How does climate change connect with voting, education, and other civil rights?

Climate One conversations with oil companies and environmentalists, Republicans and Democrats,

are recorded with a live audience at the Commonwealth Club

of California.

I'm Greg Dalton.

What comes to mind when you think of global warming?

A polar bear or maybe a melting glacier?

If you're Hispanic or African American, you might think of a child with asthma worsened by

a coal plant near your home.

When you do polling, you actually see that people of color pull the highest on the need to

address climate change and address it quickly.

Ingrid Brostrom is Assistant Director of the Center on Race, Poverty in the Environment,

an advocacy organization.

People of color often live closest to the large sources of carbon pollution

that are hurting their personal health and the health of the planet. But they often feel left

out of the conversation. You come to tell us things. You don't come to ask us how we're organizing

or what we want to do or what we want to see and what we want the future to be.

Mandolin Wind Ludlam, better known by her stage name Mystic, is an American hip-hop artist and activist.

She works on voter registration and engagement, often at a hyper-local level, to counter the frustration felt in communities of color.

Of course, there are other reasons why getting those communities more involved in climate action can be a challenge.

When you've got police brutality, when you've got rent, when you've got education,

when you've got unemployment, those issues that are very bread and butter issues,

...