Jun 9, 2015 12:44 PM
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2...ate-change
EXCERPT: I grew up in a cité, the French equivalent of a council estate [...] The majority of its residents were of African and Maghrebi descent. We barely had functioning elevators, so the council couldn’t be bothered to force us to recycle. [...] As I grew older, I realised that my friends who had the opportunity to leave the cité for more secure and bigger accommodation, such as gated communities in the suburbs, were almost all white. The few times I raised the environment issue at home, I was told that “recycling was for white people”. But environmental issues [...] don’t really care about our origins.
The first natural disaster which affected me was the French heatwave of 2003 [...] It was quite a big deal in the country back then, because about 15,000 old people died from heat stroke and poor living conditions. Suddenly, global warming was upon us. I thought that it just meant that we would have higher temperatures [...but....] Climate change means that we experience more extreme temperatures every year, both hot and cold. [...] Our houses are poorly insulated, green spaces few and tiny, turned into wasteland overrun by rats, and no facilities for recycling. We are the people France has forgotten....
EXCERPT: I grew up in a cité, the French equivalent of a council estate [...] The majority of its residents were of African and Maghrebi descent. We barely had functioning elevators, so the council couldn’t be bothered to force us to recycle. [...] As I grew older, I realised that my friends who had the opportunity to leave the cité for more secure and bigger accommodation, such as gated communities in the suburbs, were almost all white. The few times I raised the environment issue at home, I was told that “recycling was for white people”. But environmental issues [...] don’t really care about our origins.
The first natural disaster which affected me was the French heatwave of 2003 [...] It was quite a big deal in the country back then, because about 15,000 old people died from heat stroke and poor living conditions. Suddenly, global warming was upon us. I thought that it just meant that we would have higher temperatures [...but....] Climate change means that we experience more extreme temperatures every year, both hot and cold. [...] Our houses are poorly insulated, green spaces few and tiny, turned into wasteland overrun by rats, and no facilities for recycling. We are the people France has forgotten....