Our hosts Rev Yearwood and Mustafa Santiago Ali explore how the media is failing to cover climate change with David Arkush, Climate Program Director at Public Citizen. David recently authored an in-depth report that found that the media overwhelmingly failed to connect extreme weather to climate change in 2017. Clean water is a right! Dr. Ali also sits down with Rosemary Enobakhare, former Obama EPA official and current director of the Clean Water For All campaign to talk about her work fighting the Trump Administration’s attempts to get rid of basic clean water protections.
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[/et_pb_text][et_pb_team_member name=”David Arkush” position=”Climate Program Director, Public Citizen” image_url=”https://v9yc37.p3cdn2.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/David-Arkush-Public-Citizen-June-19-2018.jpeg” facebook_url=”www.facebook.com/publiccitizen/” twitter_url=”@Public_Citizen ” _builder_version=”3.0.83″ header_font=”Barlow||||||||” body_font=”Barlow||||||||” body_font_size=”22″ body_letter_spacing=”1px” body_line_height=”1.6em”]
David Arkush is the managing director of Public Citizen’s Climate Program. He has broad experience advocating for consumers before all three branches of government, having lobbied extensively before the U.S. Congress and federal regulatory agencies and litigated complex cases in the federal courts.
David spent five years directing Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, where he led strategic research and organizing campaigns and played an instrumental role in the passage of laws including the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. A TIME Magazine profile of David notes that he has “advocated for consumer protection, advised breaking up the largest, too-big-to-fail banks and addressed other industry-structure issues, while investigating the financial sector’s myriad ties to the government.” David has also taught Administrative Law and Legislation at the University of Richmond School of Law.
Frequently consulted for his wide-ranging expertise on climate change, energy policy, consumer protection, administrative law, financial services regulation, access to justice, and money in politics, David has testified before Congress, appeared on CNN, CBS, ABC, CNBC, NPR, and Fox News Channel, and been quoted by publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, The Chicago Tribune, TIME, Bloomberg, POLITICO, Roll Call, and The Hill.
David received his J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School, where he served as Managing Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights—Civil Liberties Law Review, and his A.B. with honors from Washington University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
[/et_pb_team_member][et_pb_team_member name=”Rosemary Enobakhare” position=”Campaign Director, Clean Water For All” image_url=”https://v9yc37.p3cdn2.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Rosemary-Enobhakare-Clean-Water-For-All-Campaign-June-19-2018.jpeg” _builder_version=”3.0.83″ header_font=”Barlow||||||||” body_font=”Barlow||||||||” body_font_size=”22″ body_letter_spacing=”1px” body_line_height=”1.6em”]
Rosemary Enobakhare currently serves as the Clean Water for All Coalition Director. In this role, she is responsible for working with a broad range of partners to create and execute a Coalition that advocates and defends clean water protections at the Federal level. She was previously appointed by the Obama Administration to serve as the Deputy Associate Administrator for Public Engagement and Environmental Education in the Office of the Administrator at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In this role, she led the agency’s community outreach program and developed strategic engagement plans to positively impact the EPA’s public policy to ensure nontraditional communities were both apart of the conversations and the solution.
Ms. Enobakhare also served as the Deputy Director of Public Engagement and Faith-based Initiatives, in this capacity she was over the coordination of outreach to the African American, faith, women and business communities on behalf of the EPA Administrator. Prior to joining the Administration, Rosemary served as the Director of African American Outreach for the Democratic National Committee, leading the party’s efforts around engaging the African American Community in the 2012 election. Rosemary is a native of Jackson, Mississippi and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Spelman College.
Our hosts Rev Yearwood and Mustafa Santiago Ali celebrate World Environment Day with a lively discussion about what our oceans mean to our planet, communities, and health with
Author, Activist, and Adventurer David Helvarg, and Global Earth Day Vice President Valeria Merino. Earthjustice President Trip Van Noppen sits down with our hosts to discuss the critical legal battles to protect our clean water and air, act on climate change, and ensure future generations have a healthy planet to thrive on.
