Daily Archives: May 7, 2022

Its a full house at Herrin Hopper and Holly Harper's four-unit home in Takoma Park.

The pair of single moms bought their home together and moved in with their kids during the summer of 2020.

"We were both separated and quite frankly lonely, and we wanted to not be so isolated anymore," Herrin said.

Soon after, they rented the basement to another single mom, Leandra Nichola, and the top unit to their friend, Jen Jacobs, who was tired of overpaying for a small space by herself.

Now living at the home are four adults, five children and three dogs.

Theyre called intentional communities a group of people with common values who choose to live together or share resources. The Foundation for Intentional Community estimates there are more than 3,500 intentional communities in the United States.

"Weve created a village and just like any village, we have ups and we have downs. Life happens, disagreements, joys but overall having the support network of close people that feel like family has been just priceless," Harper said.

Holly and Herrin are now helping more single parents get started.

"There's two things, its the emotional readiness can you find a person that you're willing to enter in a family relationship with, Harper said. "Then you need to just understand your financial readiness."

Holly and Herrin understand buying a home is unaffordable for many right now, even in groups.

The two own a second property in the area, and theyre now working with another single parent to build her own community.

They've gotten a lot of questions from people around the world.

Last week, they had 15 people come to their house for an information session. Holly's working on compiling all their resources so she can create a guide book of sorts to help others find their own sense community.

"Being a single mom, post divorce, separation or whatever life circumstances are, it can be very isolating," Hopper said. "To have created a different way of living, theres just been a ton of interest."

Original post:

Single Moms Buy Home in DC to Save Costs, Build Community - NBC4 Washington

Health and medicine | News releases | Politics and government | Population Health | Public Health

May 7, 2022

Prescribed forest fires are a necessary tool for controlling major wildfires and eventually limiting wildfire smoke and its harmful impact on health. Pictured is a 2019 prescribed burn in the Deschutes National Forest in Central Oregon.Mitch Maxson/The Nature Conservancy

All forest fire smoke is bad for people, but not all fires in forests are bad.

This is the conundrum faced by experts in forest management and public health: Climate change and decades of fire suppression that have increased fuels are contributing to larger and more intense wildfires and, in order to improve forest health and reduce these explosive fires, prescribed and managed fire is necessary.

These intentional fires some deliberately set and others unintended but allowed to burn under control will reduce the intensity of wildfire smoke in the long run, but they are still creating health-impacting smoke, often hitting populations least protected from exposure to smoke.

To find consensus on how to deal with the impacts of all fires on dry Western forests, the University of Washington and The Nature Conservancy led a series of conversations involving roughly 60 experts charged with keeping forests and people healthy. The Science for Nature and People Partnership led the organization of these discussions.

On May 2, more than two dozen of those participants published a paper in the journal Current Environmental Health Reports that is part review of current scientific understanding of the issues and health impacts and part consensus report on how to deal with them.

It started as a conversation between experts who think about fire from really different angles in order to find how we can address fire through an interdisciplinary lens, said lead author Savannah DEvelyn, a postdoctoral fellow in UWs Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences. It took a little bit to get to the fact that it was really smoke that brought us all together. We kind of had to set a baseline for what peoples starting points were all smoke is bad smoke from a public health perspective, but we cant do fire management without more fire.

That working group comprised of scientists, practitioners and managers who specialize in areas of forest and fire ecology, fire safety, air quality, health care and public health agreed on six statements and recommendations as part of its interdisciplinary approach to the issues.

The Nature Conservancy is dedicated to an evidence-based approach to forest and fire management practices that supports the health of both nature and people. These consensus statements aim to serve as guideposts for forest health and public health professionals to work together to promote healthy and resilient forests and communities, said Ryan Haugo, co-author and director of conservation science for The Nature Conservancy in Oregon.

A 2019 prescribed fire in the Deschutes National Forest in Central Oregon.Mitch Maxson/The Nature Conservancy

The first consensus statement addresses the issue of the long-running effort to suppress all forest fires versus the historic practices of Indigenous peoples:

We recognize the need to listen to and integrate a diversity of perspectives, in particular those embodied by Indigenous peoples who have successfully used fire as an ecological tool for thousands of years, the authors wrote.

Ive often heard from Tribal leaders how controlled burns were one of many tools they employed historically to steward healthy ecosystems, said Gillian Mittelstaedt, co-author and executive director of the Tribal Healthy HomesNetwork. This Tribal knowledge has been overlooked, perilously, during decades of European colonization, and federal land management practices. It is only in recent years, as forest ecosystems decline in health, that Western science has begun to recognize and learn from the innate sensibility and sustainability of traditional Tribal burning practices.

Here are the other five consensus statements:

In their conclusion, the authors point out that when all stakeholders work together to combat this climate and public health crisis, communities will be more able to meet these goals, both during and outside of wildfire season.

Extra attention must be given to people who have more smoke exposure, are more likely to experience health problems from smoke, and who dont have enough support to anticipate, adapt, respond or recover from smoke, addedDr. June Spector, senior author and associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences in the UW School of Public Health. These disproportionately affected populations must be included in decision-making to address inequities in smoke health impacts.

DEvelyn hopes the paper will inspire more interagency and cross-disciplinary efforts and funding for research and preparation.

There are really wonderful community organizations working to make sure that people have access to clean air. And, there are really wonderful organizations working to do as much prescribed burning as theyre allowed to lessen the smoke or lessen the severity of wildfires when they come through, DEvelyn said. But there are gaps where communities, organizations and researchers could be collaborating to have an even bigger impact on preparedness.

A 2019 prescribed fire in the Deschutes National Forest in Central Oregon.Mitch Maxson/The Nature Conservancy

Other co-authors are Jihoon Jung, Ernesto Alvarado, Jill Baumgartner, PeteCaligiuri, R. Keala Hagmann, Sarah Henderson, Paul Hessburg, Sean Hopkins, Edward Kasner, Meg Krawchuk, Jennifer Krenz, Jamie Lydersen, Miriam E. Marlier, Yuta J. Masuda, Kerry Metlen, Susan Prichard, Claire Schollaert, Edward Smith, Jens Stevens, Christopher Tessum, Carolyn Reeb-Whitaker, Joseph Wilkins, Nicholas Wolff, Leah Wood.

For author affiliations, please see the publication.

