Andrew Kaplowitz, May 23, 2024

Andrew Kaplowitz, May 23, 2024

In this interview, Andrew Kaplowitz talks about his experience with climate change in Detroit as well as his experience with Covid-19.

Detroit Historical Society

5/23/24

Detroit Historical Society

en-US

Andrew Kaplowitz

Andrew Kaplowitz is a native Detroiter who, after moving to Chicago for a few years, returned to join Detroiters for Environmental Justice and advocate for better climate conditions for the city.

Kevin Hawthorne

33:10

Kevin Hawthorne: This is Detroit Historical Society, Kevin Hawthorne conducting oral history on climate change. And I'm here today with Andrew.

Andrew Kaplowitz: Hey, how's it going? Andrew Kaplowitz.

KH: Yes. Could you spell your name for the record?

AK: Andrew a n d r e w kaplowitz k a p l o w i t z

KH: All right. I'm going to start with a simple question. Do you, live in the city of Detroit?

AK: Yep. I live in southwest Detroit.

KH: Southwest Detroit. And you also work in Detroit, can you tell, can you say where you work?

AK: Yeah, I work, Detroiters working for environmental Justice, which is the oldest environmental justice organization in the state of Michigan. And currently, our offices are located not too far from the Detroit Historical Museum.

KH: Oh, the oldest one. How how long has it been around?

AK: It's been around for this will be its 30th year.

KH: Oh, wow and, when did you get involved with it?

AK: I've been working, dwej for a little over a year now.

KH: Could you explain a little closer to the mic? Just speak a little bit more into it? Yeah.

AK: Yeah, yeah.

AK: This better?

KH: Yes. So how did you get involved?

AK: So I was hired to be the climate and energy justice lead at Detroiters working for Environmental Justice like I said, a little over a year ago. Based on a lot of, I think, grassroots organizing that I did.

KH: What is your background with grassroots organizing?

AK: So I've done environmentally focused work on various pipelines, including line five. Which is owned by Enbridge and part of the oil that flows through line five is refined at the marathon refinery in southwest Detroit and then I've also done racial justice organizing with, various grassroots groups and that really started for me in 2020 with the George Floyd uprisings.

KH: Did you, attend was is that like, university in Detroit was a at Wayne or U of M or?

AK: No, I went to school in Chicago. I grew up in East Lansing, actually and then after I graduated from school, I traveled around a bunch, lived all over the world, and decided I wanted to be somewhere closer to home. Somewhere that had, somewhere that had— was a world city, somewhere that was urban, that had a lot going on, that had art, culture, history, its own identity and that I could see myself putting roots down. So I moved to Detroit about, six years ago.

KH: All right and in the six years you've seen it, how have you seen, like, the weather shift affect the community?

AK: Yeah, I, I've seen a lot because of, you know, and I've heard a lot through my position at DWEJ, I think in just recent years it's been unfortunately all too common to point out— point out, you know, a lot of examples—The floods of 2021. There's another a lot of floods in 2023. But not quite as bad as 2021, where we saw some of the pump stations fail. and there's over $1 billion in damages freeways were flooded, cars were shut down, people were stranded and then people are still dealing with that. So now I see people who are, you know, looking for help remediating their houses because their basements are moldy and then also, you know, power outages. I think it must have been last winter because this winter was super mild, right where we barely got any snow. But last winter, which was also relatively mild, in the spring we got these crazy storms where there was lightning and thunder in February and freezing rain, and that took out power lines across, you know, a huge proportion of the state.

KH: Have you? Do you think you've seen the adverse effects be worse in summer or winter?

AK: I mean, it's sort of like a pick your poison, right? A rock and a hard place. Because like I said, you know, in the winter we have power outages, so people are left without heat, people are left without power. And in the winter or sorry and then in the summer we have floods, and then also heat waves. Right. Like, it's not even June yet and we've just had a week of, you know, high 80s days, so. There's a lot of people who are being hurt by those heat waves as well.

KH: So for your organization, what are the main steps that you're taking with the community for, affecting climate change?

AK: Yeah, totally. So climate change, I would say, is one part of a broader view of environmental justice in terms of the work that we do and when we look at the environment, we're looking at the built environment as well as things like the weather and climate. So the main things, the main issues that our community is facing is asthma. We have some of the highest asthma rates in the nation, as well as lead exposure and lead poisoning, especially among youth. So Detroiters working for Environmental Justice employs a number of community health workers who go out into people's homes, and they help mitigate the effects of asthma on children, especially as well as elderly folks. And then also, connect people with resources to get tested for lead poisoning. Because the housing stock in Detroit is some of the oldest in— Well, I won't say the oldest in the nation, but a lot of it was, you know, is is old and was built before lead was taken out of paint and a lot of it hasn't been redeveloped and also during demolitions, foreclosures, a lot of that was improperly abated or disposed of so we see it in the soil as well.

