UUMFE hosted an Environmental Justice Tour at UUA General Assembly in Kansas City on Wednesday, June 20th, 2018, jointly sponsored by Clean Air Now and the Diesel Health Project, NAACP – Kansas City, KS, and UU Ministry for Earth

Tour participants learned about the severe air quality problems clustered around transportation hubs in Kansas City, the populations most impacted, and the initiatives that are working to monitor and address the sources and effects. Eric Kirkendall, co-founder of Clean Air Now and the Diesel Health Project, and Richard Mabion, President of the NAACP Kansas City, Kansas branch will lead the tour participants through a discussion of the history and science of their work and a bus tour through the Argentine neighborhood to see the problems firsthand.

Kansas City is a hub for trains and trucks, especial intermodal shipments – the shipping containers that move across our country from ship to train to truck. The air quality of hub cities like Kansas City suffers greatly from diesel air pollution and it will get worse. The Federal Highway Administration is forecasting that total U.S. freight shipments will increase 41 percent by 2045. This tour will highlight the statistics for Kansas City and what impacted residents are doing to address the rise of asthma and other health issues triggered by the pollution.