Environmental Justice
Communities that suffer from air pollution, and flooding are often low-income and minority neighborhoods. What are these communities called?
What are frontline communities?
This movement and framework calls for fairness in how climate change's causes and effects are addressed, recognizing that the people who contributed least often suffer the worst impacts.
What is climate justice?
This term means the ability of a community or system to bounce back from climate-related shocks.
What is resilience?
Solar panels convert energy from this source directly into electricity.
What is the sun / sunlight?
Growing and selling food close to where it's consumed, cutting down on transportation emissions, is called this.
What is a local food system?
This term describes unequal exposure to pollution and environmental hazards based on race or income.
What is environmental justice?
Dangerously hot days that put people without AC at risk
What is extreme heat?
Restoring the Hoosic River's banks helps prevent this after heavy rain.
What is flooding?
This term refers to the connected system that carries electricity from power plants to homes and businesses.
What is the (power) grid?
This farming approach focuses on meeting today's food needs without harming the land, water, or environment for future generations.
What is sustainable agriculture?
Your class met the founder of this local group working to clean up and restore the same river both factories once polluted.
What is the Hoosic River Revival?
The planet's long-term warming, mainly from burning fossil fuels
What is global warming?
To control flooding, much of the Hoosic River running through downtown North Adams was rerouted into massive concrete channels.
What are the flood chutes?
When solar and wind aren't producing enough, like on a cloudy, calm day. What kind of energy do we usually turn to in order to keep the lights on?
What is fossil fuel energy?)
Farming that disturbs the soil as little as possible, cutting erosion and keeping carbon locked in the ground, is called this.
What is no-till farming?
This company took over Mass MoCA and dumped a toxic chemical called PCBs into the river for decades, fish there are still unsafe to eat today
What is Sprague Electric?
Of all the extreme weather Berkshire County deals with heat, drought, storms, this is the one that's done the most damage to local farms in recent years, wiping out over 1,000 acres in 2023 alone
What is Flooding?
Planting trees and adding shade in cities to fight extreme heat is an example of this.
What is urban heat mitigation?
Not all the electricity North Adams uses is made nearby, some of it actually comes from this country to the north.
What is Canada?
This career works directly on power lines and electrical infrastructure, helping keep the grid running, like the professionals your students met at the National Grid substation.
What is a lineman or electrical/power lineworker?
Along with Alton Avenue and West Main Street, this North Adams street had homes demolished in the late 1990s after contamination from a nearby former Sprague Electric industrial landfill was discovered.
What is Avon Street?
In 2011, flooding wiped out this Williamstown senior mobile home community, nearly 300 people lost their homes while wealthier parts of town stayed dry.
What is the Spruces?
This term describes preparing communities and infrastructure ahead of time for expected climate impacts, rather than only reacting afterward.
What is climate adaptation?
Even if we built enough solar panels and wind turbines to cover all our energy needs, this is still the main reason we couldn't run on 100% renewables today.
What is outdated infrastructure?
This career focuses on strengthening the local economy,helping businesses grow, promoting a region to visitors, and connecting community members to resources
economic development or a career in community/economic development or local government/public service