Some Colorado voters now see racial justice and climate justice as intertwined issues

Isha Kanu, then 17 and a senior at Northfield High School in Denver, was among the thousands who marched from Denver's Union Station up the 1th Street Mall to the Colorado state Capitol on Friday Sept. 20 2019 in support of an international youth-organized strike aimed at combating climate change. She also spoke at the rally. (Hart Van Denburg/CPR News)

Last fall, high school senior Isha Kanu was all about raising awareness around climate change.

“I saw activists like Greta Thunberg and how passionate they were about it,” said Kanu who helped organize a youth climate protest in Denver. “I also thought it was really important as an African American young woman that I should be also seen at the forefront as well, to kind of represent other people like me.”

Then came the George Floyd protests, which took shape in Denver and across the country. Today, climate justice and racial justice are linked in the 18-year-old’s mind. That’s also influenced her first-time vote as well …

Read more of this story on CPR.org.

Grace Hood is Colorado Public Radio’s energy and environment reporter. She has reported on wildfires, floods, land use, water, energy and hydraulic fracturing, and even tracked down a mysterious Colorado war monument on U.S. Forest Service land. Grace joined CPR in 2015 after six years with KUNC in Greeley.