Production funding for state of changes provided by the backlund Charitable Trust.

In 2023, the climate crisis became chaotic.

There's a tornado on the west side of Champaign right now.

Winter tornadoes in central Illinois.

fields to the west lack of conditions.

A dust storm and deadly paella your Springfield a durecho crosses Illinois with hurricane force winds cutting power to 1000s for nearly a week later, history making heat and it's now official.

This summer is the hottest on record globally by a huge margin.

Earlier today, it felt like 120 That's the hottest heat index ever recorded history for Chicago.

Higher temperatures are taking a toll on people as well as the planet.

It feels like as if you were cooking, you know opening the oven and then that heat comes.

It's just a lot easier to get physically exhausted and tired.

There are rising concerns about flooding in a community surrounded by Superfund sites.

Because if the water supply gets poisoned, everyone who gets their water from Lake Michigan along the shoreline down into Chicago, Indiana, Wisconsin across the lake to Michigan, guess what everybody's water supply is going to be poisoned.

But Illinois, Ian's are taking action, building sustainable homes that could one day be affordable for all.

It is an energy netzero home, which means that on a year by year basis, it produces more energy than it uses transforming neighborhoods to add green space and tree.

This is my life making sure there's passed on to the next generation.

Frankly, everyone has a right to clean air clean water clean land.

from Illinois public media, this is state of change.

Hello, I'm Tinisha Spain.

Beautiful views just like this one in Champaign County are why millions of us call Illinois home.

But our planet is warming.

And 2023 gave us all a front row seat to the chaos caused by climate change.

Welcome to the news hour.

It's been a week of record breaking heat around the world coast to coast we saw the results of rising temperatures from the southern tip of Florida.

And there's no question that when I've been down and the water temperature is in the 90s some places mid to upper 90s.

Already at this time of year.

There are major implication north to Canada, each of these red green, yellow dots here those are fires, how many more than 5000 they've combined burned at least 29 million acres.

How big is that?

Well, the state of Iowa is 30 million Wisconsin 35 million smoke from those wildfires turned skies in Illinois as far south as Champaign Urbana from blue to a hazy gray.

Then in late August, a heat dome parked on top of the Midwest.

It feels like as if you're cooking you know opening the oven and the Night Heat cup.

That's how it feels all the time.

Earlier today it felt like 120 That's the hottest heat index ever recorded history for Chicago heat index values anywhere from 107 on this map to 114 there in Perry Ville so 1900 and meter event is becoming more frequent in today's world.

At the University of Illinois Chicago engineering building earth sciences professor Akintomide Akinsanola kept an eye on the heat from his native Nigeria.

to Hong Kong and Illinois.

He's studied climate change most of the extremes.

climate and weather events can be attributed to climate change and global warming.

The heat and humidity combined to create the heat index or what it feels like to our bodies when we step outside.

Here's what it felt like the week of August 20th 2023 118 degrees in Rockford.

120 in Chicago, a new record 122 in Peoria 117 in Springfield and 124 degrees in the southern Illinois city of Harrisburg.

The heatwave was intense.

schools closed and outdoor workers were sent home and millions were told to stay inside.

But for many people, especially those living in highly populated areas, there was no escaping the heat thanks to a phenomenon known as urban heat islands.

The heat of the day is literally trapped and held by buildings, pavement and other manmade surfaces.

And studies have shown that when you look at the difference between the urban city and the surrounding environment, the temperature difference can reach the 10 degrees Celsius and journalists who are part of the organization Climate Central scientists studied Chicagoland take a look at this map to the left plenty of green space and cities like Downers Grove, and Naperville, but continue east into Chicago.

And it literally feels nine degrees warmer than the suburbs, especially in the loop.

On the hottest day of 2023.

People say you could really feel it, it's just a lot easier to get physically exhausted and tired and dehydrated.

I lived down in Texas for like six or seven years.

So I knew hot down there but not like this.

This was I think I went out to the beach yesterday, I think I almost had heatstroke when I came back.

heat related illness and death are also more common among people of color due to disparities in income, green space and other resources often found in other neighborhoods.

For example, in your house, if the temperature is too hot, it can switch of the condition to cool the house done.

But what about the people that don't have access to that, so the most vulnerable of the society are highly impacted.

With this, and the heatwave?

When it gets too intense.

You can see increasing also mortality as a result of this.

So it's a very serious concern.

atmospheric scientists say if the world does not work together to curb greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century, 100 degree days in Illinois summer will be the norm, not the exception.

Illinois is one of 33 states with a Climate Action Plan.

It includes goals like taking most coal plants offline by 2030 and natural gas plants by 2045.

