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From: Emma Lovén Svensson
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NEW ORLEANS. In the state of Louisiana, the threat of climate change has become part of everyday life.
At the same time, the state continues to depend on the local oil industry and most residents voted for Donald Trump, who decided to abandon the Paris Agreement climate agreement.
– We have a lot of work ahead of us when it comes to getting people to connect everything, says environmental activist Angelle Bradford.
For the US state of Louisiana, the threat of climate change is not a cloud of concern in the future, but it is already a reality. Every hundred minutes, the state loses the equivalent of a football field due to land mass erosion. In addition, more and more floods and hurricanes hit the coastal area, causing havoc.
Angelle Bradford, 28, represents the Sierra Club environmental organization in New Orleans and believes that the impact on the climate is something that many Louisiana residents notice in their daily lives, and more and more people believe in climate change in a been where many have long been skeptical.
– The number of hurricanes this year, I think it made many react, became very remarkable. (…) According to a new survey, 60 percent of Louisiana residents believe in climate change now, so more and more of us believe in it and feel it, he says.
Photo: Emma Lovén Svensson
Angelle Bradford, 28, represents the Sierra Club environmental organization in New Orleans.
Depending on the oil industry
United States: President Donald Trump called global warming a scam and many in his party share that opinion, or do not see the climate as a priority issue. Despite this, nearly 60 percent of Louisiana residents vote Republican.
– We have a lot of work ahead of us when it comes to getting people to connect everything, says Angelle Bradford.
But the question is complex, because while Louisiana is one of the places in the United States most affected by climate change, the oil and gas industry is also one of the most important in the state. In addition to collecting large amounts of money from taxes, up to 250,000 people work in the industry.
– Financially, we are too dependent. If they disappear, we will be affected. We get a lot of tax money from them and that has been the case for a hundred years with companies like Standard Oil and Exxon. They are a big part of our family. When people hear that we want to eliminate the oil and gas industry, they think we want to eliminate jobs.
Drilling and excavations by the oil industry have contributed to erosion that has rendered several areas of the Louisiana coast ultimately uninhabitable, such as Isle de Jeans Charles.
Angelle Bradford also emphasizes how many people have been sickened by emissions from the state’s oil production, something chemist and environmental activist Wilma Subra has spent much of her working life stopping.
– There were no rules first, they came here and drilled wells in the fields, then they left the wells with all the waste. (…) The waste leaked into groundwater and people were poisoned. The children started getting sick, the adults got cancer, he says.
Angelle Bradford believes that Louisiana’s future must be one without the oil and gas industry. But he knows that much more needs to be done first, including the need to tackle widespread poverty and create more jobs.
– We must also talk about fair wages, because it will be necessary when we want people to transfer us to other industries.
Photo: Emma Lovén Svensson
Environmental activist Wilma Subra.
Puts his hopes on Biden
During his term in power, Donald Trump chose to abandon the Paris Agreement, an international cooperation agreement to curb global warming. Bradford describes it as a blessing that Joe Biden, who has often raised the environmental issue on his agenda, will soon become President of the United States in place of Trump.
– I hope we can rejoin the Paris Agreement, hopefully we can get a new green deal. But we will have to move on, he says.
Photo: US Geological Survey
Aerial photographs of how the Isle of Jean Charles Island has been reduced from 1963 to 2008.
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