When I was a college student in the dilapidated industrial city of Steubenville, Ohio, I frequently would wake up to the smell of sulfur clinging to a heavy morning fog, thanks to the fumes spewed into the air by nearby industrial factories.

I mention this not to disparage Steubenville, a town that once exemplified the American manufacturing dream but has since suffered greatly amid a decadeslong economic decline. Rather I mention it because, over the four years I spent smelling the same stench each time I walked to a morning class, I always wondered why those screaming for a Green New Deal to stave off catastrophic climate change never bothered to hear the concerns of people who live in the individual communities that were actually affected by human interaction with the environment.