Yessenia Funes is the climate justice reporter for Colorlines. She was previously an editor at YES! Magazine, where she covered racial justice with a solutions lens. Her work has appeared in Grist, AlterNet, Public Radio International, and Truthout. Her writing touches on how race and the environment intersect, but she is passionate about any and all social justice issues. Readers can find her essay on El Salvador’s environmental degradation in the 2017 Women of Color Anthology. A daughter to Salvadoran immigrants, Yessenia dreams of reporting on climate and environmental justice in Latin America.
Green Science’s White People Problem
Simply put, the environmental sciences have a diversity problem, and it’s not just costing us eureka moments like Burchard’s. After all, people of color are more likely to live in places with dirty air and are, thus, more often at risk from health problems linked to polluting industries and climate change. Yet they’re often getting overlooked.
February 22, 2018
Standing Rock Lawsuit Started a Year Ago. Here’s Where We Are Now
On July 27, 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux filed a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers for authorizing the construction of the 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline. Just over a year later, the project has been completed and carries crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields to an export terminal in Illinois. The case is still pending, and continues to be the tribe’s last hope to protect its water and land.
August 4, 2017
EPA Proposes to Remove Protections for Alaskan Watershed That Is Home to 30 Native Villages
The EPA proposed yesterday (July 11) to remove restrictions for the planned Pebble Mine Project near Bristol Bay, Alaska. Alaska Native communities, along with fishermen, fought hard to establish protections for the proposed site, which holds valuable copper and mine but sits dangerously close to the watershed that is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery—a resource on which many groups of Native people rely for their culture and subsistence lifestyle.
July 19, 2017
Prayer and Resistance Camp Launches in Louisiana to Challenge Pipeline Connected to DAPL
A new resistance camp, called L’eau Est La Vie (Water Is Life), opened over the weekend, on June 24. Based in southern Louisiana, the camp is against the 163-mile long Bayou Bridge Pipeline. The camp, according to a press release emailed to Colorlines, is made up of indigenous and environmental justice communities. Described as a “floating camp,” it sits among Louisiana’s wetlands and contains numerous indigenous art structures that are on rafts.
July 5, 2017
Own a Home in Just Four Years? This Co-Op Program Keeps Workers in the Neighborhood
Alex Cedeño quit renting two years ago. Now, he has just two years left until he owns his own home. And it’s all thanks to his employer, Evergreen Cooperatives.
August 27, 2015