Climate impact 'worse on blacks'
2008-07-30 14:53
Washington - American blacks are
likely to suffer disproportionately from climate change and
they are willing to pay to combat it, a commission aimed at
raising awareness about global warming said on Tuesday.
"There is a fierce urgency regarding climate change effects
on the African-American community," said Ralph Everett, the
co-chair of the Commission to Engage African-Americans on
Climate Change said. "People need to understand what is at
stake - our very health and well-being."
Blacks are more than twice as likely as whites to live in
cities where the so-called heat island effect is expected to
make temperature increases more severe, the newly formed group
said at a briefing.
More blacks also will be "fuel poor" as energy demand rises
due to higher air-conditioning loads, population growth and
urbanisation, commission said.
In a survey of 750 US black adults released by the
commission, 81% said the US government should take
strong action to deal with global warming, and seven in 10 said
it was very important for the 2008 presidential candidates to
do something about it.
A solid majority, 64%, of those surveyed by
telephone between June 20 and July 3 said they would be willing
to pay an additional $10 a month to fight global warming.
Twenty-eight percent were willing to pay an added $25 a month
and only 14% were willing to pay an extra $50.
Global warming
As expected, poorer respondents were willing to pay less,
said David Bositis, who supervised the survey for the
non-profit Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies,
which launched the commission's effort.
When asked an open-ended question about what they
considered to be the most important problem facing the United
States, 5% of respondents answered global warming.
This has never been mentioned before as the top problem by
any black respondents in surveys in 2000, 2004 and 2007.
In
this survey, 42% listed the economy as the most
important problem, followed by 17% answering energy.
The 5% who considered global warming paramount
compared with 8% who said the Iraq war and 3% who
answered education.
Bositis said most US surveys and polls
have such a small number of black participants that it is
difficult to separate out black attitudes.
The commission aims to draw African-Americans into the
climate change debate and to involve the black community in
economic opportunities of the green economy.