Name: Why the people who worry the most about climate change vote in the smallest numbers
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Why the people who worry the most about climate change vote in the smallest numbers

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Fulton County, Georgia, which includes Atlanta, is highly segregated. The north side is mostly white, while the south side is predominantly Black. The data is broken down by census tract. CREDIT: This map shows how different communities across Fulton County gauge the risk of extreme heat. Darker colors indicate that people believe heat poses a greater threat to themselves, their family and their community. The data is broken down by census tract. CREDIT: This map shows turnout for early voting for each precinct in Fulton County for the 2021 Georgia Senate runoff election. CREDIT: .“You have to sort of figure it out, and part of figuring it out is going to vote with your parents,” McCorkle said. “What about communities of color? Their parents had a really tough time voting because of laws that prevented them from being able to vote.”It can be difficult to navigate the often byzantine process of registering to vote, finding one’s polling place and making sense of the ballot. McCorkle said that climate groups need to join progressive groups in pushing to make it easier to vote.&nbsp;“If there are things that are preventing people from being able to cast their vote, we as the environmental community need to be there standing alongside the voter rights advocacy groups, like Fair Fight,” she said. “If people of color, low-income folks are being prevented from voting, then we're not getting true representation on the issue of the environment. We have to protect democracy.”Protecting the right to vote, however, is only one factor in getting people of color to the polls.&nbsp;“In California, for instance, there's been a lot of work in the last decade to increase voter registration and turnout. We've seen huge increases in voter registration. We're at 88 percent for the state,” Romero said. “But the gap between whites and Latinos and Asian-Americans is about the same as it was four years ago, and as it was four years before. Turnout among everybody increased, but the difference in turnout stayed the same.”People need to feel motivated to wake up early and stand in line, she said. That is a challenge when campaigns don’t regularly reach out to people of color or speak to the issues they care about.Black voter turnout has historically lagged behind white voter turnout. In 2008 and 2012, when Barack Obama was on the ballot, Black turnout matched or exceeded white turnout. Turnout is typically lowest among Asian and Hispanic voters. Credit: “Those are the ingredients,” he said. “The recipe is organizations on the ground that are working with all those demographic factors, those political factors, telling voters that their votes matter, telling voters that if they voted, they could make a difference, and be able to legitimately claim that because of the political climate.”Organizers spent years undertaking a concerted and well-funded campaign to register and mobilize Black voters by focusing on issues that affected them. Their success should prove instructive for the climate movement, McCorkle said.&nbsp;“All of these organizations are hiring directors of diversity because they're understanding that they have to change the way that they look at issues, talk about issues and operate internally so that they can be more inclusive of communities of color,” McCorkle said. “Only then will the solutions that we advocate for be completely and truly sustainable. You can't make a victory without including the community that is most impacted.”A decentralized grid with more solar and storage could provide key advantages.President Biden's&nbsp;$1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill and the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 may seem unrelated at first glance. But, in fact, they are deeply connected.We only have a brief moment to act before the 2022 elections could change everything again.

Fulton County, Georgia, which includes Atlanta, is highly segregated. The north side is mostly white, while the south side is predominantly Black. The data is broken down by census tract. CREDIT: This map shows how different communities across Fulton County gauge the risk of extreme heat. Darker colors indicate that people believe heat poses a greater threat to themselves, their family and their community. The data is broken down by census tract. CREDIT: This map shows turnout for early voting for each precinct in Fulton County for the 2021 Georgia Senate runoff election. CREDIT: .“You have...

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Jeremy Deaton

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Why the people who worry the most about climate change vote in the smallest numbers

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