Erin Brockovich: 'We're in big trouble if we don't start taking action' on climate change
Erin Brockovich has been fighting for clean water for decades, but she says that now might be the moment when people come together to protect the environment and act to stop climate change.
“I think we're all seeing, if we don't [act on climate change], it's not a scare tactic here — we're in big trouble if we don't start taking action,” Brockovich told Yahoo Finance’s “2020: A Time for Change,” a weekly program that explores race, diversity, and inclusion in the world of business, finance, and politics.
For Brockovich, whose name is synonymous with the film that won Julia Roberts an Academy Award, that action needs to involve all stakeholders — not just industry and government.
In her career, she’s worked with underserved communities around the U.S. and has seen close up the disparities that cut across racial and socioeconomic lines when it comes to clean water and air.
As the country wrestles with evidence of systemic racism in law enforcement, education, and entertainment, she noted that the longstanding bias in environmental justice is also becoming clear. “We might be seeing more of environmental racism that has existed because the pollution is becoming bigger than we've ever seen it, everywhere, in every state, in every community throughout our municipal system, and so we are becoming increasingly aware of it and I will tell you,” she said. “It's got to stop.”
‘We’re waking up’
Whether it’s the disproportionate pollution burden communities of color face or the outsize impacts from severe weather caused by climate change, Brockovich says these “oppressed and suppressed” communities are trying to be heard, but are often dismissed.
“We always want to underestimate these communities,” said Brockovich, author of the new book “Superman's Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It.”
In reality, she said, local communities are taking an active role in protecting the environment, engaging larger networks like the Sierra Club and even running for local office. In Flint, Michigan, a 19-year-old college sophomore was even elected to the City Council as it deals with the fallout from its water crisis, Brockovich noted in her interview with Yahoo Finance.
Everyday people must continue to take an active role in protecting the environment, along with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, according to Brockovich.
“I don't know if we got comfortable or we became complacent or we bought the illusion, okay? But — we the people — must be an active part of this process in looking at things like the Green New Deal and how do we take the industry that we have and build upon it for more sustainability.”
Even after decades of work and many more challenges ahead, Brockovich sees a path forward. “I am more hopeful than I have been in a very long time because I think there's a moment where we're waking up and … we are rising up, and we are speaking out, and that's the process that has to happen going forward that hasn't happened for decades.”
Jen Rogers is an anchor for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @JenSaidIt.
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