On Friday May 10, Veda Truesdale, senior research specialist at the Environmental Analysis and Communications Group at Rutgers University, came to Log Lunch to discuss climate change adaptation and environmental justice in socially vulnerable communities. With a B.A. in Geography from Vassar University and a Master’s in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Management, Truesdale’s professional work has focused on climate adaptation and land use policy. Before joining Rutgers, she was an environmental planner for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection where she was a part of the sustainable climate adaptation task force. Additionally, she has worked for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, leading the development of the New York State climate resiliency toolkit.
Truesdale’s talk helped to elucidate climate change impacts on marginalized communities in New Jersey and what her work has done to mitigate these potential damages. She began by discussing the New Jersey Climate Adaptation Alliance, a working group that she is in composed of professionals from a range of relevant sectors. In reaction to the inactivity of the state government regarding climate change, the Alliance was formed to prepare for climate change in the state, both identifying issues and formulating policy recommendation.
Regarding the former purpose of the Alliance, Truesdale explained that in New Jersey, the climate change issues confronting the state are frequent, intense heat waves, rain, drought, and sea level rise, specifically a 1.4 feet rise by 2050. Yet not all in the state can react to these effects with equal success, as there is great social vulnerability in specific populations of New Jersey residents. For example, poverty drastically diminishes one’s ability to avoid the detrimental effects of extreme heat. Food access, multi-family housing rules on open doors, bus commuting, pool memberships, chronic disease issues, and the early-closing hours of cooling centers all prevent low-income populations from reacting to heat waves as adequately as more wealthier communities might.
Illustrating the use of GIS mapping in identifying issues in vulnerable communities, Truesdale discussed Newark. Newark, New Jersey is an urban-heat island eight degrees hotter than its suburban neighbors with a superfund site. Additionally, forty-five percent of Newark residents do not speak English at home, a fact detrimental to these residents who received English flyers warning of the Sandy surge and thus were not prepared. The residents of this community wanted data on flooding, heat, potential parkland, potential gardens, air pollution, contaminated sites, crime, and precipitation. So, Truesdale and her team created GIS maps to visualize these environmental problems and solutions. She specifically discussed the GIS map concerning all of the contaminated sites and the Sandy surge, an image that could indicate the expected distribution of pollutants by a flood.
Given the inadequacies of climate change preparedness in Newark, Truesdale and the Alliance have created various policy recommendations, including evaluating and updating as necessary emergency management procedures (such as English warnings for non-English speakers), reduced or eliminated pool fees during heat waves, and neighborhood coalitions. These recommendations, together with the GIS mapping, could help build resilience and strength in vulnerable communities and equalize the climate change impact on economically-dichotomous localities.
By Sara Clark ‘15
To learn more about the Environmental Analysis and Communications Group at Rutgers and Veda Truesdale, please visit http://eac.rutgers.edu and http://eac.rutgers.edu/staff/.
Megamenu Social