This research was funded by Science for Nature and People Partnerships, The Nature Conservancy and CDCs National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

###

For more information, contact DEvelyn at sdevelyn@uw.edu.

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Consensus approach proposed to protect human health from intentional and wild forest fires - University of Washington

At 22, I wanted a room of ones own. At 32, I wanted a cacophonyanything but the deafening, lonely silence of pandemic isolation and new motherhood, a cosmic sucker punch.

It was during this time that I traded ambition for resignation, downloading TikTok to whittle away spare minutes between feedings, volume down so I could listen for the baby. I exacerbated my under-eye circles swiping through makeup tutorials; I watched home chefs stick their fingers in focaccia dough, smooth as the contours of my weary brain; and I fell in love with #CommuneTok, a variety of viral content where people live off the land and others kindness.

In the past two years, theres been a wave of interest in alternative lifestyles, on and off the apps: Cole Trevino, aka @CommuneCowboy, who pans over mist floating on a nearby hill, a creek overlooking an abandoned bus, a dinner table set for 12, a fire in the wood stove. @julesamanita, who lifts a basket of foraged mushrooms to the camera under text explaining that they live with 70 adult residents and 13 kids at Virginias Twin Oaks, sharing income and governing collectively.

We sustain ourselves by selling heirloom seeds, tofu, and hammocks, they write, a verdant forest in the background. Ask me anything.

Mostly, the fantasy is white, youthful, and able-bodied, and there are no children in the background killing the pastoral vibe. Still, they exist off-screenthe nitty-gritty of parenting doesnt lend itself to viral videos, but like farming, its a job best undertaken by the collective.

As my son grew from a doughy newborn to an expressive toddler, I thought of workdays in my pre-pandemic life, hustling to a computer screen with my $12 salad of unknown provenance. In theory, we have a choice between plugging a dam of emails or watching our labors sprout each spring. I thought of all the friends I had whod recently escaped from New York to places where you could quarantine in sunlight.

Touch grass, the internet retort goes. How many pandemic-era mothers would sell their hair, Jo March-style, for that very privilege? More to the point: If a lonely, pandemic-era mother touches grass and no one but the preverbal child strapped on her back is there to witness it, does she exist at all?

I couldnt imagine continuing down the same long, narrow tunnel of loss. First it was my coworkers, then my community, then my sense of self. There arent babies in these videos, but theres room for them. If the side effect of parenting in unprecedented times is invisibility, I simply wanted to exist in some fresh air in a communal arrangement. Witness me, I thought, and tell me how you got your kid to sleep at night.

As my son grew from a doughy newborn to an expressive toddler, I thought of workdays in my pre-pandemic life, hustling to a computer screen with my $12 salad of unknown provenance.

SUNY Oneonta professor Mark Ferrara explores this in his book American Community, which follows the span of several intentional communities from colonial era to the present. In graduate school, he looked at depictions of utopia in literature, and it was a logical next step to find their real-life manifestations. After undertaking research for his book, he wound up moving into Ithacas EcoVillage, a cohousing community.

I became interested in a historical overview of the 40 communities that I picked . . . which found a way to live so that people could share, to varying degrees, the resources of the community, and make sure that everybody enjoyed a certain level of well-being, he said. Rather than, for example, the kind of income inequality we see in the Gilded Age, in the late 19th century, and today.

Then and now, childcare was enmeshed with income, resources, and support, or lack thereof. Our ability to parent hinges on the fulfillment of other needsfood on the table, secure housing, schools that are safe and functional.

[Photo: Farsai Chaikulngamdee/Unsplash]Utopian idealism doesnt feel specific to this moment because . . . it isnt. Sometimes, thinking of my pastoral fantasies, I felt selfish. There had always been mothers terrified of missing work or finding a safe place to dock their kid during a shiftthey had just flown entirely below my privileged twentysomething radar. Ferrara pointed to Skaneateles in upstate New York, an 1840s compound where residents raised children entirely collectively.

At San Diegos Lomaland, a late 19th- and early 20th-century theosophical community, local children and orphans were educated on a de facto sliding scale, sometimes free, in alignment with their mission to prepare destitute and homeless children to become workers for humanity. Frequently, the attitude of these bygone groups was an ethos of larger responsibilityto better not just members, but mankind.

The Atomic Era familyFather, Mother, Sister, Brotherdidnt spring from the ether. Its a trend that took root after assembly lines and wage labor dramatically transformed daily life and social structures, displacing multigenerational farming families. My fantasy is collective; somewhere, another mother is pining for her very own Ballerina Farm. Theres room for every archetype on the apps, but historically, the nuclear clan seems to have had better marketing.

I began perusing alternatives to my own reality on the website for the Foundation for Intentional Community. The listings run a wide gamut, and like groups of yore, some have families baked into their structures where others (subtly or not so subtly) exclude them. Only a few held the romantic allure of those TikToks. Instead, I found as many communities as there are varieties of lonelinesshighly specific, usually in the shape of god or family.

Its hard to see myself, my husband, or our unruly spawn worshipping with Sufis in Silver City, New Mexico. You can take mushrooms in a Brooklyn apartment; I should probably abstain. Im still glad these exist (because not everything needs to be for everyone, although Id argue that most of us could benefit from interdependence). If you leave the United States, you can become a part of collective experiments on other continents, places where it feels distinctly less counter to the prevailing culture: Israels kibbutz, Copenhagens Freetown Christiania.

In Northampton, Massachusetts, Yochai Gal and Sarah Jackson live with their young son at Rocky Hill, a cohousing community founded in 2006 with 28 private homes on a large, forested parcel of land. Through workdays, members of the community tend to common spaces and grounds, and prior to the pandemic, there were shared meals each Sunday night. When they relocated from the Boston area, Gal was already familiar with communal livinghed grown up on a kibbutzbut the idea was more novel to Jackson.

Where Gal claims that, because of his upbringing, the concept of intentional communities has never not been present,Jackson grew up in homogeneous, small-town New England: white, mostly Protestant, she said. It was very insular, and very common of American life in general: Everybodys independent, you fend for yourself, you take care of yourself.

As they established relationships with their community, they found an intergenerational environment where their son could roam from house to house, play in the fresh air, and form bonds with the other children up and down the cul-de-sacs. The pavement alone disrupts the perfect, tidy vision of the commune kale crops, but to me, it sounded intoxicatingpermission to let down your defenses even momentarily.

