Obama: Blacks Need A Seat at the Table of Global Warming Debate

I think this might be the first time I’ve heard a major politician explicitly make this connection.

The Detroit Free Press reports:

If there were any worries that the African-American community wouldn’t respond to Sen. Barack Obama’s message that blacks need to take the debate over global warming seriously, they were unfounded.

Obama, the Illinois Democrat who is running for president, made the connection this afternoon for anyone not already aware of it.

In a forum at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Annual Legislative Conference, he said as the climate warms, people of color are in increased danger from flooding and natural disasters; at the same time, there’s a new economy based on environmental change that blacks need to access to create jobs and wealth.

Those who might doubt that global warming affects blacks were given as Exhibit A the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans two years ago.

“There was no thought as to who was left behind,” said Obama. “It’s the poor and the dispossessed who are going to be disproportionately impacted.”

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