KH: All right. So you when you say environmental justice, what would you say environmental justice is in your own words?

AK: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think environmental justice is a response to environmental racism. So starting with that understanding where the the harmful effects of Polluting industries is concentrated in black and brown communities. So understanding that that's something that occurs on a systemic level where there's an observable pattern of things like the marathon refinery being put in a black community, where the Stellantis plant is being is built and operating and being cited for excessive pollution in a black community. Where the bridge, which has some of the the most intensive trucking, is one of the busiest ports in the nation. And I'm talking about, like, the Ambassador Bridge between the U.S. and Canada as well as, you know, the ships that come down the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Those are all connected to diesel trucks that pollute the air that really harm people's lungs and that's in southwest Detroit, which is a predominantly Hispanic community. So and not to mention, like the oil that flows to the pipeline goes trespasses on indigenous land and that's something we're seeing play out in courts right now, which isn't, you know, Detroit specifically, but talking about environmental justice, environmental racism it requires us to look at a broad view of how these things operate. So the trespass of Enbridge pipelines on the River reservation os connected to this broader picture of environmental racism. Where from the point of extraction to the. Every step of the process to the point of production and then even the refined like okay. Can I— can I, like, paint a picture?

KH: Absolutely. Go ahead.

AK: So environmental racism I think like line five is a great example of this because at the point of extraction, there's the environmental degradation that's going on on indigenous lands in Canada to extract tar sands. Those tar sands are pumped trespassing illegally through indigenous lands into Detroit, where they're refined, which is a mostly black community. And then their used, the products are then used in factories that are producing cars in black communities. Right so all along the route, the people who are harmed the most by industry, by pollution are indigenous folks, black people and Hispanic people or other people of color. So starting from there, environmental racism, environmental justice is an attempt to rectify that, to say, hey, we should all share the burdens of what we're producing and also just operate in a way that is more mindful of the impacts that we're having on the planet as a whole.

KH: All right, so starting with your community, efforts, I noticed, one things that you guys are always working on is helping climate proof and sustain, make sustainable housing. Are there any other environmental organizations that you guys like to partner with or have partner with in the past?

AK: Yeah, absolutely. I think that Detroit now has a really rich ecosystem of environmental justice oriented organizations and there's a there's a lot of focus on like housing, workforce development and I think part of that is because there's a lot of funding for those things. So there's a ton of other groups. I'll also say this, Detroiters working for Environmental Justice was founded by Danelle Wilkinson, and she is now currently at the Green Door Initiative, which is another organization here in Detroit and they also do workforce development and then. You know, I've worked with the city on their municipal solar project where they've engaged with the neighborhoods to try and install solar arrays to switch the municipal buildings over to renewable energy.

KH: So definitely I've seen you've, I've, we've talked to a couple of other people in this organization of a lot of people in the city are getting more incentivized to, get solar panels, what other actions would you like to see the city take? Because obviously, getting things like solar panels is a excellent first step but are there any other things you'd like to see? The city of Detroit and also just the state of Michigan in general? Take, any general steps you'd like to see them take?

AK: Totally, and so to answer this in terms of the steps, I'd like to see the city and the state take in response to climate change I think I also need to go back to the environmental justice framework right. And part of that is the way in which these changes are implemented is important. With how the city has conducted itself and its community engagement throughout the solar project. I think that there are serious concerns raised with that because while I am a strong supporter for solar energy and transitioning It needs to be done in a justice oriented way. So coming into neighborhoods and telling people, you know, you either take what we're going to give you or we're going to walk is not a way to build trust with people in Detroit and that's something I saw the city doing. So when we're talking about this, I think it's important to say, you know, this is a good project this is a good goal to move away from fossil fuels and also unless we address the coercive behavior behind large institutions and how they engage with impacted communities— Unless we address that behavior, we're just going to recreate the problems farther down the line, right where the people who have historically been oppressed and marginalized the most are going to continue to, to bear the burden of— being denied access to economic opportunity, being denied access to water right? We saw water shutoffs here in Detroit not too long ago and are still seeing them now after Covid and that's a whole other tangent we can go down to but people are being denied basic human rights here in the city of Detroit. So unless we approach these changes in a way where the process is inclusive and responsive and is uplifting of folks— I wonder if we can really see environmental justice in action.

