“The Kids Ask ‘Are We Safe?’”: Oil Refining's Unjust Environmental Health Impacts on Children

Despite knowing about climate risks for decades, oil and gas companies continually increase production. Infants, children, and adolescents are most vulnerable to intensifying air pollution and other upheavals of climate emergency. Here, we illustrate localized impacts of global processes by focusing on the Suncor Oil Refinery in Commerce City, Colorado, the state's only oil refinery and a major polluter. The Suncor facility illustrates broader structural and environmental health vulnerabilities of living and/or attending school near fossil fuel infrastructure. Drawing on community‐based, in‐depth interview data from 53 participants, we show how children have been affected by the facility's pollution. In 93% of interviews, worries over children's health problems—including respiratory problems, chronic illnesses such as asthma and cancer, developmental disorders, nosebleeds, and dizziness—emerged as primary concerns and consistent and harmful sources of stress and ongoing trauma. Rather than being adequately protected by regulations, children instead face excessive asthma rates, other health issues, and contested illness responses from medical providers. Their parents, teachers, and other caretakers face exceptional structural limitations to protecting them. We establish key localized harms of oil refining and answer the call for more rigorous examinations of how fossil fuel‐based systems impact children's quality of life.