By: Rev. Dr. Ambrose Carroll, Senior Pastor, Renewal Worship Center, Oakland CA
Founder and CEO, Green the Church
Everyone deserves clean air. It is one of the most basic rights that we have as human beings. Yet, too often, vulnerable communities lack clean air because of insufficient pollution standards and a history of unjust housing policies. Across the country, frontline communities are forced to breathe toxic air.
For the millions of Americans living in communities near freeways, trucking corridors, and freight hubs, pollution from heavy-duty trucks and buses can be deadly. Forty-five million people in the United States live, work, or attend school within 300 feet of a major road, airport or railroad and nearly 36 percent of U.S. residents live in counties with unhealthy levels of air pollution. Living within just one mile of these locations is devastating for lung health and can even lead to early death. According to an analysis of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data, diesel emissions from vehicles are projected to annually result in nearly 9,000 premature deaths, 3,728 heart attacks, and 2,063 asthma-induced visits to the emergency room.
However, the pollution generated by these heavy duty vehicles does not impact all communities equally. Our country’s long history of unjust housing policies has pushed low-income communities and Communities of Color closer to freight corridors where hundreds of trucks and buses pollute the air with dangerous diesel soot. It has been shown time and again that Black, Brown, and Asian-American communities disproportionately bear the brunt of air pollution from our national transportation priorities. People of Color are 3.7 times more likely than white people to live in a county with a ‘failing’ air quality grade, and over 14.6 million people experiencing poverty also live in communities with a failing air quality grade.
As a pastor in the Black church community, I believe that we have a collective, moral responsibility to rise up against these injustices and protect vulnerable communities. Policies that require more pollution-free trucks on the road will improve the health and wellbeing of these overburdened communities that live near major trucking routes - communities located in what doctors have referred to as “diesel death zones.” As church leaders, we rally our communities to work to protect all of God’s creation, both human and non-human. . Eliminating deadly pollution and emissions is central to this mission. We cannot stand idly by while Communities of Color suffer from this devastating but solvable reality.
States across the country, including California, New York, Maryland and Colorado, have put in place an Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule, which helps protect frontline communities from diesel pollution. The ACF rule mandates that manufacturers sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission trucks, eventually phasing out dangerous, fossil fuel polluting trucks entirely. It is time for more states to take this life-saving action and move forward in addressing pollution problems through an environmental justice approach.
Pollution from trucks is not only an issue of climate and environmental protection - it’s also about racial and economic equity. It is a deep injustice that many communities in the United States are impacted by life-threatening air quality. This is an entirely preventable problem, and as a national faith leader, I urge states across the U.S. to take this critical step towards eliminating harmful diesel pollution and ending ‘diesel death zones.’
We all need clean air to breathe. And, we have a moral obligation to protect our most vulnerable brothers and sisters who are shouldering the inequitable impacts of harmful air pollution.
Founder and CEO, Green the Church
Everyone deserves clean air. It is one of the most basic rights that we have as human beings. Yet, too often, vulnerable communities lack clean air because of insufficient pollution standards and a history of unjust housing policies. Across the country, frontline communities are forced to breathe toxic air.
For the millions of Americans living in communities near freeways, trucking corridors, and freight hubs, pollution from heavy-duty trucks and buses can be deadly. Forty-five million people in the United States live, work, or attend school within 300 feet of a major road, airport or railroad and nearly 36 percent of U.S. residents live in counties with unhealthy levels of air pollution. Living within just one mile of these locations is devastating for lung health and can even lead to early death. According to an analysis of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data, diesel emissions from vehicles are projected to annually result in nearly 9,000 premature deaths, 3,728 heart attacks, and 2,063 asthma-induced visits to the emergency room.
However, the pollution generated by these heavy duty vehicles does not impact all communities equally. Our country’s long history of unjust housing policies has pushed low-income communities and Communities of Color closer to freight corridors where hundreds of trucks and buses pollute the air with dangerous diesel soot. It has been shown time and again that Black, Brown, and Asian-American communities disproportionately bear the brunt of air pollution from our national transportation priorities. People of Color are 3.7 times more likely than white people to live in a county with a ‘failing’ air quality grade, and over 14.6 million people experiencing poverty also live in communities with a failing air quality grade.
As a pastor in the Black church community, I believe that we have a collective, moral responsibility to rise up against these injustices and protect vulnerable communities. Policies that require more pollution-free trucks on the road will improve the health and wellbeing of these overburdened communities that live near major trucking routes - communities located in what doctors have referred to as “diesel death zones.” As church leaders, we rally our communities to work to protect all of God’s creation, both human and non-human. . Eliminating deadly pollution and emissions is central to this mission. We cannot stand idly by while Communities of Color suffer from this devastating but solvable reality.
States across the country, including California, New York, Maryland and Colorado, have put in place an Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule, which helps protect frontline communities from diesel pollution. The ACF rule mandates that manufacturers sell an increasing percentage of zero-emission trucks, eventually phasing out dangerous, fossil fuel polluting trucks entirely. It is time for more states to take this life-saving action and move forward in addressing pollution problems through an environmental justice approach.
Pollution from trucks is not only an issue of climate and environmental protection - it’s also about racial and economic equity. It is a deep injustice that many communities in the United States are impacted by life-threatening air quality. This is an entirely preventable problem, and as a national faith leader, I urge states across the U.S. to take this critical step towards eliminating harmful diesel pollution and ending ‘diesel death zones.’
We all need clean air to breathe. And, we have a moral obligation to protect our most vulnerable brothers and sisters who are shouldering the inequitable impacts of harmful air pollution.