Coco de Marneffe and Ian Muir Smith, both FCLC ’22, were the lead organizers of this year’s Local Conference of Youth (LCOY USA), an annual event that brings together over 125 young people from across the country carefully selected for their leadership in the climate movement. Ashira Fisher-Wachspress, FCLC ’23, and current Fordham student Kenny Moll were also part of the 15-person organizing team for the event, which took place in Tempe, Arizona in September.

De Marneffe, who majored in theology, served as the conference’s general coordinator. She said a “Religion and Ecology” class she took her senior year, taught by Christiana Zenner, Ph.D., started her down this path. She hopes LCOY will inspire other young people to get involved in climate advocacy. 

“You don’t have to be a Nobel Prize-winning scientist to contribute to this work. You just have to find your place in your community,” she said. “For me, it started with one class I took in college. Thanks, Fordham.”

The National Youth Statement

The centerpiece of the conference is the National Youth Statement, a list of climate-related policy demands that the young delegates draft together. Smith describes the statement as a democratically-crafted tool that advocates can use to push policy makers further on climate change. Once complete, the statement is shared with local governments and incorporated into the Global Youth Statement, the official youth stance on climate change presented at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of Youth and Conference of Parties, which will be held in November in Baku, Azerbaijan.  

Smith acknowledges that some of the statement’s demands may seem radical — such as disbursing at least $446 billion annually in climate finance to the Global South, or increasing federal investment in public transportation to reduce car dependency by 50% by 2030 — but he says that’s as it should be. “It’s the responsibility of youth in some ways to push our policymakers to consider what is radical. Really, it only seems radical because what we’re doing now is so inadequate,” he said. 

Climate Week in NYC

De Marneffe, Smith, Moll, and Fisher-Wachspress also organized a NYC Climate Week event, which coincides with the U.N. General Assembly in New York City. There, they presented the National Youth Statement to U.S. climate negotiators from the State Department as well as to other young climate organizers. 

“A lot of this work is unglamorous,” said de Marneffe. “What makes it worth it is the people around you who are encouraging you, and who believe in the same things you believe in.”

But was that air pollution actually causing those symptoms?

In a new study published this month, Marc Conte, Ph.D., professor of economics at Fordham, says no.

“There’s no question that air pollution is a public health threat, but measuring the impacts of air pollution on humans, whether it’s cognitive ability, physical health, or mental health, is pretty challenging,” said Conte.

Correlation vs. Cause

The challenge, he said, is overcoming the temptation to put more weight behind observational studies than they deserve. A researcher might collect data and determine that a large number of people with dementia have bad teeth. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that bad teeth cause dementia.

“The public health researchers who are conducting this work know that they’re studying correlations, but when the media reports on these studies, the layperson who consumes that information might not necessarily know that it’s a correlation and not causal,” he said.

For the study, “Observational studies generate misleading results about the health effects of air pollution: Evidence from chronic air pollution and COVID-19 outcomes,” which was published in the journal PLOS ONE, Conte and his research partners paired data from two different sources that were collected between March and September 2020.

The first source was health data gathered from U.S. Census tracts in New York City, whose geographic centers are less than 500 meters from a highway. That narrowed the number of tracts studied down to about 800 out of a total of 2,168 in New York City. The researchers then compared that to data collected from the New York City Community Air Survey, a network of 100 air quality monitors maintained around the five boroughs.

That extensive network, which augments a much smaller number of monitors in New York City maintained by the federal government, allowed researchers to compare communities that are downwind from highways with those that are upwind. If poor air quality were responsible for more severe COVID symptoms, communities downwind would be expected to fare worse than their upwind neighbors.

Findings

Conte said that across the 800 census tracts, there was no statistically significant difference between those who were downwind and thus had poorer air quality and those who were upwind and therefore had better air quality. Other factors, such as income differences, access to health care, and the ability to work remotely during the pandemic, are more likely culprits for severe symptoms, he said.

In addition, many residents in these areas were unable to leave New York City at the height of the pandemic, either because they lacked the means to do so, or their jobs required that they work in person. The inability to engage in this kind of “defensive behavior,” resulted in higher exposure to those infected with the virus.

“That fact suggests this issue of environmental justice extends beyond the fact that certain communities are located near more pollution sources,” he said.

“It’s actually a more systemic problem that lower-income people are employed in positions that could not accommodate remote work, with many designated ‘frontline’ workers,” he said, or simply didn’t have the resources to leave the city.

None of this means that researchers should cease conducting observational studies, especially during health emergencies like the pandemic, Conte said.  Rather, he hopes the study will further elevate the notion that “correlation does not equal causation” in the public consciousness.

