“Libraries are essential,” said the Rev. Vernon K. Walker, senior program manager at Communities Responding to Extreme Weather. The nonprofit helps turn libraries, churches and small businesses into climate resilience hubs — trusted community organizations meant to help educate people on extreme weather and provide a physical refuge during and after disasters. “Particularly for libraries that tend to be in Black and brown communities, and particularly in libraries that are in inner cities, they are critical, essential and needed,” Walker said.
Studies show that people of color are at higher risk of illness or death than white people. That’s because they often live in hotter areas with less access to air conditioning and a greater likelihood of service disconnections, or in neighborhoods where energy companies sometimes deliberately shut off power to avoid larger disruptions.
Researchers like Eric Klinenberg, director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU, believe libraries play a key role in climate resilience. Klinenberg, who studied the role of social infrastructure during the 1995 Chicago heat wave, thinks that this bill could be a “godsend” for libraries. “If we invest in them, updating the vital systems — from the internet to the HVAC, bathrooms to furniture — they are reliable sites for relief efforts,” he said. “There’s so much more they could do, and so many things they could do better, if we gave libraries the public funding that they need.”
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