a descargar ceniza tóxica cerca de Salinas, Víctor organizó a su comunidad para oponerse al transporte de cenizas tóxicas y a la creciente influencia de la industria carbonera en Puerto Rico.