Nitty-gritty green

Well, one day after various outlets in our paper highlighted progress toward a 'green' society, our cover story today details how the sticky issues of race and poverty complicate that picture.

In a piece unfortunately sporting the cliche headline "It's not easy being green" (could we pleeeeease retire that one, America's headline writers?) Dana DiFilippo talks to community organizers in town about efforts to get people in the most impoverished areas to think sustainably. One barrier is that "toxic sites from landfills and incinerators to deep-well injections are disproportionately located in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color," she notes, and when you've been dumped on by the people in charge you have a bigger mess to clean up - which can undercut your motivation to save "pretty places, polar bears and owls."

On the other hand, Queen Mother Falaka Fattah, founder of The House of Umoja believes that being black means living green: "Black people are a people of the land - it's almost in our DNA," she told DiFilippo. And her group's "Think Green Peace" initiative is bringing fresh food to needy people, looking toward a sustainable business within the community.

What's clear is that environmental leaders still need to do more to support community leaders like Fattah and Tanga Dixon in their efforts to rally their neighbors. While Mark Alan Hughes, ex-sustainability director for the Mayor's Office, opines today that "this government has given us an anvil to hammer on - but we have to pick up that hammer and start to forge change," that motivational call, for all its gritty inspiration, may not be enough.

Let's get the hammers to the people ready to wield them, and then ask them to start building our green city.