Urban Resilience and Climate Change

The EJ League has been working with the RI Student Climate Coalition and the Environment Council of RI on a project to identify and address the inevitable impacts climate change will have on Providence and other urban communities in our state, especially hurting the people with the least resources to deal with these changes.

Check out the New England EJ Forum’s Wiki page for notes from a webinar in May 2013 featuring our climate change adaptation and resiliency project.

Through this project we held presentations and small group discussions with partner organizations here in Providence that represent and/or serve communities of color and low-income families.  We compiled participants’ responses and ideas about the major concerns they have related to the inevitable impacts of climate change that will impact Providence in the years to come.  Their responses were complied into the following report:

ECRI Climate Adaptation Report FINAL

The report has been submitted to the RI Climate Change Commission, created last year to look at actions Rhode Island must take in order to address the climate change impacts facing our state.  The goal of the report was to add the voices of urban environmental justice communities to the Commission’s discussions and decision-making.

As part of these efforts, we also collaborated on community service projects with partner organizations to begin taking concrete actions such as tree-planting, creating community gardens, and weatherizing homes to address potential climate change impacts such as flooding, high heat days, and food shortages.  The EJ League brought additional resources to the project through our ongoing home weatherization program.

Check out more information about the project, called Beats of Resilience, HERE.