[Photo: Tegan Mierle/Unsplash]The free-range child is alive and well in cohousing because you can breathe that sigh of relief knowing there are so many other pairs of eyes, Jackson said. Shes gotten calls to corroborate that her son is allowed to bum a popsicle from a neighbors fridge, and reports of his whereabouts by the sandbox.

I feel like so many of my friends who are mothers right now have to micromanage their kids lives, she said. Theres so much fear, and theres so little independence kids are granted. They get to have it here.

After a traumatic incident with their sons daycare, the aftermath of which made him stop sleeping entirely, their neighbors transformed from co-custodians of the shared Rocky Hill lawnmowers into a lifeline. Waking every 30 to 45 minutes, night after night, Jackson developed shingles; she and Gal were frayed, physically and otherwise.

I remember people sent emails around and said, Theyre having a really hard time, and people started bringing food to our house, even people who frankly dont participate that much in community. All of a sudden, the guy who I consider one of our grumpy neighbors shows up at the door . . . and is like, Heres some soup,' Jackson said.

[The community] organized meals for us, so we never had to cook, Gal said. They did our laundry. They walked our dog. They did everything for us, for weeks.

Where cohousing might be the bridge between participating in normal workaday life and sharing resources like time and physical space, communes often form entire ecosystems unto themselvesliving, working, and recreation. This is where many of the TikToks that initially seduced me fall: everything shared, including income and property.

At Alpha Farm in Deadwood, Oregon, residents cover their needs by working the area mail routes and growing food on the property. Kat Berrones is a mother of four who moved west from Austin with her two smallest children to live on the farm as a single parent. She visited her brother during the summer and by the fall, shed settled there.

It spoke to my soul, she said. I knew this is where I was meant to be; this was it.

Shes the only parent in the commune currently, but Alphawhose 93-year-old founder still lives therewas once home to several generations of kids. I stayed tuned to the farms Instagram account, where Id initially reached out. Weeks after we spoke, there was a photo of a mealtime gathering over bright oilcloth-covered tables, a bunch of long-haired men and women smiling unselfconsciously and brandishing peace signs. The room is tidy and full of windows.

Throughout our call, the voices of Berroness two toddlers reverberated in the background, and she sounded as composed as any parent trying to multitask, pausing occasionally to resolve disputes (Dont push!), to witness tricks. She described their daysfilling water from the tank in the nearby farmhouse, hauling wood for a fire, morning hikes on the propertys 280 acres, and dinners with the rest of their cohort.

What is it that makes Alpha so magical, I asked? What made that decision, to uproot from Texas, so intuitive?

When we were in Austin, we were in a home, of course, but it felt so isolated, Berrones said. I was super depressed, and it was hard to even want to do anything, and so cloistered.

In her previous life, as a stay-at-home mom, she was often marooned inside four walls, struggling alone with her depression and responsibilities.

There are some mornings where Im like, Damn it. Ive got to walk all the way over here to go get wood to get the lodge warm, make cereal. It is a struggle, but I would rather do that than be at my house in Austin alone and depressed, doing nothing and wondering how much longer I can take it, she said.

Alpha Farm and Rocky Hill, despite their lack of formal infrastructure for childcare or parents, represent a certain safety net. You cant drown unnoticed when there are other people watching you. And the words Berrones used to describe her communitycozy, welcoming, acceptingfeel distinctly opposite to the environments most mothers find outside their doors. Youve never felt such a withering stare if you parent the wrong way in public; until you parent any way in public. Youve never been judged so ferociously as when a train car finds your spawn obnoxious.

That permission to be human is what communal living, at its best, can offer. This stands to benefit anyone, parent or otherwise, especially those pushed to societys edges. Living in such an arrangement entails an informal contract to treat each member like they matterto acknowledge, at a minimum, that my existence depends on yours, and vice versa.

Even if theyve bettered the lives of the people I spoke to, everyone also emphasized that these communities arent oases. They arent perfect; they arent cure-alls. Theyre comprised of human beings, and that makeup will shape the overall experience. Maybe the reason well-known groups like those in Ferraras book ultimately shuttered is because a small but well-meaning commune is still made of imperfect people who cant remedy larger social ills.

This was a necessary pin in whatever fantasy still floated through my daydreams. I would never live on the TikTok commune. If anything, Id live in the one I could afford, wherever that was, with the people whod already arrived there, whoever they were. Real life doesnt fit inside a 30-second clip.

If we look back at the international communities, theyre always pushing back against the status quo, and as they do that, theyre offering another vision of what society could be like.

Cohousing communities often reflect larger issues, demographically: segregated, largely white, affluent. Communes like Alpha often skew very young and child-free, perhaps culturally alienating. Still, theyre positing an alternative. Theyre arguing that we can scrap what hasnt worked and try another way.

If we look back at the international communities, theyre always pushing back against the status quo, and as they do that, theyre offering another vision of what society could be like, Ferrara mused.

I think that that might be a positive way to be looking at these intentional communities: not as a solution for all social ills, he said. If I just join EcoVillage, or if I just join this community, everything will be great.' But were challenging the values of the existing order that we find exploitative. Were offering a new model. Hopefully, society will eventually join us.

Join me, I want to say. I have the pioneers itch to build something from scratch, even though I lack the capital and the time and the cohort of interested friends. In the intervening monthsmy child is almost 2Ive come a long way since my #CommuneTok summer. Ive found remote work and a friend who lives in my building. I can no longer see a future in viral videos, and I wouldnt trust myself to discern between species of mushroom.

The reality is, like most things, messier than the fantasy, and if were going to do it, it will be togetherme, my son, and the other mothers alone behind a screen, determined to find a sunnier place.

Linnie Greene lives in Jersey City, New Jersey. You can find her work in outlets like The New York Times, Pitchfork, and Hobart, and on her website.

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The allure of CommuneTok - Fast Company

by Beau Hebert

Dear The Beauster,

It took me months but I finally just watched the movie Dont Look Up. How is this not our future?

Sincerely,

Bryn-Mawr Bill

Dear B-M-B,

Thanks, Bill! Your question is what galvanized me to finally sit down and watch Dont Look Up in its 145-minute entirety (spoilers to follow). After getting over the shock of a schlubby, middle-aged Leonardo DiCaprio playing the role of scientist, I found myself along for the ride, laughing as the movie presented the greatest existential threat to humankind with sardonic, meme-spun humor dripping with social-media references and lots of celebrities playing sharp-witted but unlikeable characters.

