ORANGEBURG, S.C. (CN) – Environmental justice for suffering communities requires policy changes, action and corporate regulations, six 2020 Democratic presidential candidates explained during a forum in South Carolina on Friday.
The forum at South Carolina State University was hosted by the National Black Caucus of State Legislators and leaders from frontline and tribal communities. Civil rights groups, and several youth and environmental organizations helped host the event as well.
According to the event’s sponsors, people of color are most vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis, industrial pollution and environmental hazards, but their problems often go unreported by news outlets and unaddressed by officials.
“We’ve had forums about every issue in this campaign that I can imagine. The two that have most disappointed me are this one, and the one on criminal justice reform with formerly incarcerated people,” New Jersey Senator Cory Booker said Friday, referring to another event recently held in South Carolina.
“I'm disappointed, because the two issues that disproportionately affect people of color have had the least attendance of the folks,” he added.
All 2020 candidates were reportedly invited to participate in Friday’s forum. Six agreed to speak.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, entrepreneur Tom Steyer, author Marianne Williamson, and former U.S. Representatives John Delaney and Joe Sestak spoke during the event that unfolded in the critical 2020 Democratic primary state.
“We have a shameful reality, America,” said Booker, who founded the first environmental caucus in the U.S. Senate.
The candidate cited Duplin County, North Carolina, “where the pig farms and the corporate industrial agriculture are poisoning our soil and our rivers,” Uniontown, Alabama, “where they take coal ash from some communities and dump it into African American Communities,” and his hometown of Newark, New Jersey, among places with a poor environmental record.
Unlike other 2020 candidates who spoke Friday, Booker approved of the use of nuclear energy as a major solution to climate issues because it comprises about half of the non-carbon energy used in the U.S.
Booker suggested that this type of energy, while not ideal, serves as a stepping-stone away from fossil fuels, which create harmful emissions.
“Environmental justice is just another word for saying racism. They’ve chosen to concentrate on air and water pollution in black and brown communities and specifically African American Communities,” Tom Steyer said during the forum.
Steyer said that environmental justice is at the core of his mission.
“Environmental justice is not an afterthought at all for me. It is absolutely central to what I’m doing,” Steyer told the crowd.
He said that, if elected president, he would declare a state of emergency for the climate crisis.
Steyer, who is a billionaire – as noted during the forum by moderator Amy Goodwin of Democracy Now! – told the audience that he pledged half of his money to various causes.
Steyer and the other candidates agreed on Friday that unchecked, large corporations are the root of many environmental justice issues.
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