In 2018, Reel News went on a 14 week tour of North America to look at grassroots struggles around climate change, particularly struggles around a “just transition” from fossil fuels to renewable energy, where workers and communities control the process so that they benefit from the transition, and around “just recovery” – recovery from extreme weather events which do not exascerbate current inequalities.
What we found were inspiring and visionary struggles all over the continent, led by working class communities of colour, with people organising just transitions and just recoveries themselves. Now, you can see what we found in an 11 episode series.
Episode 7: Buffalo, which suffered a very unjust transition in the 80s and 90s when the steel and shipping industries collapsed; 300,000 jobs were lost and the city’s population halved. It is now the third poorest city and the sixth most segregated city in the USA. But not-for-profit organisation PUSH Buffalo are bringing hope to West Buffalo, one of the most excluded areas of the city, by building grassroots community organisation that’s providing genuinely affordable accommodation, powered by renewable energy and insulated and weatherised to cut energy bills, and combatting both gentrification and climate change.
