On Saturday, November 12, 2016, we went to a conference titled Urban Communities for Climate Resilience up at Columbia University. We met up with our contact David Chang, the Environmental Health Coordinator for We Act Organization. We Act is a group made up of scientists, lawyers and devoted workers to help make not-as-privileged communities environmentally safe. We sat in on the afternoon breakout session and got to chose to go to a topic of our own choosing. We chose the effects of climate change has on the people. We learned about all of the different projects that experts there talked about including the Harlem Heat project. The part that we learned about they put sensors in public housing and saw the results very quickly. All of the houses’ temperatures were above the national weather heat line where if you are in temperatures above that line you could be seriously injured. Even at night, the houses were extremely hot. Because people living in low-income housing they are not being treated with the same respect. They are being ignored even when they make claims of how they are being treated and living. Anyone can take action and even I was inspired by this to take action. If you have the information it means that information is the power to take action. Now that we know this information we are able to make a change and take action. My group will participate in conferences to educate those about this topic as well as participate in rallies or even take interviews to become more educated. Overall, the conference was an event that I will never forget. I learned so much and I was inspired to bring change.

The invitation to the conference