Factories spitting out toxic chemicals. Vehicle pollution falling down from the highway. Power plants clouding the air with smog. Landfills or salt piles leaching into the river. Miles of asphalt, but no park or grocery store. A bus that costs too much and doesn’t get you to work on time.
Does this happen in your community? Do you believe no community should be burdened by toxic pollution? Have you witnessed the impacts of asthma and air pollution on your family or community during the coronavirus pandemic? We need to hear your story.
1. Make a quick video today to tell your story. You can use your phone, your digital camera or your computer’s webcam.
- Tell us who you are and where you are. If you can record in a place that shows environmental justice, all the better, but at home or work is fine too.
- Tell us why environmental justice matters to you.
- Tell us about your community or a change you’d like to see in it.
- End the video with a call to New Jersey elected officials to act on the S232 Cumulative Impacts bill. It can be pretty simple: “That’s why our Legislature needs to fight for environmental justice and make NJ's Cumulative Impacts Bill (S232) law!”
- Try to do all that in 90 seconds or less. Whatever length video you make, we’ll take it. But people online tend to respond to shorter videos that hit hard.
- Check out the example video from Kim Gaddy of Clean Water Action below and click here for a few more suggestions for recording a quick video with your phone.
2. Tell your story from your home, your school, or show us a place in your community that shows environmental justice, or injustice, to you.
- Environmental justice is a civil right. In New Jersey, our constitution says “the people shall have the right to clean air and water.” But let’s face it––too many of us don’t.
- Tell us what you are dealing with, what you are worried about, and what do you want to see transformed after the virus?
- What are your hopes and visions for the future?
3. When you’re done, share your story in the following ways:
- Post it on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #EJ4NJ #EnvironmentalJustice and tag Clean Water Action New Jersey on Facebook, @cleanwaternj on Twitter, and @cleanh2oaction on Instagram.
- If you have a YouTube account, post there too!
- Email Kim Gaddy, kgaddy@cleanwater.org, with a link to the video (i.e. upload it to google drive) or an attached file.
Covid-19 and Air Pollution
“....[A] person living for decades in a county with high levels of fine particulate matter is 15 times more likely to die from the coronavirus than someone in a region with one unit less of the fine particulate pollution.”
Our hearts go out to the communities and families who are currently affected by this crisis. The coronavirus crisis is exposing underlying dysfunction in our social fabric to provide for each other’s basic needs such as healthcare, housing, and childcare. We understand that the frontline communities that are hit hardest by fossil fuel pollution are also the same that are at the highest risk for coronavirus related harms and that is why it is more important than ever to fight for environmental justice.
We hope you can join this project by telling your story. Questions? Don’t be afraid to reach out. Thank you for standing with us for environmental justice!