Latinos are on the front lines of climate change. We care about it. We’re doing something about it. And candidates who want our votes must do something about it, too.
Latino communities face disproportionate harm from climate change. More than half of U.S. Latinos live in states already feeling severe climate change impacts, from flooding and sea level rise in Florida, to scorching heat waves in Texas and the Southwest, to droughts and devastating wildfires in California.
“Compared to whites, Hispanics/Latinos and African Americans also report greater willingness to join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming.”
In many places, Latinos are the essential workers producing our food. They account for about half of U.S. crop and livestock production workers. They work in increasingly dangerous conditions as temperatures rise and weather becomes more unstable. And now, COVID-19 is proving lethal to many of these workers.
Burning the fossil fuels that have sent global temperatures soaring also produces lung-damaging pollution. Nearly half of U.S. Latinos live in counties that frequently violate standards for ground-level ozone, a dangerous pollutant. Cities with high percentages of Latinos – like San Antonio, Houston, Fresno and Los Angeles – consistently rank near the top of the American Lung Association’s annual list of most polluted cities.
One recent study looked at fine particulate matter, an especially dangerous form of air pollution. It found that exposure to these lung-damaging particles is “disproportionately caused by consumption of goods and services mainly by the non-Hispanic white majority, but disproportionately inhaled by Black and Hispanic minorities.”
Latinos were found to be exposed to fine particle pollution at a rate that’s 63 percent higher than what would be expected based on their consumption.
Put simply, fighting climate change and shifting to a clean energy economy will save Latino lives. And Latinos know it.
A 2019 Yale University survey found that just 22 percent of white Americans called themselves “alarmed” by climate change, compared to 27 percent of Blacks and 37 percent of Latinos. In all, 70 percent of Latinos were either alarmed or concerned about climate change, by far the highest percentage of the three groups.
And this concern translates into action. A recent Yale paper found, “Compared to whites, Hispanics/Latinos and African Americans also report greater willingness to join a campaign to convince elected officials to take action to reduce global warming.”
Anthony Leiserowitz, who directs the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, told PBS, “Given what we know about Latinos and their interest in voting for candidates who are pro-climate, we think they are a really important group that could be mobilized.”
Our nation’s leaders – and those who would like to be our leaders – need to listen.
The recent Democratic National Convention took a step forward by highlighting youth climate activists, like 15-year-old Alexandria Villaseñor, who has asthma. “Climate change,” she told the Democrats, “is impacting us now and it’s robbing my generation of a future.” She speaks for much of our community.
While Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has taken a stronger stance on fighting climate change – which may help him turn out critical young voters in potential swing states including Arizona and Texas – political leaders have not done enough to connect with Latinos on climate. As PBS noted, “Latinos are less likely than other ‘Alarmed’ Americans to say they have been contacted by an organization working on climate change, a shocking failure of public outreach.”
That needs to change.
We look forward to the day when all climate advocates recognize the power of the Latino community, and when leaders of both major parties face up to the need to confront the climate crisis. We’ll keep pushing until they do.
This column was produced for the Progressive Media Project, which is run by The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.