KH: Is, what would be the most concerning thing you've seen as a result of climate change in the city? Which I know there are probably quite a few.

AK: Yeah. And honestly, before I get into like the most concerning thing because I think I talked about some of the, the main issues in terms of flooding, in terms of the heat waves, in terms of the power outages and the ice storms and just the less predictable weather, which is changing, you know, all of our crops. I also want to talk about, you know, some of the changes that I want to see because I feel like I didn't quite get to that in terms of your last question and in terms of the changes that I think are most important, it's changing our energy infrastructure so we're less reliant on personal vehicles, whether they're internal combustion engine or electric and more designed around public transit, light rail, electric rail that actually serves people and meets people's needs. I think that would be one of the biggest things that we can do to mitigate our impact on greenhouse gas emissions that are coming through transportation, which is one of the largest sectors of greenhouse gas emissions. So that would be, you know, something that would be good for the climate and also really good for people. So that's something that I would really like to see and then I just forgot the question you just asked me.

KH: I was what would be the most the concerning, most concerning thing you've seen?

AK: I would say I don't know about most. You know, superlatives can be tricky for me.

KH: No, that's absolutely fair. What is something that is concerned you as a result of climate change? Let me rephrase the question.

AK: Yeah, I think I think just the, greenwashing and greenwashing is a term that just means the, the, it's like a paint job that you put on, like an old car to make it look nice right? Are you trying, like, rebrand something to sell it? So greenwashing is like this idea that these false solutions to climate change are actually good for the planet. One example would be the electric cars, right? So the city of Detroit recently, you know, started this project for an EV charging road, and that's funded by the state of Michigan it's also funded by an Israeli company and it's it's millions of dollars for, 0.75 mile strip of road to test out a road that can charge electric vehicles as they move through it and like that's important technology for electric vehicles, right? Like range is a real issue for EVs and also that investment into technology that still is extremely individualistic and not to mention tied up with an Israeli company, at a time when the State of Israel, and this is coming from a Jewish person who's been born and raised Jewish. Both sides of my family, who has had family members die in the Holocaust and has family members in Israel right now, but when the Israeli government is bombing civilians in Gaza and engaging in a war that they can't win against the Palestinian people who they've already displaced. I think it's really just like a heinous misappropriation of funds and a terrible direction for our society to be moving in right now because cars are so individualistic so energy intensive, EVs use—The vast majority of their energy inputs just to be created. So they only really break even from internal combustion engines over their lifetime. So these so-called true solutions, you know, or what? We're being billed as solutions to climate change, where people are pushing what the state is pushing in this climate adaptation plan is not a real solution to climate change. It's not going to solve anyone's problems, and it's not accessible to people in Detroit. 25% of households in Detroit don't even have a car to begin with. So how are you about to say electric vehicles are going to benefit folks here?

KH: Absolutely. I totally understand that. So looking at some of the other things, that your organization has done, one of the things that are helping, getting involved with a Green Amendment, what would that entail? And are you involved with that process?

AK: That's mostly been handled by Laprisha Berry Daniels, who's one of who's our executive director. But I'll speak to that a little bit, because I do think it's important. And the Green Amendment is, this move to try and add an amendment to the state constitution that will defend certain basic rights, and that would be things like access to water, clean air, things that we all need to survive. So that's that's— A campaign that's sort of like starting to get his legs under it in anticipation of, you know, a potential— It's like some like legislative, administrative like opportunity to amend the Constitution that comes about every day.

KH: How long has the Green Amendment push been happening with your org? Is that something just in the past couple of years?

AK: I think it started to pick up speed because that like constitutional convention process, when it's easier to add amendments to the constitution, is starting to come up in the next, I think it's like is in the next year or two.

KH: It's actually, we're all familiar with how slow things go with governmental policy. It can, you know, sometimes can take years for something to, you know, make its way through the long list of things that need to go through the House and Senate so understand that that can be a process but, it is something you are, usually working for, correct?

AK: Yeah. So Detroiters working for environmental justice, you know our theory of change, I'll say, is pretty expansive, so we understand the need for there to be policy changes, legislative changes that do take a long time, that are slow, that are going to be only partial fixes in the meantime, because that's the way that our political system works, right? We are slow there's a lot of compromise nothing's perfect. But also we believe in direct interventions and individual level interventions and those would be things like the things we're doing to help people here and now today, going into folks houses, you know, connecting them with cleaning supplies that aren't going to trigger their child's asthma attacks.

