Nithya Raman Addresses Environmental Justice As She Vows To Plant More Trees

India-West News Desk

LOS ANGELES, CA – As Nithya Raman ramps up her mayoral campaign in Los Angeles, her latest campaign pitch places extreme heat and climate inequality at the center, warning that rising temperatures are already shaping life and death outcomes across the city.

It also comes as President Donald Trump has run amok, dismantling every environmental policy and progress made over the decades.

In a recent campaign video released as Los Angeles roils under intense heat conditions, Raman outlined a plan to cool the city by significantly expanding tree cover and shade, particularly in the neighborhoods hit hardest by rising temperatures.

Her proposal includes planting 100,000 trees and expanding access to cooling spaces across the city. “I’ll make sure every Angeleno has a safe place to cool down when temperatures spike,” she said, adding, “I’ll plant 100,000 trees and build shade in the hottest parts of LA.”

She pointed to stark disparities across the city, saying, “Look at a map of temperatures in LA on a hot day like today. In LA, your zip code determines your temperature.” She is on the mark on that. Various studies have shown that the wealthier a neighborhood is, the leafier it is likely to be.

Wealthier areas, she noted, benefit from tree-lined streets, parks, and shade, while other parts of the city are left exposed. “In low-income neighborhoods, you’ll find miles of bare asphalt. No trees, no shade,” she said, adding that temperatures in these areas can run “5 to 10 degrees hotter than others.”

Framing the issue as one of environmental justice, Raman described the temperature gap as “life-or-death,” emphasizing the dangers of prolonged heat exposure. She warned that heat stroke can carry a fatality rate of 50 to 80 percent if untreated.

She also tied today’s heat disparities to decades of urban planning decisions. “For decades, Los Angeles built warehouses and freeways in working-class neighborhoods. But no parks, no trees. Now those same communities are the hottest places in the entire city,” she said.

Raman stressed that the burden of extreme heat falls disproportionately on vulnerable populations, including “low-income Angelenos, Black and Latino families, thousands of unhoused residents trying to survive on these hot streets.”

Calling extreme heat the most immediate climate threat facing Los Angeles, she argued that solutions already exist. “Heat deaths are preventable,” Raman said. “I’m running for mayor because staying alive during a heat wave shouldn’t depend on your zip code.”