Community science is a particularly potent tool in areas where denialism and/or gaslighting around climate and environmental issues are pervasive, as it enables folks to gather hard data for themselves, resist disinformation, reclaim the narrative, and take action to right wrongs. For instance:

• A grassroots community science project in Belmont County, Ohio was able to fill in the gaps of EPA air quality data to more accurately capture the impact fracking-related pollution (over 700 oil and gas wells were drilled in Belmont County between 2011 and 2021). Residents were experiencing symptoms of toxic air pollution, like frequent headaches, nausea, fatigue, and trouble breathing, and suspected that fracking operations might be releasing toxic pollution into the air, but EPA’s air pollution monitoring didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary (it’s important to note that EPA’s air pollution monitoring consisted of three sensors spread out across a county that covers nearly 550 square miles). So, residents decided to collect data themselves. Folks at Freshwater Accountability Project and Concerned Ohio River Residents solicited support from Thriving Earth Exchange and connected with researchers from several universities and community advocacy organizations. Together, they developed a community network of air monitoring stations using relatively inexpensive PurpleAir sensors, which picked up high levels of benzene, toluene, and fine particulate matter. They were able to map plumes of pollution coming from a nearby natural gas plant and show how wind patterns could influence pollution spikes. Community scientists also kept logs of physical symptoms and other things that they noticed, and ultimately found that the spikes in emissions that the air sensors picked up mapped closely with those logs. Lea Harper, the managing director of the Freshwater Accountability Project, reflected, “Prior to the study, many in Belmont County downplayed their own symptoms, feeling that nothing could be done about them. Others denied that fracking – a major economic force in the region – had any negative impact on Belmont’s air quality… To have at least some ability to verify and validate people’s concerns has been much more empowering than anything I was able to do before.” She’s excited that the data they were able to collect will be helpful in organizing residents and potentially taking legal action against polluters and preventing fossil fuel projects in the future.
• Louisiana Bucket Brigade uses community science to measure toxic gases in the air and hold industry and government accountable. Louisiana Bucket Brigade, founded in 2000 to help address the petrochemical industry’s devastating impact on the region known as Cancer Alley, trains community members in fenceline neighborhoods to use effective but cheap and easy-to-use air sample buckets to conduct hot spot monitoring when they’re worried that they’re at risk of toxic chemical exposure from nearby oil refineries, plastic plants, and chemical facilities. Louisiana Bucket Brigade explains that “community members who live next to oil refiners and chemical plants are constantly told by industry officials that their operations are safe and that the air is healthy to breathe,” despite an intentional lack of consistent and thorough air quality monitoring (they elaborate that the government’s “placement of monitoring stations is a decision made in conjunction with industry, which often pushes for strategic locations that see the least amount of pollution”). Citizen bucket brigades are therefore an effective tool of resistance for community members to prove that the air they’re breathing is not in fact safe and healthy—and to demand meaningful action. Thus far, Louisiana Bucket Brigade has successfully organized with residents and other community-based organizations to negotiate buyouts of contaminated neighborhoods, expand air monitoring and government oversight, and prevent industry expansion that would increase toxic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions (you can read more about their copious victories here). To support Louisiana Bucket Brigade’s work, consider making a donation
• For over a decade, the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) has been partnering with community-based organizations in farming communities in states like Hawaii, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois in order to test the air for pesticide drift and advocate for change. Community members and farmers use PAN’s Drift Catcher air monitoring device to take air samples when nearby farms are being sprayed with pesticides. They then send samples back to PAN to be studied for traces of certain toxic chemicals. They use this information to organize accordingly and fight back against Big Agriculture. The data gathered by community scientists has helped to ground lawsuits against agrochemical companies and bring about real policy change. For instance, in Kauai, residents won a lawsuit against biotech giant DuPont-Pioneer for exposing their communities to extraordinarily high levels of pesticides linked to a range of serious health issues, and in both Hawaii and California, PAN worked with grassroots groups to pass statewide bans against chlorpyrifos (now banned nationwide) and win buffer zones around schools to protect children from brain-harming and cancer-causing pesticide drift.
  

Community-led and community-controlled solutions are a natural extension of community-led and community-controlled scientific projects. Rather than relying on interventions to be determined and implemented by academic institutions and governmental agencies, who have been and continue to be responsible for tremendous harm to structurally oppressed communities, community science enables community members to identify best practices themselves. 

Not only can community science be a helpful tool in the reclamation of power and self-determination, but it makes for better solutions, too. Solutions are far more likely to be effective and sustainable in the long run when they are informed by robust, granular quantitative data as well as lived expertise, when residents are in the driver’s seat to shape solutions themselves, and when they are implemented at the appropriate scale (founder and CEO of ISeeChange, Julia Kumari Drapkin, says that community science has taught her that “the solutions are almost as granular, in some cases, as the threat”). For instance: 

• Harlem Heat Project, a community-based initiative that began in 2016, helped folks to better understand the public health impacts of summer heat on Harlem, New York’s residents without air conditioning as well as to identify community-led solutions. The project was a collaboration between many; the data and engagement platform ISeeChange provided the infrastructure to collect data, local residents, also known as the community scientists, collected the data and shared their lived experience, research scientists from nearby universities helped to model data and provide scientific support, organizations with deep community roots, like WE ACT for Environmental Justice, helped to facilitate community engagement and policy advocacy efforts, and local news stations helped to communicate the results. The community scientists were given inexpensive heat and humidity sensors to keep in their homes and were trained to capture and upload sensor data from their smartphones. They were able to capture robust data that demonstrated how outdoor conditions affected indoor temperatures and pointed to important trends (for instance, folks living in public housing apartments experienced the hottest indoor temperatures). Quantitative data was supplemented with community workshops which shed light on how people experienced heat and which solutions would or wouldn’t work. For instance, some community members mentioned struggling to decide whether to open their windows for relief or keep them closed so as not to let in polluted air. Others discussed the complications and extra charges that came with trying to install air conditioning in public housing apartments. The solutions that the community scientists came up with (and that WE ACT then advocated for), like creating more accessible cooling spaces in their buildings and developing better alert systems to remind them to check in on neighbors, were shaped directly from the research that they conducted and from their lived expertise. 
• West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP) is a resident-led environmental justice organization that was founded in 2012 to build people power and equip community members of West Oakland, California with the tools to advocate for healthy homes, healthy jobs, and healthy communities. Their community-based participatory research program is a central part of their work; they help to train both youth and adults to formulate meaningful questions, collect and analyze data, develop solutions, and organize to make change. They have conducted several resident-led studies and partnered with a range of stakeholders, like city and regional planners, regulators, policy makers, and businesses, to ensure that their findings are recognized and that their solutions are implemented. For instance, after decades of conducting local air pollution measurements, truck surveys, and other studies to better understand air pollution on a block-by-block level, WOEIP partnered with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to develop a comprehensive community action plan aptly titled “Owning Our Air,” in which they identified over 90 specific strategies to improve air quality. WOEIP explains, “In our experience, when community members have personal agency in the decisions that impact their lives, community outcomes are more relevant and appropriate, more meaningful, and longer lasting.”