Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 4/12/2021
SOUTH HADLEY – Senator Ed Markey joined former San Juan, Puerto Rico mayor Yulin Cruz to discuss the Green New Deal and his work with regard to environmental injustices during a virtual town hall on April 7.
The town hall was the second in a series of town halls hosted by Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley that invited both members of the college community and members of the public to participate in discussions surrounding a variety of topics. Markey began by outlining his schedule for the day, which included going to Springfield to “celebrate the victory” of the Biomass plant. He said, “The last thing we need is more pollution going into the air.”
He said this was especially important as Springfield was designated as the allergy capital in the U.S. and the area for which the plant was proposed would impact an economically disadvantaged community. “We have to do whatever we do in the 21st century with environmental justice,” he said.
Cruz echoed this and said it was always “the poorest of the poorest” who felt the effects of climate change and questioned at what point Markey decided to dedicate his career to making an impact with regard to climate change. He recalled visiting Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and viewing the devastation caused by the storm, something he said reignited his passion to fight for Puerto Rico to get the resources they needed. He also addressed the Trump Administration’s effort for recovery.
“Fighting the Trump Admin. is like fighting the climate denier in chief,” he said.
Markey then went on to discuss his initial interest in environmental justice, something he said began when he was a child growing up near the Malden River. “We lived about four blocks from the Malden River, my mother used to say whatever you do Eddy, don’t swim in the Malden River,” he said.
He said the coal companies and other companies had used the river as their own sewer to dispose of their waste, which had turned the river black. “You know you’re living in an urban polluted neighborhood,” he said. This, he said, was something that was still true today in historically poor neighborhoods filled with minority populations. He said the air quality in such neighborhoods were simply not the same as they were in white, suburban neighborhoods.
“From an early age I’ve had an interest in and focus on environmental justice issues,” he said. Markey said he hoped that one day children would have to “look to the history books” to see that companies using fossil fuels existed and controlled energy resources.
Cruz then went on to ask Markey about his relationship with U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and how the pair came together to create the Green New Deal. He said he worked with a former senator in 2009 in the House of Representatives and passed a bill that would have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent, however the bill died in the Senate. He said then in 2018, following Cortez’ election the pair met for lunch where they discussed the “ability to create the Green New Deal” over the course of several hours.
He said the deal, which was just 14 pages long rather than hundreds of pages long, was envisioned to be part of a movement. After introducing the deal, he said “nothing has been the same since.”
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brought her magic, and her ability to ignite young people and old into a movement,” he said. “Since that moment, across college campuses, small towns, there has been a Green New Deal movement,” he said. Markey said in doing this they were attempting to create a “climate crisis army” in time for the 2020 election and the climate crisis was elevated on the list of priorities for the American people. Additionally, it made the issue “intergenerational” and transformed the discussion surrounding climate change.
Cruz then asked Markey what climate justice meant to Markey and how Biden’s infrastructure investment moved the nation in the direction of both climate change and climate justice. Markey referenced the large, majority Spanish-speaking community of Chelsea, Massachusetts. He said in Chelsea there were areas of diesel trucks idling and fuel storage, which had created a large population of residents affected by asthma. This, he said, led to many residents in the community being impacted by the coronavirus. “The preexisting conditions were there because of environmental injustice,” he said.
Moving forward with climate justice, Markey said he believed the focus needed to be on ensuring resources and funding was made available for communities that had been hardest hit for the longest time.
Mt. Holyoke junior Hareem Khan asked Markey about food justice and how the Green New Deal would help this. Markey said it was “essential” to guarantee that everyone had access to healthy foods. Additionally, he said part of this was ensuring that there was funding to support family farming rather than just corporate food producers.