Environmental Equity and putting 1 million electric vehicles on the road by the end of the decade.

But Professor Atkinson Nola says Illinois cannot do it alone.

This is not the political statements in terms of research and theoretically, climate is changing.

And the evidence is obvious for all to see we are having increasing activities especially frequency of extremes.

As you heard earlier, concrete buildings and pavements store and radiate tremendous amounts of heat, making our cities feel even hotter, and that disproportionately affects black and brown communities.

Thankfully, a growing number of doctors are now studying the correlation between our warming planet and our quality of life.

Diseases and chronic conditions related to pollution and climate change are no longer a threat to Illinoisans, there are medical reality.

You see high levels of asthma, high levels of respiratory disease also especially in children, you're seeing it.

Doctors Holly Rosencrantz and Japhia Ramkumar are part of a team of physician researchers at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the u of i.

They studied the link between climate change and human health in real time, allergy season is out of control, that people's allergy symptoms are just you know, tenfold worse, it's lasting longer, and it's more severe.

And that's because there's higher pollen cones because of warmer temperatures.

So much of what we do is is at the bedside, so all of a sudden you start thinking you know, I'm going to give this patient an inhaler, and or two and a couple inhalers for their asthma or their airway disease.

But maybe we need to talk a bit about well, what what can they do beyond the inhaler we always speak about the on the inhaler, maybe we can do something.

You know, we just talked about what's going on in their homes.

The climate crisis is forcing a change in patient care for future physicians.

That means training new doctors to ask questions that could lead to better patient outcomes.

We need to be talking about that we need to be asking our patients to vote what what is your environment like do you live in an area that is what's your tree cover?

Like?

What's your canopy, you know, how many you know what kind of green spaces do you have around what's near you?

We've seen that maternal maternal fetal outcomes are going picked up by by air pollution and heat if our planet ails, we ail, if our planet is sick, we are sick, if we destroy our ecosystems and destroy biodiversity, we are destroying ourselves.

And it's all interconnected.

But there are things we can do.

And it all starts with seed and soil nature based solutions or health solutions so we can plant healthy air.

If you're talking about heat islands, nature based solutions, our health solutions so we can plant cooler, you know, we can plant a cooler environment and of course, with all of with vegetation, trees, in particular, you capture carbon, so you're decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions Send your your sequestering carbon that's what plants do.

Waukegan is one of Illinois oldest and most industrialized cities.

But the climate crisis threatens to make an evolving danger they're even worse.

Along the blue waters and sandy beaches of Lake Michigan, sits the city of Waukegan midway between Milwaukee and Chicago.

The area was known as a trading post in the late 1600s.

Later, manufacturing took over a photo from 1917 shows smokestacks, just miles from the beaches.

Today, Waukegan bears the scars of being an industrial hub.

We've seen that black and brown folks, lower income, lower socio economic status groups have been affected by pollution for a really long time.

21 year old Eddie Flores grew up in Waukegan.

He's part of clean power Lake County and environmental justice organization.

This shouldn't be happening to anyone, no community should have to go through increased health concerns due to manufacturing due to pollution, etc.

Frankly, everyone has a right to clean air clean water clean land.

Here, there are five Superfund sites designated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

These are former factories and landfills so toxic, they must be cleaned up by the federal government and private companies.

You have the downtown where people can walk they can explore.

And then you've got the the where industry has historically been and still is.

Eddie took us on a tour of his hometown and the Superfund sites.

There are two North Shore gas Superfund sites near downtown.

And what you had here was the EPA referred to it as non aqueous dense liquid.

Basically oil and tar pulling up to the surface.

Which is scary to think about.

According to the EPA, the yeomen Creek landfill on the city's northwest side contains liquids with elevated concentrations of metals and ammonia.

It's also surrounded by apartments.

It's literally in people's backyards.

And you have the sign right here that says notice hazardous area and no trespassing.

But then in other areas, there's overgrown, people can't see and they don't know.

In some areas, the fence is compromised so kids can just run around in here, they see this huge open field they want to play around in it.

Asbestos cleanup continues in northeast Waukegan, and the problems are not limited to land.

A rusted Old Water Tower overlooks part of Waukegan harbor.

According to the Department of the Interior, in decades, past manufacturing plants released a million pounds of chemicals into the harbor sediment.

So you had an economy that was a lot more tied to the water a lot more tied to rail 100 years ago, whereas today we just ship things you know on interstate highways right put them on tractor trailers.

Brian McCormack teaches Environmental Studies at Lake Forest College.

He says after the 1940s as manufacturing changed, so did the population and disinvestment lead to disparities for black and brown people who later moved in the Superfund sites that are all around us, right, the worst of the worst of toxic waste sites, things like asbestos, PCBs, known carcinogens, all of those things were a product of industrial development in the post world war two era.

