Post doctoral fellow Dr. Liza T. Powers presents at the Urban Affairs National Conference

Dr. Liza T. Powers presented Frontline Voices from Greater Houston’s Sacrifice Zone on April 27, 2023 at the Urban Affairs National Conference held in Nashville, TN.  This presentation discussed the Community Environmental Leadership Program (CELP) held during Summer 2021 and Summer 2022 by TSU's Urban Planning and Environmental Policy Department. 

Powers and the Bullard Center  partnered with local Community Leaders to discuss environmental and climate justice issues and how to use tools to advance environmental and climate justice policies in regulatory bodies.

If you are interested in reading her abstract, see below.

‍

Frontline Voices from Greater Houston’s Sacrifice Zone

 Keywords:  Environmental Justice and  Frontline Activism

Conference Topical Category: Environmental Issues, Sustainability, Green Policies

While damaging impacts of climate change increase exponentially,  gains to reverse these repercussions can largely be attributed to grassroots organizations, primarily from populations most vulnerable (Wright & Nance, 2012).  Despite this and due to the legacy of redlining and other segregation policies, adaptation strategies favor populations less in need than frontline communities already facing catastrophic burdens from Climate Change (Williams, 2020; Lanes, et. al, 2022). 

Policymakers continue to miss opportunities to support equitable measures to include more populations and communities who most need mitigation (Bullard & Johnson, 2000).  One effective strategy for advancing green policies has been partnerships between frontline community experts and academic researchers (Sadd, James et al., 2014; Rickenbacker, et al., 2019 ).

This qualitative study looks at the current state of environmental affairs in the Greater Houston area, where populations have endured climate disasters such as Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Winter Storm Uri in 2021, and Extreme Heat and Drought coupled with pollution and other human caused disasters.  These climate events are juxtaposed to local and state policies favoring unbridled petrochemical expansion at an overburdened cost to the natural environment and marginalized populations.  This research details the strategies employed by community experts to advocate for their overlooked neighborhoods. 

Urban Planning researchers at Texas Southern University met with local grassroots leaders located in Frontline Communities to highlight broad environmental topics important to the Greater Houston area. Approximately 30 leaders met in twenty separate forums to discuss how these environmental issues impact their respective communities, how to advance environmental justice policies in regulatory bodies that serve their communities and how to advocate for this change.  Data collected from this research could aid policymakers in providing more equitable measures to combat the impacts of climate change.