More Data = Better Outcomes

A second takeaway from the study is the importance of maintaining a large network of air quality monitors, which together are able to generate finely detailed data. In fact, Conte’s team also conducted a second experiment on the same topic using only data collected by the seven monitors maintained around New York City by the Environmental Protection Agency, without any input from the New York City Community Air Survey.

The results were much closer to the observational studies that had been done and might have led readers to believe that air pollution and severe COVID symptoms are explicitly linked to each other.

“As we think about things like wildfires and other sources of air pollution, these problems are becoming more and more intense,” said Conte.

“For us to be able to take measures that can reduce the public health outcomes and the threats to public health, we need to have more information. We need to invest more.”

Fordham will receive the funds over three years, working with partner organizations to help uplift disadvantaged and hard-to-reach communities as well as those disproportionately affected by climate change, pollution, and other environmental stressors. Fordham is one of just 11 institutions nationwide selected to manage $550 million in federal funds earmarked for the program.

“Fordham University stands for impact on the world and finding solutions to the most urgent problems,” said President Tania Tetlow. “Fordham combines cutting-edge research with a deep connection to community, building on 182 years of engagement with the Bronx and expanding outward across the globe. This project embodies Fordham’s mission. We believe in the power of community-driven solutions to climate change to capture the insights and ingenuity of the people on the front lines of global warming.” 

Approximately $10 million of the award will be designated for the grantmaking operation and related programming, as well as for Fordham’s own research. Serving as the EPA Region 2 grantmaker for the project, called the 2023 Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program, Fordham will allocate the remaining $40 million in subgrants ranging from $75,000 to $350,000 to foster various environmental justice initiatives. Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning is leading the initiative, which will be directed by Julie Gafney, Ph.D., assistant vice president for strategic mission initiatives, and Surey Miranda, director of campus and community engagement.

Community and Academic Partners

The University is collaborating with key community and academic partners, including the New York Immigration Coalition, New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, ConPRmetidos in Puerto Rico, Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands, Business Initiative Corporation of New York, and several universities across the target regions. This collaborative approach will ensure a broader impact and integrate the University’s research and teaching with real-world environmental justice efforts. 

Communities will be able to apply to Fordham for a subgrant to fund a range of different environmental project activities, including small local clean-ups, local emergency preparedness and disaster resiliency programs, environmental workforce development programs, air quality and asthma-related projects, healthy homes programs, and projects addressing illegal dumping.

The Fordham grantmaking initiative—called Flourishing in Community—will support each subgrant with a Community of Practice group that includes faculty, community leaders, and graduate assistants, ensuring comprehensive support and maximizing effectiveness.

“This grant is the direct product of Fordham’s commitment to center environmental justice and sustainability in our public impact teaching, learning, and research. In Fordham’s Flourishing in Community Grantmaker Initiative, we created a transformative approach that offers a new vision of higher education: one that values community impact alongside cutting-edge research,” said Gafney. “Our initiative not only provides grants to disadvantaged and disproportionately impacted communities but also extends to comprehensive wraparound support, ensuring the sustainability and impact of these crucial community-led projects.”

The grant also underlines Fordham’s commitment to STEM curricular development, as well as the University’s engagement with communities as they respond to the most pressing issues facing our city and our nation.  

“We are grateful to have worked alongside our partners across EPA Region 2 to ensure accessibility to this much-needed funding for all,” said Miranda. “We aim to ensure that the most impacted communities can leverage the funding and technical assistance available through the program. This will help build their capacity and strengthen the work already taking place in New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”

Lisa F. Garcia, EPA Region 2 administrator, said Fordham’s work with the agency “will be the start of a fruitful relationship that will build upon both EPA’s commitment to addressing climate injustice and Fordham’s promise of environmental stewardship.”

“As a grantmaker, Fordham University will help the EPA advance environmental justice in a direct way that will help to undo the past harms of environmental injustice,” Garcia said.

A ‘Transformative Opportunity’

Rafael Roger, president of Business Initiative Corporation of New York, one of Fordham’s partners, said the Flourishing in Community initiative is a chance to “begin addressing environmental issues that will improve the lives of millions of people.”

“This opportunity is transformative for our region and will bring justice to communities that have been marginalized,” he said. “While creating jobs and improving buildings is part of our mission, being able to add ‘improving the environment’ is a new benchmark.”

Amy Torres, executive director with the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice (NJAIJ), said that “too often, New Jersey is the punchline in jokes about pollution, contamination, or hazardous waste. But for New Jerseyans who bear the brunt of environmental racism or who have been displaced by climate crisis, it’s no laughing matter.”

