**Foreword**

It is a privilege to be able to continue to contribute to the body of literature addressing vulnerability and marginality in the climate change field. As an interdisciplinary scholar in both Environmental studies and Africana and Latin American studies, my work sits at the nexus of environmental psychology, environmental justice, and natural resource management. Over the past decade and a half, the bulk of my work has been with marginalized and vulnerable communities in the Caribbean and the US as they experience climate change impacts and other environmental injustices such as food access and the impacts of oil and gas drilling. My scholarship examines the ways in which fishers in the Caribbean are disproportionately impacted by climate change and highlights the everyday strategies that are used to adapt to impacts that they experience.

This text, *The Impact of Climate Change on Vulnerable Populations: Social Responses to a Changing Environment* by Debra D. Joseph and Roshnie A. Doon, continues to center climate change and its impact on vulnerable and marginalized communities. Climate change is an existential threat to the world; if not addressed, it has the potential to cause irreparable damage to ecosystems and life. But why marginality? Multiple studies across various disciplines have highlighted that vulnerable populations have dealt with and are currently experiencing climate change impacts differentially. The book highlights these impacts and shows their widespread nature and demonstrates how they are experienced differently. The vulnerable and marginalized tend to experience the most significant impacts of climate change and are often the ones who do not receive the support that is needed to properly adapt to climate change. Even more important, the book draws on the wide range of marginality and vulnerability indicators such as race, class, gender, livelihoods, and indigeneity, centering, for example, tribal communities in India and Africa. The book addresses not only the needs of vulnerable populations to climate change but also the solutions that are needed to address these problems, e.g., the use of resilience hubs. Taking a solution-oriented approach is necessary within climate change research to show practical ways of tackling a problem that at times seems insurmountable. The breadth of areas covered by this book is compelling and will allow it to draw a wide audience that includes academics, policy makers, and practitioners across multiple sectors, e.g., social work, economics, development studies, law, government, and public policy to name a few. Further, the topics that are covered as it relates to climate change expands the discussion of climate change into new realms such as addressing general health, mental health implications, housing dynamics, ableism, and prison communities, showing the multi-faceted impact that climate change has on the society.

One of the exciting new contributions of this book is the focus on health and climate change. Elderly care, homelessness, and mental health within children are understudied areas, and having chapters that address this issue makes a pivotal contribution. Understanding how and why these vulnerable populations lack the financial means to secure proper housing, transportation and health care services is central for addressing adaptation measures within these communities. Another pivotal contribution is the focus on ableism and how this contributes to vulnerability, with a particular focus on how these populations tend to have higher morbidity and mortality rates in emergencies, especially those related to the impacts of climate change. Two other areas that are also worth mentioning include the focus on maternal and children's health as impacted by climate change and the effort to highlight the cumulative impacts of environmental hazards and climate change effects.

This book takes a comprehensive global approach that is sorely needed. This timely contribution deepens the literature on the impacts of climatic change impacts and its associated solutions, with a focus on vulnerable and marginalized populations.

**April Karen Baptiste Professor of Environmental Studies and Africana and Latin American Studies Associate Dean of Faculty for Global and Local Initiatives Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA**