This was fun stuff until it wasnt.

As the film wore on, the many permutations of its dire message started thudding me in the gut with sapping regularity, like body shots delivered by Sugar Ray Leonard tenderizing his opponent for the big knockout. When the knockout came in the form of global armageddon at the films climax, I did not feel energized to save the planet, but instead felt listless and devoid of hope. While I may have faith in human ingenuity, technology, and scientific innovation, the policy-decision side of things seems, well, insurmountable. Governments and giant corporations are like enormous aircraft carriers; getting them to change course is a drawn-out process, and thats assuming theyll even acknowledge the problem in the first place.

I am reminded of my Uncle Mark, a former rocket scientist whod worked for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Upon retirement, he pledged to leave the United States if George W. Bush became president. Bushs opponent in that election, Al Gore, ran on a platform of confronting global warming and later produced the movie An Inconvenient Truth, dedicated to creating awareness around global climate change. But the inconvenient truth of the 2000 election was that, despite Gore receiving over a half-million more popular votes than Bush and being declared president on all national news networks, the closely contested state of Florida was handed to Bush by a Supreme Court decision, giving him victory in the electoral college. An oilman plowed into the White House; climate change got plowed under the rug by a corporate-friendly Republican agenda; and Uncle Mark plowed his retirement account into an open-ended bicycle journey spanning the planet with the idealistic purpose of making a documentary that would galvanize humankind to combat the unfolding climate crisis.

Uncle Mark bicycled from Los Angeles to Tierra del Fuego, staying for a time on an organic winery in Argentina. There he observed the destruction to the land from climate-induced flooding and the displacement of poor people. He rode through India, exploring intentional communities, and learned about the disruption of the monsoon rains that Indian farmers depend on for their crops. Throughout Indias countryside, he witnessed desperation and desertification.

He rode his bike through China and looked aghast at an environment that had been utterly polluted, with rivers that barely flowed because they were filled with so much sludge and trash. He rode through Chinas monolithic ghost cities, comprised of unoccupied high-rise buildings built not to house people, but for bloated real estate firms to skim billions of leveraged dollars into their coffers through overvalued expenditures on the construction of cheap, unsafe concrete pillars. He rode through Mongolia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, the Middle East, North Africa, and on into Europe, seeing firsthand, at 15 miles per hour, the impact of climate change across a broad swath of the earth.

During his journey, Uncle Mark read every significant book on the subject and stayed current with new reports. Just as he was ready to start videotaping in earnest, he came to the scientific conclusion that it was pointless too many thresholds had been crossed. We were on a collision course with Dont Look Ups metaphorical comet, and, as in the movie, it was time to abandon Mother Earth for a more hospitable planet, even at the risk of being devoured by a carnivorous ostrich-like creature inhabiting its terrain.

And that seems to be where we find ourselves, dear B-M-B. The conversation around climate change is no longer about stopping it, but about managing it. A recent report states that 9 trillion dollars at minimum must be allocated annually through 2050 to help avoid planetary collapse. Yes, this is now standard verbiage around the discussion. Even with technology breakthroughs, the political will to actually take on this ridiculously enormous crisis appears to be lacking. Meanwhile, the general public yours truly included is fatigued and overwhelmed by the subject. Which is not to say we shouldnt keep trying our best, but its going to be one hell of an uphill battle, and we should prepare to bear witness to some dramatic and frightening changes in our lifetimes. So in answer to your question, I think that the movie Dont Look Up relates not just to our future, but to our present as well as our past. Now if youll please excuse me, Im gonna tiptoe up to some higher ground.

The South Seattle Emerald is committed to holding space for a variety of viewpoints within our community, with the understanding that differing perspectives do not negate mutual respect amongst community members.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the contributors on this website do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the Emerald or official policies of the Emerald.

Beau Hebert is a humor columnist and owner of Lotties Lounge in Columbia City.

Featured Image: The Beauster. Illustration by Lou Patnode.

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Dear The Beauster: Give Me a Reason for Some Hope! - South Seattle Emerald

Inclusive Prosperity Capital

HARTFORD, Conn., May 06, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Inclusive Prosperity Capital, Inc. (IPC) has raised $13 million of program- related investments (PRI) from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, McKnight Foundation, and The Kresge Foundation to support the capitalization and deployment of accessible clean energy upgrades across the nation. Created in 2018, IPCs mission is to ensure everyone has access to the benefits of clean energy. IPCs programs and products are designed to serve historically marginalized communities and other underserved markets non-profits, faith-based institutions, small-to-medium commercial businesses, affordable multifamily housing, and credit-challenged and lower income homeowners.

The foundations have provided IPC with a combined $13 million in PRI critically flexible and catalytic capital support. Investors like these are deeply aligned with IPCs mission and have allowed IPC the opportunity to expand the depth and breadth of its investing platform. IPC intends to blend the PRI money with other private and public capital to create a unique investment platform for underserved markets.

John Balbach, Director of Impact Investments at MacArthur, said, With its roots in green banking, its deep connections in community development, and its intentional focus on engagement with historically marginalized communities, IPC is demonstrating that the expansion of clean energy and energy efficiency solutions is inextricably intertwined with climate justice. These solutions must be accessible for all communities, and we are thrilled to provide IPC with $5 million in catalytic capital to advance this essential mission.

Elizabeth McGeveran, Director of Investments at McKnight, said, We are thrilled to build on our philanthropic support of Inclusive Prosperity Capitals expansion to the Midwest with a $5 million program-related investment. We know that we can't win on climate unless were attentive to racial equity and justice and bring everyone along. With this investment, IPC and local partners will create more opportunities for underserved communities to reap the benefits of the clean economy.

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Joe Evans, Portfolio Director and Social Investment Officer of The Kresge Foundation, said, Kresge has invested in IPC from the beginning because we believe in its unique mission. Were excited to make this additional capital available to them in partnership with new investors. Kresge provided a $3 million PRI.

