Earth In Crisis: ZIP Codes Matter
What Electric Vehicles And Green Space Have In Common
By Tracey MacDermott
For the GPHN
It may not come as a surprise to some, but it’s a fact that we need to return to again and again — until everyone gets it. Mitigating climate change also offers a massive public health opportunity.
Last month a team of researchers from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California published in the journal Science and the Total Environment their findings of the impact of electric vehicles (EV) on air pollution and health.
A summary notes that California has been quickly transitioning to electric vehicles and light-duty zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs), making the state ideal to study their impacts on communities. The researchers compared the number of registrations of zero emissions vehicles with air pollution and asthma-related emergency room visits across the state from 2013 to 2019.
In short, their findings concluded that as ZEV adoption increased within ZIP codes, air pollution and emergency room visits dropped.
California accounts for 39 percent of electric vehicles, ranking first in the nation. In August, the California Air Resources Board approved the Advanced Clean Cars II rule that sets the Golden State “on a path to rapidly growing the zero-emission car, pickup truck and SUV market and deliver cleaner air and massive reductions in climate-warming pollution.” The rule establishes a year-by-year roadmap so that by 2035 fully 100 percent of new cars and light trucks sold in California will be zero-emission vehicles.
Conversely, the Keck School of Medicine researchers highlighted the fact that people living in lower-resourced ZIP codes, who are often poor, simply can’t adopt ZEVs at the same rate as higher-income areas. They continue to suffer the most from the impacts of air pollution.
The data from the California research notes that at the ZIP code level, “for every additional 20 ZEVs per 1,000 people, there was a 3.2 percent drop in the rate of asthma-related emergency visits and a small suggestive reduction in NO2 levels.”
From previous research it is already well known that underserved communities are crippled with higher rates of air pollution, which continues to put people living in them at risk for respiratory problems.
Time and time again, environmental injustice is at the center of climate change and must drive our choices to deliver equitable solutions.
Closer to home, in July, 2021, Gov. Jared Polis signed into law the Colorado Environmental Justice Act. Coinciding with the law, last November a task force headed by current Denver mayoral candidate Ean Tafoya released recommendations on how the state must address health disparities. Those recommendations include the need for community engagement, and how environmental justice efforts should be coordinated across the state.
Study after study indicates that, when considering environmental racism and pollution, ZIP codes matter. People of color and poor people more often live and work in neighborhoods that are far more polluted than wealthy, white people — yes, including in Denver.
Another well-noted travesty is that what is missing for these communities is access to green space. This was another topic that Mr. Tafoya addressed during the January city council meeting when a majority of members approved rezoning the Park Hill Golf Course land and giving a developer carte-blanche to fire up the bulldozers — if Denver voters go along with the scheme on April 4.
Tafoya has been engaged in the fight for environmental justice and combatting environmental racism for decades. At that January meeting, he spoke out against the plan, noting — as many others have also done — that if developed this green space would be lost forever.
So what do electric vehicles and parks have in common? For starters, the ability to lower toxic air pollution in communities who have been forced to choke on smog created by wealthier residents. Along with Tafoya, Denver Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca has been fighting hard to preserve the Park Hill Golf Course property as open space. She has long been advocating equity for our neighbors in Globeville, Swansea and Elyria.
Before the January council vote, CdeBaca said, “[The people of Denver] paid for the conservation easement to keep this open green space. And it’s more important now than it ever has been because half of this green space is in the most polluted ZIP code in America.”
In order to right the many wrongs of environmental red-lining we must invest our tax dollars in communities that have suffered the most from this injustice, while adding protections from gentrification.
We must invest in charging stations and electric car shares for disadvantaged communities first. We must work directly with these communities for their guidance to create open space and access to parks, and ensure that residents aren’t instead displaced.
On April 4, we must vote for Denver candidates who are working for their communities, and not for the profit of the few.
Tracey MacDermott is an at-large member of the board of Greater Park Hill Community, Inc., and immediate past chair. She was trained as a Climate Reality Leader in 2017, and is currently the Statewide Co-Chair of the Climate Reality Project for the 100% Committed Campaign.