On Monday, the Earthscope reporters interviewed Dave Escobar, aide to Steve Kinsey who is on the Marin Board of Supervisors. For much of the interview, Dave spoke about his views on Indigenous, Hispanic, and Latino communities participating in the green movement. He mentioned that many people in these communities are currently living at a “survival level” and are not involved in spending time learning about environmental issues. Because of this they have a misconception about environmentally sound actions, thinking that they will require more money and work. One example he brought up was organic food. Although it is not necessarily true that organic food is more expensive than non organic, it does require time and effort to find organic food that is priced the same. However time and money are the very factors that many low income people cannot afford. That is why, this summer, Dave was involved to help a community garden take root in the canal to give the surrounding low income community access to organic, local, and low-priced food.
Escobar also mentioned that t environmental information is not reaching Spanish speakers. Many environmental groups focus primarily on English-speaking audiences, yet, according to Dave, the demographics clearly show that the Spanish language is spoken by a large percent of the population. On the other hand, some environmental groups do want to reach out to other communities but don’t know how. Escobar told us that he believed his job was to “create the bridge between low-income communities and the green movement.”
Overall, our interview with Dave Escobar was extremely interesting and presented a whole new perspective of the green movement from a lens that I had not looked through before.
-Sophi Leporte
No comments:
Post a Comment