“As the state’s largest immigration coalition, NJAIJ is proud to be a part of the collaborative effort under Flourishing in Community,” she said. “Together, we will uplift the voices of those most impacted in EPA Region 2—in particular climate refugees, agricultural workers, and people displaced or harmed by environmental racism.”

Dee Baecher-Brown, president of the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands, said her organization is “honored” to be Fordham’s partner in this work.

“CFVI recognizes the significance and potential impact of this grant in advancing environmental justice and addressing the needs of overburdened communities, and is poised to employ our extensive experience and infrastructure to maximize the value of Flourishing in Community in the U.S. Virgin Islands,” Baecher-Brown said.

Also in the Caribbean, Isabel Rullán, co-founder and executive director of ConPRmetidos in Puerto Rico, said that she and her colleagues would bring their own grantmaking experience to bear and “prioritize supporting underrepresented groups focusing on eliminating barriers that limit organizational development.”

Murad Awawdeh, PCS ’19, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said the organization is proud to partner with Fordham on its environmental justice efforts.

“This new funding from the EPA is an important first step in ensuring more community-based groups have the support they need to bring attention to and continue to alleviate the impacts of climate change, pollution, and other environmental stressors on immigrants, low-income communities, and people of color,” he said.

Those interested in learning more about the program—including how to apply for grants—can fill out this form.

For media inquiries, contact Jane Kidwell Martinez, Fordham’s director of media relations, at [email protected] or 347-992-1815.

Lea esta historia en español.

“There’s a long history of young people challenging systems, dismantling systems, and manifesting a vision that has put us on a course to be a different kind of nation,” says Yeampierre, an attorney who co-chairs the national Climate Justice Alliance and is executive director of UPROSE, a Latino community organization based in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

It’s a message of hope and empowerment she brought to her alma mater on April 19 as the keynote speaker at “Fordham in Community: A Summit on Community Power and Just Climate Actions.”

Born in New York City, Yeampierre moved with her family from Manhattan’s Upper West Side to Harlem, Washington Heights, and the Bronx before enrolling at Fordham, where she majored in political science. After graduation, she earned a law degree at Northeastern and embarked on a trailblazing career as an educational and environmental justice advocate—at the grassroots level and on a grand scale.

As executive director of UPROSE since the mid-1990s, she has helped to double the amount of open space in Sunset Park, facilitate participatory community planning, and organize young people of color for climate justice. She spoke at the White House’s Forum on Environmental Justice in 2010, helped lead the People’s Climate March in 2014, and served as the first Latina chair of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

Across all her work, Yeampierre has pushed for community-led climate adaptation strategies and sustainable development—and underscored the links between racial injustice and climate change. She spoke with Fordham Magazine about her career journey and what she tells people who want to take action for environmental justice.

Why did you decide to attend Fordham?
I had visited a bunch of colleges—Barnard, Harvard. Fordham just felt like home. I remember walking into the Higher Education Opportunity Program office and seeing people who looked like me, who came from a working-class background. And I thought, “This is a place where I can do what I need to do.”

What was your introduction to climate justice work? Was it an area that you always felt drawn to and knew about?
Absolutely not. I thought that environmentalists were tree huggers who dressed poorly. I didn’t see the connection between the environment and my lived experience. My goal was to become a civil rights litigator. But I grew up in an environmental justice community. My family has all the health disparities that one would have living in the midst of toxic exposure, and so do I.

When I came to UPROSE, I was trying to figure out what we can do that complements what other people are doing and serves unmet needs. I realized that if you couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t fight for justice. So that was my entry into environmental justice work.

Prior to that, you worked for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, at the American Indian Law Alliance, and as a dean of student affairs at Yale. People might not necessarily think of these as environmental justice or climate justice jobs. But can you talk about the through lines between them and the work that you do now?
The environmental justice and climate justice movement is intersectional. Everything that you do—it doesn’t matter what you study, it doesn’t matter what field, what gives you joy—it’s going to be impacted by climate change. The environment is everything: where we live, where we pray, where we work. It’s everything for us.

At the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, I was working to get students of color into law school, and I was trying to encourage them to use their education as descendants of the Civil Rights Movement to advance our civil and human rights.

Then at the American Indian Law Alliance, we were based in New York, and we were working with tribes and nations from all over. It was a space where all the traditions and all the practices were consistent with the tradition of honoring Mother Earth.

Then I go to Yale to be dean of Puerto Rican student affairs. It was a great opportunity to bring in community and to take the resources that Yale had to honor its host community.