In the decades after that industrial production in the 40s and 50s.

You start to have white flight that happens in Chicago it happens in Waukegan as well.

With the working classes white working in middle classes tend to move out of city center type areas closer to industrial production.

And in their place, you tend to have communities of color take up those residence residences in close proximity to hazardous sites of industrial production.

According to the US Census, nearly half of Waukegan at 7000 residents are Latino, nearly 20% are black.

Many leaders are trying to educate those communities about a sixth location that is not a Superfund site, but causing concern.

For decades the Waukegan Generating Station burned coal along the shores of Lake Michigan.

It closed in 2022.

The facilities owner Midwest energy and its parent company NRG submitted a plan to the state of Illinois to place a cap over ponds that hold coal ash.

In a statement Illinois public media NRG spokesman Dave Schrader says quote, removing the coal ash would pose unnecessary safety and environmental risks to the community create significant traffic disruptions and could take far longer than closing in place.

and quote, it is 4000 feet from are a major source of drinking water.

6.5 million people depend upon Lake Michigan for their drinking water.

Illinois State Representative Rita Mayfield has spent much of her life in Waukegan.

She wants the coal ash removed and relocated.

Mayfield introduced House Bill 1608 and 2023 to do exactly that, but so far it hasn't passed.

She says the issue is bigger than Waukegan.

Because if the water supply gets poisoned, everyone who gets their water from Lake Michigan along the shoreline down into Chicago, Indiana, Wisconsin across the lake to Michigan, guess what everybody's water supply is going to be poisoned and it is going to take generations to clean that up.

Mayfield says the thought of a flood washing away a barrier between coal ash ponds and Lake Michigan keeps her up at night.

I've had opponents say well, you're drinking water is fine today.

So what are you saying you want to wait until the drinking water is poison and then you want to step up and pass legislation?

No, we want to be proactive.

We want to make sure that we are protecting a natural resource in NRG says independent test show there is no risk to human health from the ash ponds.

In the city of Waukegan drinking water consistently meets all water quality guidelines.

But why Keegan Alderman Victor Felix and other leaders remain skeptical.

It's also a health issue that you know, we want to move forward to ultimately we want to get rid of not just cap it get rid of the the coal ash, it could take a few years or whatnot but you know, we want to move forward.

In fact, we have residents who live in Waukegan, their life expectancy rate is 15 years less than even residence in in the adjacent communities.

And that's an that's in bed and packed.

in Waukegan, there's pride about its industrial past and its multicultural present.

But 21 year old environmental activist Eddie Flores says it's equally important to fight for the city's future.

I do it for those who are voiceless for those that can't.

This is a way I can better my company and play my part in trying to not only combat the health concerns, but also climate change.

A brand new eco friendly home costs about $300,000 to build and in an era of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.

The question becomes what does it take to build a sustainable home and most importantly, who can afford to live net zero it's been exciting because this is literally our home.

Me and my mom we've been through so much so it's just like to know that we can finally breathe you know her take a breather after going through so much and actually have a home in 2021 Monae Latchison and her mom Elonda broke ground on construction of a new house.

And it's not just any home.

It's a net zero Habitat for Humanity home built by a coalition solar and habitat they have literally took us on you know as a family.

We're here on site and the latest one I saw I had one house build today the concrete for our foundation footings and walls already in the slab going in right now.

So I'm pretty excited.

On Instagram, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign students track the construction.

By June of 2023, the building was starting to take shape, including special attention to the roof.

There's a large solar panel array, it's the maximum that you can have on our pitched roof.

Luke Somerville was part of the team that built renew house.

They partnered with habitat as part of the Illinois Solar Decathlon, a student led organization that focuses on building fully solar and sustainable homes as part of a Department of Energy sponsored competition.

Renew stands for renewable, economical, nourishing and universal every single aspect of the single family home design.

You need to make sure that you're using low energy systems, low energy appliances, a number of different innovations to get that amount of energy that you need down set the solar panels can produce more than that and achieve an energy Net Zero status.

The home was built in Rantoul on land donated from the village.

The renew House team expects the house to produce more energy than it uses, costing the homeowners nothing to power the home.

Sustainability was the cornerstone of the project from lighting to appliances to the tankless water or heater, and even the home's bamboo exterior.

Those involved say building a netzero home isn't that much different than building a traditional one.

We just are upgrading the products and making it so that the transition to this is going to be easy.

It's not it's not something that people have to relearn.

It doesn't require new skills.

It's just new materials.

The process may be the same, but it's the $300,000 price tag that sets a green home like this apart.

