The executive director of the Brooklyn-based community development organization UPROSE, Elizabeth Yeampierre, took part in preventing just this kind of wealth transfer in 2019, when her organization helped fight off an attempt by real estate developers to rezone an industrial waterfront area in Brooklyn for high-end retail, tech offices and hotels.
Fossil Fuel Phase Out Must Begin Where the Industry Has Hurt People the Most
“Inequities in our dated energy system are rooted in the continued investments in fossil fuels at the expense of the health of our most vulnerable communities,” Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE, a multiracial Brooklyn-based community development organization focused on bringing about a just transition for residents, said in a statement. “We must move funds to frontline communities for clean energy projects and stop fossil fuel developers from perpetuating conventional investments in dirty energy and injustice,” Yeampierre said, noting the ongoing effort of power company NRG to add yet another natural gas burning peaker to its fleet in Astoria, known as “asthma alley.”
Climate Justice Advisory Groups Are in Vogue. But Are State Agencies Listening?
CJWG member Elizabeth Yeampierre, the director of the Brooklyn-based grassroots organization UPROSE, explained that marginalized communities in New York didn’t need help understanding the pollution problem. Over 1.2 million New Yorkers live within one mile of a power plant, a disproportionate number of whom are low-income people of color.