In the struggle to prevent massive fossil fuel projects from transforming Northwest communities into centers for oil, coal and fracked gas facilities, proponents of these projects claim these terminals, refineries and production facilities will create much needed jobs. While this claim flies in the face of actual job creation statistics, it resonates with people who have felt ignored by the environmental and climate justice movements. In the meantime, communities of color and working class white communites bear the brunt of the pollution and other negative impacts of fossil fuel development.
On this episode of Locus Focus we talk with Maria Hernandez Segoviano, Advocacy Coordinator for OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon, about the movement to create a just transition from fossil fuels to a renewable future. This means looking at how environmental and climate justice can address longstanding economic inequality, by building a movement of movements that takes on the ecological crisis, the economic crisis, and the crisis of empire all together.
As Advocacy Coordinator for OPAL, Maria Hernandez leads OPAL’s statewide community-connecting, providing partners access to solidarity networks and opportunities to build local power.
- KBOO