I see that each of these were part of a path that was making it possible for me to understand how different institutions operate, what some of the challenges are for different groupings of people, all of whom come from struggle.

What kind of advice do you give young people about how to make a difference when it comes to environmental justice and climate issues? And how do you encourage them to avoid despair?
If you’re Black, Indigenous, or a person of color, you exist because the generations that came before us, who went through things that we can’t even imagine—who were in shackles, who were tormented, who were tortured, who were raped, who went through unimaginable violations of human rights—imagined us. They stood up and they fought. They built community, and they made it possible for us to be here. They went through existential threats.

Existential threats are not new to us, and we’re literally the descendants of people who walked in their power and transformed the experiences that they had and opened doors so that we could walk through them. To feel despair or to feel like we don’t have power is to dishonor our ancestors, because they went through things that we can only imagine.

The environmental justice movement is intergenerational. We believe that leadership is a continuum and that this country pits generations against each other. There is strength in that intergenerational power, and it doesn’t threaten anyone. There’s room for everyone to exercise leadership.

Across ages, when people say, “I care about this. I want to be, if not directly involved, an ally to the environmental justice and climate justice movements, but I don’t know what concrete steps to take,” what kind of advice do you offer?
A few things. One, I would say, read the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing so that you know how to come into the space to do the work necessary to be an ally. Do some mapping to find organizations that are doing this work and have a long history of doing it, and then call them and say, “How can I help? Do you need us to help you raise funds? Do you need us to help you with direct actions? Maybe it’s an art build. I have time. I’m available. How can I help support—not supplant, but support—the work that you are doing?”

If you go to the Climate Justice Alliance website, we have frameworks and guidelines for just about everything. They’re not coming out of one person’s head. They’re coming out of the collective, across the country, because this is an all-hands-on-deck moment. If you have passion, and if you really want to engage in this work, you have to then be part of building relationships and engaging in self-transformation.

As Earth Day comes up, you see a lot of organizations making pledges and starting sustainability initiatives. Sometimes we come to find out that it was “greenwashing,” and that those initiatives are offset by the negative impacts of the company’s actions. What can organizations do to truly make a positive impact and become allies in the climate justice movement?
That’s a hard question, but there are businesses that have been working hard to build those relationships. You’ve got Patagonia. Patagonia is an example of a business where, how they treat their workers, their products, the frameworks, the materials that they produce—they literally contact environmental justice organizations all over the country and they ask, “What do you think of this? How should this be shaped?” They have people who volunteer to support our events, our community gatherings, our direct actions.

We’re going to have to create different economies of scale, and we’re going to have to support small businesses that exist in our community. It’s really a matter of how much is enough for a corporation. At what point are you trying so hard to have more than you need—or doing so much that you’re harming the planet—that you are no longer a company that we want to support?

Right now, we’re experiencing what I call a green gold rush. People are seeing the green economy as an opportunity, and they’re coming at it as opportunists. It’s not going to look any different from the economy that got us to where we are, except that it’s going to have this green patina on it. We’re seeing that with offshore wind at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, where it can be a model of a just transition, but it is dangerously close to becoming an ecosystem that really models the bad behavior of some of the companies that are involved, like BP. So we have to monitor that really closely.

How can the public gain the literacy to know which organizations and initiatives truly support the climate justice movement?
It’s hard because you only have so much information, and people want to do the right thing. But I wouldn’t put the blame on the individual.

The truth is that in our community, particularly among Black and brown people, we live within our carbon footprint. I want to say that, because people are so desperate to engage and to participate and are so worried that they are not doing something that helps the planet. And media has given people the impression that they’re the problem. Those corporations, those fossil fuel companies, are the ones responsible.

I really want to make sure that even while people are making informed choices, they’re thinking about what fossil fuel companies are doing to destroy the planet.

We also have to hold the government accountable for giving some money to environmental justice but then funding offshore oil, supporting the Willow Project and other initiatives that harm our community. Or we have to blame big green organizations that say that they’re about the environment but are supporting green hydrogen, carbon sequestration, and other false solutions that turn our communities into sacrifice zones. Those are the folks that we really need to worry about.

It’s easy for our communities to think, “Okay, maybe I need to turn off the lights.” Turning off the lights is not enough. But you know what? Having a community on a solar array that creates community wealth—that’s a really cool thing. Getting off the grid, finding alternative options, and providing renewable energy, those are really cool things, and those are things that are on a different scale.

Interview conducted, condensed, and edited by Adam Kaufman, FCLC ’08.