Clear Air for All Is on Agenda : Environment: A forum next week tackles issues including lead poisoning and the drought and their impact on minority communities.

When it comes to making decisions about the environment (“Paper or plastic?”), most people rely more on passion than on facts. “They just don’t have a good base of information to work with,” says Berlinda Fontenot-Jamerson. “It’s all too new.”

And when the decisions are major ones, such as putting an incinerator in a residential neighborhood, getting the right information is a necessity.

“Even the people setting policy aren’t always clear about the consequences,” says Fontenot-Jamerson, who is chair of next week’s “Time-Out for the Environment” conference here.

The two-day meeting will examine environmental issues and their economic realities for African-American and other minority communities.

“This is not just for black people. We want anybody who is interested to attend,” says Barbara Sullivan, membership chair of the L.A. chapter of the American Assn. of Blacks in Energy (AABE), sponsors of the conference.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of the first national black leaders to speak out on environmental racism, will be keynote speaker.

The program, an ambitious look at the pros and cons of environmental reform and regulation, includes a jobs-versus-environment debate between Carl Anthony of Earth Island Institute and Steve Albright of the Economic Development Partnership.

The AABE itself stays neutral, says Fontenot-Jamerson, a public affairs manager with Southern California Gas Co. “We want to share perspectives.”

“We don’t lobby. We go to the community so they can make informed decisions. The environment is complicated, it’s new, and it’s changing right before our eyes,” she says.

AABE was founded 15 years ago by a group of black attorneys in Washington to bring their community’s voice to energy policy-making at the national level.

The L.A. chapter includes executives, managers and employees of energy-related businesses, government officials, students and a new category for community-based members. Although the local AABE has sponsored forums on such single issues as rising utility rates, this event is a first in scope, says Fontenot-Jamerson.

“We started talking about issues that are going to be critical during the ‘90s, and it just grew,” she says.

Thursday’s opening session at the Los Angeles Hilton will address the nuts-and-bolts issues of environmental impact on personal lives, starting with lead poisoning and children’s health.

Other speakers will deal with the cost of developing electric cars, the confusing public messages about the drought status in Southern California, the current transportation tangle over the Metro system’s Blue, Red and Green lines, and the issue of trash, toxics and recycling.

The emerging Environmental Equity movement will be discussed by the Rev. Benjamin Chavis Jr., whose United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice documented environmental racism in its 1987 study, “Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States.”

On Friday the conference moves to Brookside Country Club in Pasadena. The agenda includes a legislative update from Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles).

For information and registration: (213) 244-2532 or (213) 731-3374.

ECONOTES

‘Time-Out for the Environment’

Do we still have a drought in Southern California after the recent storms?

Is there actually a market for recycled paper and plastic?

What will be the real cost of developing electric cars in the Los Angeles Basin, and who will pay?

These environmental questions of the ‘90s and their impact on minority communities will be examined in a conference here on Jan. 30-31 by speakers whose expertise ranges from saving the dolphins to locating toxic dump sites.

With the Rev. Jesse Jackson scheduled for the keynote address, the sponsoring Los Angeles chapter of the American Assn. of Blacks in Energy (AABE) is aiming for a cross-section crowd of business professionals, energy experts, community leaders and “just plain citizens” to take “Time-Out for the Environment,” says chairwoman Berlinda Jamerson. Story, E3.

Econotes is an occasional update on issues involving the environment and ecology.