A new piece by Our Time Press, titled “Climate Change is a Crisis for Black Communities,” explains that new data from NYC Environment and Health Data Portal shows that neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Brownsville, East New York, Coney Island, parts of Bed Stuy, Flatbush, and Crown Heights rank highly on a Heat Vulnerability Index.

Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, director of Environmental Justice at NYLPI, was featured in this article, explaining why residents in these neighborhoods are at a much higher risk of injury and death during extreme heat events.

“The legacy of practices like redlining and other ghettoization that typically put poor, particularly Black and Brown people, in lower-lying neighborhoods that are more prone to flooding. These are areas that Black, Brown, and poor people were forced into. They were more disconnected from city services. What we’re seeing now is climate change is really exposing the severity of many of our social services like healthcare, racial justice, economic justice, all of it. The infrastructure is being exposed at the same time.”

When the events happen, we know that FEMA tends towards making better claims to white wealthier people than to Black, Brown, and poor people. What we’re seeing now is climate change is really exposing the severity of many of our social services like healthcare, racial justice, economic justice, all of it. The infrastructure is being exposed at the same time.” – Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, NYLPI director of Environmental Justice

Read more at Our Time Press.