Kerry ONeill, CEO of Inclusive Prosperity Capital, said, Foundation investors like these are at the core of our ability to deliver on our mission. Without low-cost PRI investment, were less likely to be able to provide a loan for an affordable multifamily building to install heat pumps and improve indoor air quality, or to help a community center or house of worship in an underserved community go solar and see significant savings on their bills, or to help low-income homeowners make green improvements that reduce their energy burdens. We are so grateful to Kresge, McKnight, and MacArthur, who have helped us streamline the capital raising process from this critically important sector. The need for catalytic capital is only growing, and its how well ensure everyone has access to the benefits of clean energy.

About Inclusive Prosperity Capital:

Inclusive Prosperity Capital, Inc. (IPC) is a not-for-profit investment platform scaling clean energy financing solutions that channel investment capital to program partners in communities that need it most. As a spin-out of the Connecticut Green Bank, IPC is focused on scaling its work and expanding its successful model nationwide by accessing mission-driven capital and partnerships. IPC operates at the intersection of community development, clean energy finance, and climate impact. We believe everyone should have access to the benefits of clean energy, helping to deliver Inclusive Prosperity. For more information about Inclusive Prosperity Capital, please visit inclusiveprosperitycapital.org

About The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation:

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people, effective institutions, and influential networks building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. MacArthur is placing a few big bets that truly significant progress is possible on some of the worlds most pressing social challenges, including decreasing nuclear risk, promoting local justice reform in the U.S., and reducing corruption in Africas most populous country, Nigeria. In addition, the Foundation continues its historic commitments to the role of journalism in a responsive democracy as well as the vitality of our headquarters city, Chicago. MacArthur also is committed to building the field of impact investing and providing catalytic capital to address social and environmental challenges around the world.

About McKnight Foundation:

The McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation, advances a more just, creative, and abundant future where people and planet thrive. Established in 1953, the McKnight Foundation is deeply committed to advancing climate solutions in the Midwest; building an equitable and inclusive Minnesota; and supporting the arts in Minnesota, neuroscience, and international crop research. The McKnight Foundation has committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across its $3 billion endowment by 2050 at the latest and over 40% of its $3 billion endowment has some mission alignment, with $500 million committed to decarbonizing the economy. Learn more at McKnight.org.

About The Kresge Foundation:

The Kresge Foundation was founded in 1924 to promote human progress. Today, Kresge fulfills that mission by building and strengthening pathways to opportunity for low-income people in Americas cities, seeking to dismantle structural and systemic barriers to equality and justice. Using a full array of grant, loan, and other investment tools, Kresge invests more than $160 million annually to foster economic and social change. For more information visit Kresge.org.

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Inclusive Prosperity Capital, Inc. raises $13 Million from MacArthur, McKnight, and Kresge Foundations to support the deployment of clean energy...

I've been passionate about justice work ever since I took my first criminal justice class in my junior year of high school. My teacher really stressed the structural issues across the justice system. I learned there were jobs within the criminal justice system other than police officer, lawyer, etc., and I wanted to learn more.

I decided to major in justice studies at James Madison University, a major with three tracks: criminal justice, global justice, and social justice, the one I chose. All of the tracks took the same beginning core classes as well as the same final two senior classes. The other electives and major specific classes were up to you and what you thought would be important to know for the field you hoped to go into.

The criminal justice students hoped to go into law, politics, or law enforcement. The global justice students hoped to go into diplomatic politics and homeland security. All important work on a broad spectrum, but none quite encapsulating what I wanted to do with my life.

The social justice track is "designed to investigate what is fair, equitable and just for society. Emphasizing the oppression and liberation of vulnerable, exploited and marginalized populations, this curriculum promotes sustainable and just solutions to social, political and economic problems."

Maybe this was because it was my own major, but I noticed that the jobs seemed broader with the social justice track. Social justice work can take so many forms: nonprofit managers, social workers, advocates, peace-builders, activists.

My favorite course at JMU was one of my last: restorative justice. Unfortunately, I began the class at the start of 2020, and we had to go virtual in March. But before that, in every class period, all the students sat in a large circle. We learned the traditional and restorative means of a circle process, which traditionally provides an opportunity for communities to come together and hold space to discuss something that has harmed them and what their needs are moving forward. Today, restorative justice can take the form of community-building, responsive conflict resolution in schools, victim-offender conferencing, and so much more.

I graduated in the spring of 2020, so opportunities to learn more about these topics that I was so passionate about were in short supply. I had always wanted to do a year of service, but amid a pandemic, I had no idea what that would look like.

I applied and was accepted byGood Shepherd Volunteersin the spring of 2021. I applied to the program originally because of my placement site,Rose House and Barbara Blum Residence. It was important to me to know what juvenile justice actually looked like before making further steps in my education.

The more I spoke with the program directors and past volunteers, the more I became excited about an intentional community and collectively growing as people in the social justice field. I now only have two more months of my position with Good Shepherd Volunteers, and it's been one of the best decisions I could have made.

This service year has been great for many reasons, but one of my favorites has been my access to training throughGood Shepherd Services. I have trained in safety crisis management,the Missouri Approach and the Sanctuary Model, and so many more interesting topics.

Recently, the Good Shepherd Services office in East New York, near my job site, hosted theNew York Peace Institute, which trained all of us in restorative justice. My time as a Good Shepherd Volunteer has come full circle (pun not intended) for me in many ways, but this has been one of the craziest.

For three Fridays in a row, 25 Good Shepherd Services staff members from various programs came together and sat in a circle to learn. I was finally able to complete a training I was passionate about while meeting people in programs different from my own. The New York Peace Institute is also a big name when it comes to mediation, so it was a great opportunity to network.

I now know the variety of work that goes into a single juvenile justice program, and there are a lot of moving parts. Youth development counselors spend most of their days with the youth, mentoring and encouraging them to do better for themselves. The recreation specialists do community outreach to bring in speakers and groups and find locations for trips. The case planner tirelessly maintains relationships with all of the families to ensure a seamless release. The education specialist has to keep up with education politics and legislation while also keeping track of all the available transfer and community schools across New York City. The social worker keeps track of all the youths' cases and holds therapy sessions for each youth every single week. The community success coaches find the youth jobs and extracurriculars upon their release and travel all across New York City every week to check in with them in their communities. These descriptions don't even encapsulate half the things these social justice workers do for these kids.

I have learned what many of these titles mean and what they look like on a day-to-day basis. I've gained insight on how intertwined the current political climate is to the youth I'm working with and how it affects their cases within the juvenile justice system.

