A ‘Holistic’ Approach
In having scholars such as Bullard and Wright represented on the commission, the Joint Center expects to leverage the experience and success of individuals who have long been active in the environmental justice movement. Dorsey notes that activists and scholars made “environmental justice” into a major issue in national environmental policy with concrete policy outcomes.
“The reality is that those outcomes were largely driven by scholars of color, such as Bob Bullard at Clark Atlanta and Bunyan Bryant at the University of Michigan, and policymakers of color,” Dorsey says.
For his part, Bullard believes the “green” movement in the United States has not placed enough emphasis on equity. “I don’t think there’s been enough emphasis on legacy issues. A lot of the dialogue assumes a clean slate and a level playing fi eld. But that’s not the reality,” he says.
Bullard says discussions of climate change policy are heavy on energy policy and have a limited focus on dealing with health disparities and economic development in poor urban communities. There’s a lot of talk about putting hybrid cars on the road, but that focus leaves out the people who depend on public transit, he says.
“A quarter of African-Americans don’t even own cars. We should be talking more about public transit,” Bullard declares.
He urges public policymakers to “get beyond energy” and approach climate change policy holistically and “put equity at the center.”
“It makes a whole lot of sense to look at things holistically,” Bullard says.
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