KH: I also see that you guys like to establish community workshops. How do you go about establishing those, and what do you usually try to focus on at the workshops?

AK: Yeah, so our workshops, the ones that I've been working on personally over the past year or so, have been called climate salons and that sort of comes out of this, really long legacy of salons being places where folks would gather more informally to discuss current events, politics, dialectics, and so we're part of a number of organizations, I think, that are really focusing on the small scale. And like this is also talked about in things like emergent strategies, where it's like focusing on the hyperlocal and going really deep, as opposed to trying to be super broad in surface level. So our community engagement strategy is partnering with people, we, we work with other organizations and then we try and do things that— Help get resources to folks who need it. So that could be information that could be funding opportunities, that could be materials for folks to build their own— Like one that we have coming up is like a box fan workshop. So is taking a box fan, putting an air filter on the back of it, and duct taping it together in a way so that it will act as a DIY like, do it yourself air purifier in your house. Because we're being impacted by wildfire smoke too, right? From all these wildfires that are becoming increasingly common, not just in Canada, which we hear about a lot, but also all over the United States and even Michigan.

KH: And then one thing I was seeing that I thought was very interesting is could you tell me a little bit about the awareness and advocacy through art program that you have?

AK: Yeah, that's a youth engagement program and basically we engage with youth we hire them for their time and for their engagement, and then work with them to deepen their political understanding of, the world that they live in right? So to build their awareness of like, okay, well, like, what environmental issues are you facing? And oftentimes the thing, the first thing that comes to mind is like litter, right? That's something that we see all over Detroit. And people don't like it. It gets in their yards like it's not pretty. It makes them feel like that, you know, and this is all like things people have said, right? It's not just me extrapolating. But it makes them feel like, you know, their neighborhoods aren't being taken good care of and so helping people go from like, oh, there's this issue and like, I don't like it to actually being able to do something about it. So that could be, you know, raising awareness through art and using art projects and giving people tools to express themselves and then it could also be, you know, at least introducing this idea that, like, hey, you can organize your community to do a, neighborhood pickup day, or, you know, you can write to your senator. And just giving people that sort of like lay of the land in terms of ways that they can engage.

KH: Have there been any specific like art projects or like things that have come through that that you, want to highlight?

AK: Because it's not something that I worked on. Personally, I can't speak to it in a lot more detail on that.

KH: That's totally okay. So do you feel are you viewing the future with climate change are you viewing it more positively or negatively right now? I know, yeah, I know, it's a little—

AK: Right now, it feels like it's the it's the, you know, it's a life or death situation for people. And either we're going to adapt or we won't and like, honestly, here's the thing, right? Some people are going to be okay. Some people are going to have access to the resources to the materials to, to generally like, get through massive ecological collapse but most people won't. So—What I've been focusing on, especially in my role at Detroiters working for environmental justice, is advancing policies that work for all people. Yeah.

KH: Going on that of, like, how not everyone's going to be okay. One thing that there has been some speculation on is the idea of climate refugee cities. When places like, let's say Los Angeles, the water and water and rising sea level has been a huge concern there for many years. In many ways, LA is also very similar to Detroit with its air pollution problems and also, you know, other cities on other coast like New York. There's this I, you know, idea that maybe places like Detroit and Chicago are going to become those kind of cities. What what is your, thought about that?

AK: I mean, we'll see. We'll see, I definitely think, you know, like one of the reasons I moved home to the state of Michigan was because we have so much fresh water here and that's like a serious concern for me is, you know, what's going to be relatively stable. The lakes act as insulators as well, although, you know, they can also absorb a lot more heat too. So I think like I actually saw that especially with there not being as much ice cover on the lakes now new models are showing that Michigan is going to see. Rising on par with, like, the North Pole. You know how like the poles are going to rise like I think it's like six degrees for every one degree that the equator rises like, Michigan's on track to be much more close to that, like extreme end of climate change and I think that's something we're already seeing.

KH: And then, I'll ask. This is a hard question that we always like to end at the end because, you know, this is still a major concern is what would you say to someone who just, despite everything that's happened, is still like, I don't think climate change is real.