There's something to be said for learning about the work directly from the people who have been here doing it. It's only right to bear witness to the issues and people you strive to advocate for, and that has been what this year is to me. We cannot read about or assume from statistics what problems individuals and families face. We must sit in community to gather understanding first. And these are the lessons I will carry with me as I begin to transition out of this role and find my own journey to justice.

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My year of service has shown me the many facets of social justice work - Global Sisters Report

Published 05-06-22

Submitted by Arbor Day Foundation

LINCOLN, Neb., May 6, 2022 /CSRwire/ The Arbor Day Foundation is partnering with NatureQuant, a technology and research company, to highlight the positive impact trees have on a neighborhoods health and wellbeing.

There is an infinite amount of research that shows people who live near trees and green space are mentally and physically healthier than those without, said Dan Lambe, CEO of the Arbor Day Foundation. But until now, you could not see a trees impact on a block-by-block radius in a visual, easy-to-understand way. NatureQuants technology will help us not only convey the benefits we know trees have on health, but it will allow us to focus on the neighborhoods that would benefit from more tree canopy.

Since forming in 2019, NatureQuant has received acclaim for its algorithm that pulls public data, satellite imagery, and image-recognition software to map where nature was plentiful and where it was needed across the country. For each census tract across the country, it then provides a rating, or NatureScore, on a 0-100 scale, depending on how deprived an area is of nature.

As it has become increasingly clear that nature access is an essential pillar for wellbeing, it is now time to put that knowledge into action in partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, said Jared Hanley, CEO & co-founder of NatureQuant. We are excited to help enable communities around the world to plant and manage trees and green spaces in a way that optimizes public health and equity.

Research shows trees can cool cities by up to 10 degrees to help combat the urban heat island effect. Neighborhoods with higher tree canopy coverage, which helps to clean the air, have been shown to have lower childhood asthma rates, too. Studies also show people are happier the more connected to nature they become and have a higher feeling of well-being when living in urban areas with more green space.

The Arbor Day Foundation will work with its partners to use NatureScore data to develop high-impact projects designed to boost health outcomes and promote environmental equity among the most disadvantaged communities around the world.

This partnership will help us make more informed, intentional decisions as we focus our work in communities where trees are needed most, Lambe said.

For more information about the Arbor Day Foundation and its 50 years of tree planting work around the world, visit arborday.org.

About the Arbor Day FoundationFounded in 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation has grown to become the largest nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees, with more than one million members, supporters and valued partners. Since 1972, almost 500 million Arbor Day Foundation trees have been planted in neighborhoods, communities, cities and forests throughout the world. Our vision is to lead toward a world where trees are used to solve issues critical to survival.

As one of the world's largest operating conservation foundations, the Arbor Day Foundation, through its members, partners and programs, educates and engages stakeholders and communities across the globe to involve themselves in its mission of planting, nurturing and celebrating trees. More information is available at arborday.org.

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Founded in 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation has grown to become the largest nonprofit membership organization dedicated to planting trees, with more than one million members, supporters, and valued partners. During the last 44 years, more than 250 million Arbor Day Foundation trees have been planted in neighborhoods, communities, cities and forests throughout the world.

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CSRWire - Arbor Day Foundation Partners With NatureQuant to Quantify Tree's Impact on Health in Neighborhoods - CSRwire.com

Winsome McIntosh will never forget her first visit to Belle Glade, the often-overlooked agricultural city where sugarcane is grown on the western edge of Palm Beach County.

It was the early 70s, and as a new South Florida resident, she was struck by the stark differences between wealthy Palm Beach and the widespread poverty of Belle Glade. She remembers seeing the barracks where people lived and the impoverished workers who toiled in the fields all day, struggling to feed their families.

We were appalled. It bothered us a lot, Ms. McIntosh said of the trip that helped inspire her and her late husband, Michael, to found the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties. We knew we wanted to do something that would have a long-lasting effect on our greater community.

The pair had just moved to Palm Beach from New York to help care for Ms. McIntoshs aging father-in-law. She was in her 20s and her husband in his 30s, with a new baby in tow. Her mother-in-law had been one of the last remaining individual stockholders of The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, commonly known as the A&P, and after she died, Ms. McIntosh and her husband soon found themselves deeply engaged in the work of the foundation originally started by her in-laws in 1949: the McIntosh Foundation, which focuses on environmental issues.

But despite the tremendous impact made through the McIntosh Foundation where Ms. McIntosh, 77, still works daily as president and trustee the McIntoshes knew they also wanted to directly help transform their new community. They founded the Community Foundation in 1972 with an initial gift of $50,000, managing it themselves with an independent board for the first 10 years.

A community foundation was important because it would be able to support a variety of local needs, McIntosh said. The structure benefits philanthropists because it allows each donor to set up an individual fund without the trouble of setting up their own private foundation, and it benefits the community because it allows the money to go where the needs are greatest.

There was nothing like it in Florida at the time that we knew of, Ms. McIntosh said. We believed it could bring about systemic change in philanthropy.

After a decade, the McIntoshes hired a staff, led by former CEO Shannon Sadler Hull, who remained with the Community Foundation for 28 years and who is credited with bringing the organization from a small nonprofit to one of the largest in Florida. Among numerous initiatives, she raised the money for the Community Foundations landmark building to be built in downtown West Palm Beach, which today serves as a symbol for the prominence the nonprofit organization has played in the community through the years. The 33,000-square-foot Center for Philanthropy provides a permanent home for the Community Foundations offices as well as other nonprofit organizations.

To date, the Community Foundation has provided nearly $200 million in grants and scholarships over its 50-year history. It has helped nearly 3,400 local organizations and provided 2,500 scholarships to students in need. Through the support of its donors and fundholders, the Community Foundation has been able to address some of the communitys most pressing needs. The foundation has long focused specifically on unmet needs in the community, such as mental health, food insecurity, housing and education.

Its current president and CEO, Danita DeHaney Nias, said shes consistently inspired to see the ways that the McIntoshes dream of helping the ever-changing needs of the community has manifested through the Community Foundations work. Notable examples include organizing and founding the Palm Beach County Food Bank in 2012, as well as raising over $4 million in emergency funds and issuing over 185 grants to organizations and programs when the pandemic hit in 2020.

