Is a clean and healthy environment a civil right?

Climate One Conversations feature oil companies and environmentalists,

Republicans and Democrats, the exciting and the scary aspects of the climate challenge.

I'm Greg Dalton.

On today's program, social justice meets climate justice.

When we talk about communities that are on the front line, we talk about the most impact,

we talk about the economic consequences, and we talk about the health effects.

We talk about the whole idea of communities that will somehow culturally disappear.

Dr. Robert Bullard is Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy at Texas

Southern University. He's the author of 18 books that address issues such as environmental

racism, climate justice, disasters, regional equity, and more. The Sierra Club named an Environmental Justice

Award after him in 2014, and he was named one of the world's 100 most influential people

in climate policy by apolitical. This year, Climate One is awarding Dr. Bullard with a Stephen

Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Communication. The late Dr. Schneider was a brash and brilliant

scientist and communicator and an early advisor to me when I founded Climate One in 2007. After he died in

2010, I created the award, now $15,000, to honor scientists who are strong communicators. Robert Bullard

grew up in rural Alabama, not far from Montgomery, a center of the civil rights movement.

Well, you know, I grew up in an era where everything was segregated in the South.

You know, I went to an all-black elementary school, middle school, high school.

I never had a white teacher until I went to Iowa State University, worked on a PhD.

My undergraduate university was all black, Alabama-A&M University.

So I grew up in an era where civil rights and fighting for justice was the same in voting and young people and students.

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