AK: Yeah. I mean, I have these conversations all the time with people and something I've learned is that confrontation isn't always effective. In fact, like it can. It can often backfire, right? It can deepen entrenchments and people won't listen so generally, if I'm having conversations with people, it's not like so much here look at this one fact. But it's like, okay, well, like, tell me about your experience where are you from? Like, what's going on? Like, why don't you think it's real and just trying to understand, like, where that person's coming from. Maybe what sort of media they're consuming. What their vested interest is in denying climate change right? And by that, I mean, like, some people are just, like, so scared to admit that climate change is happening because it's terrifying, right? Some people, it's too abstract a concept, right? So then just trying to, like, find, like, concrete things because I do believe that through dialog and like open communication. That's really how we can create lasting change. And it's not always going to be immediate, right? Like people hardly change their opinions one moment to the next but if I can have a meaningful conversation with someone, maybe they'll think about it the next day. Maybe they'll think about it in a week. Maybe they'll think about it in a year. And over time, I think that those changes are really important.

KH: All right. And then could I just ask a couple more quick questions to just about your experience with Covid?

AK: Oh yeah. Right.

KH: So, Covid, you know, obviously is still happening in the pandemic is this despite that, we've essentially gone back to quote unquote normal, and it's still happening. But the main, you know, huge epicenter of it was about four years ago. How but how does it still affect you?

AK: While I can work remotely. I think that's been a huge shift. Is, is this, like, rise in remote work? And I think that's a mixed bag, right? It's really nice to have flexibility to work from a coffee shop or my house, as opposed to having to go into the office. But it's also, disrupting community engagement, right? Folks can't see each other and even now, with things going, quote unquote, back to normal you know, that's not true for folks who are at risk for whatever reason, for their health. So there's a lot of people that are. It's made me personally pay a lot more attention to disability justice, and creating spaces that are safe for everyone.

KH: Did you ever get Covid?

AK: Oh, yeah, I got.

KH: And how was your experience with that?

AK: Fucking terrible. No, it was really unfortunate. My girlfriend was pregnant at the time and then had a miscarriage and, you know, we had Covid at the same time and it was like on top of feeling fatigue, exhaustion, dehydration, fevers, like and all the crazy thoughts that come with having a virus, sort of like mourning and grieving and not knowing if Covid had anything to do with, like, this miscarriage. So that was yeah, it was a fucking awful experience.

KH: That is incredibly awful. I'm so sorry to hear that.

AK: Yeah. I mean. Like, yeah, I could go on Covid fucking sucks. Yeah. Like, one other thing I'll say, it was like back in 2020, I let's see, like there was a lockdown. I have an apartment in Detroit so in order to go see my folks, I had to quarantine isolated without seeing anyone or having contact with anyone for two weeks because we didn't understand what was happening, or how it could be transmitted or how soon symptoms would show up. There was no home testing. It was really hard to even get a test in a hospital. So because of that, there is a lot of just not being able to see loved ones. And then, you know, I think because of Covid, because people also had, a lot of unemployment benefits we saw massive participation in the George Floyd uprising and people taking the streets, and people were all masked up, but marching for ten miles, 15 miles some days all over Detroit and I think that was, for me, actually, a really important community building experience, because even though we were masked up, we were outside. So people felt safer and we were engaging in, really meaningful work and I'll just say, to finish this is like— the so the Detroit Police Department brutalized a bunch of us on Woodward in August of 2020 and at that point, because I had been protesting, my folks hadn't seen me like, they just we hadn't seen each other for and they live in Ann Arbor so they're, you know, 45 minutes away normally we'd see each other at least once a month or so, but it had been probably oh, I don't know three four months since I'd even really seen them and then like, after, this incident of police brutality where a bunch of my friends were arrested, I was almost arrested. Like I had my shirt pulled over my head and I remember them emptying like a gas canister into my face of, pepper spray being hit with like batons, like I have, like I had scars on my arms for a long time riot shields, all of that. You know, I remember my folks coming out. There's a rally that we had at Clark Park sort of afterwards it to just sort of like process as a movement and my folks came out and I hugged them, and I realized that was the first time I had hugged them in like 3 or 4 months. And so to me, that was like that was something that was extremely tied up with Covid. Yeah. Yeah.

KH: And just to end, the Covid questions, are you worried that you're. Are you worried that in our lifetime, we'll see another, a disease like Covid?

AK: I would be surprised if we don't.

KH: All right. Well, thank you so much for being here today. And, is there anything that we didn't get to cover that you'd like to speak on?

AK: No. Thank you for this opportunity.

KH: Thank you so much for being here. This is a pleasure.

AK: Thank you.