Seattle Shapers interns created a survey to ask Seattlites about their attitudes on climate issues. With a total of 123 responses, the results showed that:

Most respondents think climate change has little impact on them personally. When asked, “How much of an impact do you believe climate justice has on you personally?”, on a scale of 1 to 5 from none at all to an extreme impact, most participants (36 people, 29.3%) chose 2. Then, 21.1% answered 3, 22% answered 4, and 16.3% answered that climate justice had an extreme impact on them.

The next question “How likely are you to vote for policies that improve on climate justice?” (Policies that limit greenhouse gas emissions, Cap & Trade programs, funding for public transportation). Most respondents are very likely to vote for these policies with 94 people (76.4%) answered 5 on a scale of 1: Not very likely to 5: very likely.

When asked, “How often do you think about climate justice over a month?”, respondents answered on the scale of 1: Never to 5: daily. Most respondents (29.3%) answered 4, close to daily. While 27.6% of respondents think about climate justice daily.

The next finding was that the main barriers preventing people from acting against climate change and climate injustice, are the lack of time and lack of resources. Other notable barriers include the lack of opportunities to act and other priorities. 73 (59.3%) of the respondents answered with “lack of time." 56 (45.5%) responded with “lack of resources”. 49 (39.8%) lack of opportunities. 46 (37.4%) answered with "other priorities".

We found that hat type of resources or information that would be the most useful or inspiring action towards Climate Justice, was “Information on ballot initiatives” was the most selected answer with 81 (65.9%) respondents. Check out the ACT section for links to climate justice-focused candidates and initiatives. The next highest chosen answer with 73 (59.3%) respondents was “webpage with information, toolkits, links to organizations”. The third answer was “Stories from individuals in the community impacted by climate change”. Continue looking through this page to read stories from BIPOC.

Lastly, when asked the question “How would you most want to get involved?”, a large number of people (82.9%) answered “Vote”. The next popular way to get involved was to “Volunteer” (69.1%). The third way the respondents wanted to get involved was by signing petitions (62.6%).

Main Causes:

• Big industries

• Fossil fuels/greenhouse gas emissions

• Deforestation

Main Impacts:

• Changes in

  • Temperature

  • Precipitation

  • Electricity output/usage

  • Food supply

  • Health outcomes

Seattle Statistics from Seattle's Office of Sustainability and Environment

• Since 2016, Seattle's overall GHG emissions have increased 1.1%

• Since 2008, overall emissions have been reduced by 4.1%

• In transportation, there was a 9.9% increase in emissions of Co2 from 2008-2018

• In 2018, 3,5118,907 metric tonnes of CO2 were emitted due to transportation

Additional Resources

Visit TalkClimate to learn more about climate change based on your age group. You can also learn how to talk about climate change with people you know.

Environmental justice is not only a climate issue, but a social justice issue as well. Race is the biggest indicator of the location of toxic facilities in the United States. Due to the proximity of these facilties, POC communities often face higher rates of lung disease, water contamination, and cancer. They also are likely to have less access to healthy fresh food, open space, and affordable housing.

Main Causes:

• Increased proximity to toxic facilities

• Less availability to free educational climate resources

• Less access to green spaces and affordable housing

Main Impacts:

• Higher rates of respiratory disease

• Increased number of cancer cases

• Increased probability of food and water contamination

Seattle Statistics from Seattle's Equity and Environment Agenda

• 13 of the 14 heaviest industrial pollutants are located within a half-mile of the places where communities of color, refugees, and low-income residents live

• Latino communities in King County have experienced an increase in food hardship from 27% to 41%

• 58% of the population that lives within the Duwamish superfund boundary identify as people of color.

Additional Resources

Visit got green to learn more about climate justice issues occurring in South Seattle and the POC leaders leading the conversation.