Curtis Goben works with architects Alliance, he appeared on Illinois Public Media's 21st Show to discuss the affordability of living sustainably.

We have to have the honest discussion that climate change solutions are not cheap, but they are they create a better world.

According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the median household income for all Americans is $70,000.

But for black Americans, it's 48,000.

So how can a home like this be affordable to all federal programs like those offered by Housing and Urban Development and the sustainable housing initiative and other federal financing programs promised to make sustainability more equitable soon, but millions of homeowners are a long way from realizing that dream.

Unlike Ilana, Monet and her newborn son who moved into their brand new house in the fall of 2023.

Their finished three bedroom two bathroom home is about 1500 square feet.

Monee says it's like no other place she's lived.

It was even a little much for me.

I'm like, Okay, this is actually a real tech house.

So it was fine.

Because you know, I've only seen that in the movies.

She's excited that the attention to solar and energy efficiency will pay off.

I feel like you know, America should actually start doing it because just saving a few cents, you know, can go a long way.

We know that being outside in nature has several positive effects on the human body.

But did you know that planting trees can literally lower crime and improve mental wellbeing.

In 1818, when Illinois became a state, there were roughly 14 million acres of forest here.

Now just over 4 million remain, and people in Peoria are planting trees to add to that number.

Climate change is such a mass issue that sometimes we lose sight of what climate change means to me as an individual.

And then also what is climate change look like in my immediate community.

With the project of urban forestry development, we are really creating a smaller project that addresses climate change, and also allows us to tackle other issues like poverty, like quality of life, and access to a variety of other resources that ultimately enhance our longevity.

Alex Sierra is a trustee for the Peoria Park District.

He's working on an urban forestry project to bring more green space and agriculture to the city south side, which is roughly 60% African American.

He met us in an open lat we're an old school building wants stood.

I think that's what I'm most excited about is how do we create a space that allows people to really establish their roots in their stakes in our local community.

And the amount of space that we have here, the possibilities are endless.

What I'm looking at is a blank canvas for the residents to paint their own picture.

That's exciting.

Alex is thinking beyond the raised land and shuttered buildings.

The goal is a vibrant community with trees, recreational areas and green space.

And this isn't just work for Alex.

It's personal.

He grew up in this neighborhood.

I grew up three streets in that direction and I I've never really understood the intricacies of democracies and the intricacies of establishing a strong and vibrant community.

Prior to me being in a space where I'm now making the decisions to really change it impact our residents lives, including my own and my own families as we still stay in close proximity distance to this property.

According to the National Institute of Medicine, green space in our communities gives people an opportunity to exercise which helps improve cardiovascular health, lowers rates of diabetes, and provide safe opportunities for socializing, which improves mental wellbeing.

One thing that I am most excited about is when we are having conversations about redevelopment in the six months 605 We're talking about how do we create good quality, green spaces and green infrastructure for our most vulnerable community that allows them access to improve their physical and social emotional health by ultimately incentivizing and giving the residents something a reason to be proud of their local community, we're creating a sense of pride of belongingness and ownership that simply can be transformational by planting a seed 120 miles east of peoria, it's Danville near the Illinois Indiana border, where a neighborhood group is also trying to green up their space garden has been out here for probably 20 years, and has not been tended to for about probably 10 Deanne Ryan and a group of neighbors are also trying to revitalize a predominantly African American neighborhood that seen population decline and lack of investment.

They're working with the University of Illinois Extension Office on a big project.

The long term goal is to restore this community garden, create new housing and clean up Elmwood Park.

So we want to bring that back to its original glory.

And then we want to build housing for singers and for families.

So there's a lot of intergenerational activity in this neighborhood because that's what it all started out with, like 65 years ago when they started this organization.

And we want to leave a legacy for the people who have lived in this neighborhood that house did empty lot there was my aunt's house, you know, all the people live however a part of my history of my life.

This is not something that that this is social club.

This is my life and making sure it is passed on to the next generation of soldiers home as the neighborhood is called locally, was once a refuge for black people fleeing the harsh existence in the south during Reconstruction in Jim Crow.

Soldiers Home represented a new start and new opportunity, a concept that is still relevant today.

My ideal is to take their dream and pass it on for another 68 years.

And so we want to build the structure and foundation as organization.

We want to build it up so it lasts for my grandkids.

according to a Pew Research poll released in August of 2023, most Americans do favor the development of renewable energy sources.

The question though, is whether or not policy and politics can align in time to help us all avoid the worst of the climate crisis.

For state of change.

I'm Tinisha Spain, thanks for joining us.

Production funding for state of change is provided by the backlund Charitable Trust