And the Community Foundations model is truly exceptional in its approach, she said.

We are the only local organization that is singularly focused on our community and its most pressing needs and the only entity that brings together the donor base and nonprofit ecosystem to address these issues, Ms. DeHaney Nias said. Were uniquely poised to provide grants to the nonprofits that are in our community doing the work. And were also uniquely poised to serve as the convener to bring together various entities to address some of our communitys most pressing needs.

At 14 locations throughout the county, a focus on mental health for underserved children has changed thousands of young lives this school year. Through the Community Foundation-funded program Rebound and Recovery, students ages 4 through 8 enrolled in afterschool programs with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County have been taught a lauded social-emotional curriculum based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy developed by Florida State University. Young children learn how to identify their emotions, develop coping mechanisms and gain social skills, enabling them to emotionally thrive.

Its incredibly moving to watch these young children learn how to identify what theyre feeling and how to talk about it, Ms. DeHaney Nias said. Its equipping them with lifelong skills that will help them in school, in work and for the rest of their lives.

Looking ahead to the next 50 years, the Community Foundations leaders hope to play an even more important role in strengthening the communities of Palm Beach and Martin counties. The organizations greatest current need is attracting philanthropic dollars that are unrestricted, which will enable the Community Foundation to develop a pool of resources that will allow the organization to be responsive to needs as they emerge. Instead of losing valuable time when a need is identified, it would allow the foundation to recognize and immediately fund a community need to get assistance started, then obtain additional funding once donors are aware of it.

Unrestricted funds are an invaluable gift because they enable us to be nimble and flexible, Ms. DeHaney Nias said. We feel a sense of obligation to our community to be very intentional about our plans for the future. I hope when someone looks back 50 years from now, theyre able to see the pivot we made and how we amplified our impact and attracted even more support to help where the needs are greatest.

For more information about the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, call 561-659-6800 or visit http://www.yourcommunityfoundation.org.

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Community Foundation marks 50 years of service - Florida Weekly

Dr. Melinda Brennan became executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin (ACLU) in January. Surveying Wisconsins landscape of civil rights and social justice battles, she says its crucial to maintain a very intentional focus on how the issues that weve been devoted to for a long time are very tightly intertwined.

At the core of many of those issues is a common theme of the struggles of marginalized groups, a theme Brennan has been familiar with throughout her life. Im a multiple-marginalized person, says Brennan, who was born and raised in Wisconsin. Mexican-American, queer, person of multiple disabilities, and those identities and community memberships taught me a lot in my life, she says. And it also taught me how much, and how hard we have to advocate for people to have more quality of life, equal chances if thats possible in a system of significant and interlocking structural oppression.

Those experiences shaped Brennan to be always an advocate, even when I was little. By the time she got to college, Brennan was very very focused in thinking about structural inequality. And how different kinds of structural barriers were impacting people in different ways. She earned a bachelors degree in womens studies and a masters degree in sociology from UW-Milwaukee and obtained a doctorate in gender studies from Indiana University. Some of her best work, Brennan recalls, was as a community organizer in higher education environments. And as a teacher, and a mentor, to students who felt very acutely that they did not belong within higher ed that it was not produced for them. And that they had to learn to be resilient in ways that they shouldnt have to be, in order to operate in that space and claim their education.

Brennan quickly discovered how much she enjoyed being directly involved in social and political action. Becoming the executive director of Wisconsins ACLU was a multidimensional opportunity. Shed continue to be involved in direct action, supporting marginalized communities and pushing for causes close to her heart. Brennan is also the first woman of color to serve as executive director of Wisconsins ACLU in the organizations 90 year history.

Brennan says breaking that barrier is bittersweet. Thats difficult when youre a multiple marginalized person, she says. Throughout her life she has encountered leaders who shared some of her experiences, but in some ways she was always the first.

That bittersweetness also had a second, deeper edge to it. Her grandmother was a factory worker for her entire life, Brennan explains, and had a fourth-grade education. She had two daughters, my mom and her sister, says Brennan, and she told them that education is everything. And that you have to get educated to end the family curse of poverty. And they did it. What became a family mantra drove Brennans own quest for education. She says she wishes her grandma had been around to see her assume leadership of the ACLU, because I think that it would have been beyond her wildest dreams. While serving as the first woman of color to ever lead the ACLU of Wisconsin is momentous, theres also a recognition that I really shouldnt be the first.

Theres a saying in the civil rights community about taking on new roles, that its like trying to gracefully drink from a fire hose, says Brennan with a chuckle. Theyre not wrong. That metaphor shakes out, its true. She has found ease in adjusting to the flow of information, decision making and planning. The process has also made her ever more aware of how many of Wisconsins civil rights and social justice issues affect one another.

Theres no issue where you can discuss it without racial justice, Brennan says. There just isnt. Theres no issue where you can divorce yourself from the economics of it, or gender, or sexuality or citizenship. For Brennan, one of the most significant ways thats materializing in Wisconsin is through attacks on voting rights, such as banning mail-in ballots and restrictive voter I.D. laws. She said that the ACLUs outreach efforts have turned up many concerns about people being denied access to the ballot.

Wisconsin is also among 26 states that are likely to ban abortion if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade, as expected. Brennan says Wisconsinites will need to prepare for a new reality after Roe.

She is also concerned about efforts to ban books and discussions about controversial topics in U.S. history including slavery, the effects of colonization and the genocide of indigenous peoples, as well as gender identity and sexuality. The refusing to have informed conversations as if those are the divisive things rather than bigotry bothers her, she says. Along with voting rights, reproductive rights and the whitewashing of education, the ACLU of Wisconsin has also focused on mass incarceration this year. Theres no day that those four things are not constantly involved in our conversations, says Brennan.

White supremacist activity is also something the ACLU has been monitoring. Since 2020, communities including Milwaukee, Wauwatosa, West Allis and Waukesha have seen waves of racist or white supremacist activity. The most recent incidents have occurred in Waukesha and West Allis. Groups have organized around so-called Black terror and stopping anti-white hate in Waukesha since the Christmas Parade tragedy in November. Black families in West Allis have reported property destruction and racist notes being left behind since last year. Fliers advocating white supremacist ideology have been distributed throughout these communities at different points over the last two years. Last week, the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism warned of alarmingly high levels of antisemitism across the country, and in particular in Wisconsin.

