Second District Councilmember Jeannine Pearce hosted a public forum to discuss flattening the COVID-19 and climate curve on Wednesday, May 13 via Zoom and Facebook Live.
The forum included the participation of five speakers who presented information ranging from health measures to climate change while community members weighed in their concerns.
COVID-19
Councilmember Pearce shared that the decision to have this forum was in part due to the World Health Organization listing indoor and outdoor dirty air as a factor that cuts seven million lives short worldwide every year.
“Air pollution is now the biggest environmental risk for premature deaths each year from heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, respiratory diseases, and COVID-19, Pearce said. “That is more deaths than AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined.”
At a time where according to the California Department of Public Health there are 71,141 cases of COVID-19 in the state as of publication time, the councilmember noted the timeliness of the forum.
“According to the CDC, the virus impacts mainly people who are over 65, people with compromised immune systems, individuals who have chronic medical conditions like heart disease, diabetes and lung disease, the same diseases listed as premature death caused by air pollution,” Pearce said.
The councilwoman praised the progress Long Beach has made in addressing climate change but personally felt like it has not gone far enough.
“This really is the opportunity for us to really dream about what a city should be in a post-pandemic era,” Pearce said. “When we can look at our neighbor and say they passed prematurely because they had other impacts that made COVID worse.”
Kelly Colopy, director of health and human services, called into the forum and stressed the importance of paying attention to how pollution plays into underlying health conditions that have led to coronavirus deaths.
“We’ve had 49 deaths [in the city] over time and I will say that all of those are related to people who have underlying health conditions,” Colopy said.
“We have to pay a lot of attention to where we see the underlying health conditions,” Colopy continued. “There are a number of studies from the United States and European countries that show that increased levels of air pollution correlated with increased deaths via coronavirus and they believe that the pollution particles penetrate deeply into your body increasing the risk for hypertension, heart disease, breathing problems and diabetes, all of which increase coronavirus complications. The particles can weaken your immune system as well.”
The director for health and human services noted that in the United States, often the most polluted communities are lower income and often communities of color.
“We have communities across our city who have increased risk to coronavirus based on where they are living and that’s often based on where we have the highest levels of pollution,” she said.
Colopy ended her time reassuring forum attendees that there’s a lot of work going on across the city focused on climate, including the port as well as outreach across the city on how to stay safe during the pandemic.
Climate & Sustainability
To show what the city is planning on doing to flatten the climate curve, Jennifer Ly, planner at the City of Long Beach, provided an update on the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP), which is currently in draft form and is anticipated to be adopted later this year.
Ly defined CAAP as a “roadmap that takes a holistic approach across areas where the city has influence in order to reduce target greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals, while also preparing LB for climate change.”
According to Ly, the largest source of emissions in Long Beach comes from transportation at 50%, daily energy use at 44% and waste at 6%.
The City has a greenhouse gas reduction target which projects reduced emissions through the year 2045.
Ly noted that climate impacts on the city of Long Beach include air quality, which is related to high levels of heat as high temperatures drive up the formation of air pollution.
“Though we’ve made important strides in improving air quality over the past two decades, air quality is projected to worsen due to climate change,” Ly said.
In Ly’s presentation, a climate change vulnerability assessment showed that climate change will disproportionately impact people who already face inequities.
To help with this issue, CAAP has implemented an equity strategy, which would prioritize the improvement and growth of urban forest cover in neighborhoods that are the most vulnerable to extreme heat, poor air quality and have less green space.
There are 40 other actions with equity strategies attached in CAAP’s mitigation and adaptation measures that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help adapt to the impacts of climate change respectively.
As the forum shifted into what comes next in terms of sustainability as the pandemic continues, Lyn took note of the community’s creativity in committing to environmentally friendly alternatives.
“I’ve been really inspired by seeing community members and what they have come up with, for example I’ve seen businesses that use pasta as coffee stirrers instead of plastic, or continuing to use bamboo straws, which is a cost to the business, but they are making a commitment to sustainability.”