Brennans dissertation at Indiana University was actually on the nexus between hate acts, nationalism, white supremacy and American Islamophobia. It matters a great deal to me, she says. Its been clear to me for some time that Donald Trump was a catalyst, but then theres been cycles, which is whats more important, of rising and falling white supremacy in the United States. And Wisconsin is no different. She adds that what meets those cycles too is the activism and the attempts at meaningful conversation beyond hate speech.

Surveillance is also a lingering concern across the state. During the protests of 2020, reports of surveillance and harassment by local law enforcement haunted organizations spearheading marches. In 2021 many rumors about surveillance and spying were confirmed. Those included the existence of a protester list which also included lawyers and a journalist, and had been shared to numerous local and federal agencies. Another was the use of geofence warrants during the Kenosha unrest to gather data about everyone in a given area. Theres also a growing awareness of the activities of Milwaukees intelligence fusion center, and the use of technology to track and access cell phones. There is actually a national task force for surveillance and privacy concerns all across the nation, said Brennan. And as there are pivotal concerns in states, we work with them to figure out what the best strategies are to protect peoples rights.

The ACLU has also strengthened its community outreach and legal observer operations as the summer fast approaches. Warm weather could bring with it more activism and organizing. The ACLU is going to be most effective when were deeply connected to community, Brennan says, and we know what they need and whats happening in Wisconsin long before it ends up in the public conversation.

Most of all, Brennan wants Wisconsinites to register to vote and to always have a plan for how to vote. It is always pivotal for folks to be engaged as actively as they possibly can be in their local government, she says. But in this particular political moment, it is incredibly vital that everyone has a plan and a back-up plan for voting, that they execute it, and that they convince everyone in their circles to do the same.

From the changes to voting rules to the recent decision to keep Wisconsins voting district maps gerrymandered to maintain a Republican majority, Brennan understands how that can affect morale. Theres a certain obvious unfairness to that, she says, but beyond that theres a destabilization of the system itself. And it can add to the hopelessness that some people feel that things can ever change. Its just utterly unethical.

Brennan sees the state and country in a perilous moment. Its a moment, she says, where talking about difference is being labeled as divisive, when whats divisive is the bigotry and oppression based on difference. She sees the Supreme Courts ruling disallowing a map that created an additional majority Black district in Wisconsin, reflecting growth in the number of Black residents, as an outgrowth of that wrongheaded discussion. Were making monsters not out of the right thing, she says. The monstrous component of it is the refusal to discuss race in ways that are factual and that make sense. And thats what showed up in the gerrymandering decision.

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New ACLU executive director reflects on the struggles facing Wisconsin - Wisconsin Examiner

Geography may not appear to be a particularly contentious field of study, but its wide scope and long history present all sorts of ethical challenges. For instance, choosing what to include on a map and how to represent it reflects historical trends, social values, minority representation and more. The fact that it can sometimes be a tricky business has often slipped by geographers themselves.

But a new wave of researchers hopes to end this lapse. UC Santa Barbara geographers Trisalyn Nelson and Michael Goodchild are working to better integrate ethics into their field. The two faculty members recently teamed up with UCSB alumna Dawn Wright, Esris chief scientist and a recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, to discuss how geographers can best promote ethics, empathy and equity in spatial data science, often referred to as GIScience.

Their research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlights ways in which geographers can help accelerate the inclusion of those things in their field. With ideas such as addressing issues with data privacy and designing diverse teams, they hope to help foster a generation of spatial data scientists that can address big societal problems and shape spatial planning and decision-making to better the world.

In GIS we have a long tradition of evaluating the quality of each others work, Nelson said. We really care about doing accurate and quality research. But I think weve entered a time where we also need to start talking about ensuring we are doing ethical research.

Spatial data is ubiquitous, from GPS-connected smartphones to satellite images online. As a result, spatial data science has become an interdisciplinary tool for science and society. Yet ethical guidelines for using this data have not kept pace with technological developments. Geographers who have wrestled with the ethical implications of maps in the past are now leading dialogues on standards for data use to ensure that detailed locational data is protected and anonymized to safeguard user privacy.

The authors also tackle equity, both in the applications of GIScience as well as who is included in its development and use. The time is past for waiting for [science] to diversify itself, the authors write. There must be a more intentional building of teams that will support the training of more diverse people, which means seeking out diverse team members.

The authors organized the paper around the three Es: ethics, empathy and equity.

Photo Credit: COURTESY IMAGE

One solution the authors suggest is to shift spatial data science toward open-access. Removing barriers to accessing spatial data will enable more people to explore spatial trends and expose spatial inequities.

Spatial data scientists also need to find ways to close the information gaps that come from using big data sources. Conducting research exclusively using cell phone data, for example, leaves out large swaths of society, like children, older adults and people experiencing homelessness. The authors encourage scientists to take steps to ensure data are inclusive through techniques like data integration and modeling.

In addition to making data as representative as possible, the authors argue that the GIS community needs to create a framework to identify, measure and communicate the bias in spatial data. They suggest that researchers focus on building a consistent way to document missing data and talk about how data biases impact research findings by making them less generalizable.

Many compelling discoveries in spatial analysis are the result of inferences based on data that was gathered at just one point in time. Its wise to be cautious when making inferences from non-representative data, which could support a range of different conclusions. The authors recommend investigating all the possible inferences before making a determination.

Nelson and Goodchild say that GIS can also be used as a tool to support equitable and inclusive design and decision making. It has a unique ability to represent and analyze spatial differences that stem from racism, housing and income inequality such as community policing, access to public transit, food deserts and other social justice issues. In their paper, they advocate for the use of GIS to analyze and expose these spatial inequalities, and stress the importance of including the people being impacted in the research and decision-making process.

Geography today is a larger, more vibrant field than it has ever been, with GIS-based apps and dashboards helping millions of people every day. The burgeoning availability of spatial data has coincided with a widespread recognition of the value of social justice research. Now, the researchers argue, geospatial scientists must accelerate collaboration with the communities they study and promote equity in their field.

The authors hope spatial data science can set a standard for using ethics, empathy and equity across science. UCSB is an international powerhouse when it comes to spatial data science, Nelson said, so it is important that we also lead in ethical use of the technology and science.

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Ethics in Geography | The UCSB Current - The UCSB Current