Donnell “Trip” Van Noppen serves Earthjustice as its President, leading the organization’s staff, board, and supporters to advance its mission of using the courts to protect our environment and people’s health. After earning degrees from Yale and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Trip clerked for a federal district judge from 1980–82. He then practiced law in Raleigh, NC, from 1982 until 1997, in a litigation practice emphasizing civil rights, employment, environmental, and toxic tort cases.
In 1998, Trip joined the Southern Environmental Law Center and became director of that organization’s Carolinas Office. Both in private practice and at SELC, Trip has handled a variety of environmental cases and cases involving access to the courts. He was named North Carolina’s “Air Conservationist of the Year” in 1996 and has taught environmental justice as a visiting scholar at Duke University. From 2005–2007, Trip was Earthjustice’s Vice President for Litigation.
[/et_pb_team_member][et_pb_team_member name=”David Helvarg ” position=”Author, Activist, Adventurer and Leading Ocean Voice – June 5, 2018″ facebook_url=”https://www.facebook.com/bluefront.org/” twitter_url=”https://twitter.com/Blue_Frontier” _builder_version=”3.0.83″ header_font=”Barlow||||||||” body_font=”Barlow||||||||” body_font_size=”22″ body_letter_spacing=”1px” body_line_height=”1.6em” image_url=”https://v9yc37.p3cdn2.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/David-Helvarg-Author-Activist-Adventurer-and-Leading-Ocean-Voice-June-5-2018.jpg” background_layout=”light”]
David Helvarg is Executive Director of Blue Frontier and the author of six books: Blue Frontier, The War Against the Greens, 50 Ways to Save the Ocean, Rescue Warriors, Saved by the Sea and The Golden Shore. He is editor of the Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide, organizer of ‘Blue Vision’ Summits for ocean activists and the Peter Benchley Ocean Awards (co-hosted with Wendy Benchley), and winner of Coastal Living Magazine’s 2005 Leadership Award and the 2007 Herman Melville Literary Prize.
Helvarg worked as a war correspondent in Northern Ireland and Central America, covered a range of issues from military science to the AIDS epidemic, and reported from every continent including Antarctica. An award-winning journalist, he produced more than 40 broadcast documentaries for PBS, The Discovery Channel, and others. His print work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, LA Times, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Popular Science, Sierra, and Parade. He’s done radio work for Marketplace, AP radio, and Pacifica. He has led workshops for journalists in Poland, Turkey, Tunisia, Slovakia and Washington DC. He is a licensed Private Investigator, body-surfer and scuba diver.
[/et_pb_team_member][et_pb_team_member admin_label=”Valeria Merino” name=”Valeria Merino” position=”Vice President for Global Earth Day” facebook_url=”https://www.facebook.com/EarthDayNetwork/” twitter_url=”https://twitter.com/EarthDayNetwork” _builder_version=”3.0.83″ header_font=”Barlow||||||||” body_font=”Barlow||||||||” body_font_size=”22″ body_letter_spacing=”1px” body_line_height=”1.6em” image_url=”https://v9yc37.p3cdn2.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Valeria-Merino-Earth-Day-Network-June-5-2018.jpg” background_layout=”light”]
Valeria Merino is an environmental lawyer by training and a social entrepreneur. She has worked in many different areas of social change, developing a multidisciplinary approach to resolving social issues. Early in her career, she spearheaded a successful national justice reform in Ecuador that empowered citizens and social organizations to demand from the government and local authorities the recognition of their civil, economic and environmental rights. Simultaneously, she was part of the core leadership that grew Transparency International into an anti-corruption global force serving on its global board. Later, she was the leader of Ashoka’s largest global program, identifying and supporting social entrepreneurs with innovative system change ideas in more than 90 countries. At Ashoka, she also created the Rural Innovation and Farming Program with support from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2015, after graduating from the Founder Institute, an incubator of tech companies, she joined the Skoll Foundation, based in Palo Alto CA, where she worked with some of the best social organizations in the world to accelerate their efforts to change systems. She is particularly motivated to work on designing and implementing solutions to complex social problems, and building and sustaining global networks and collaborations to make it happen.
At Earth Day Network, she is already putting her experience to work. She is developing collaborative strategies and executing actions to further build Earth Day Network and its 50th anniversary into the platform that will unite the voices of citizens and institutions around the globe, into the global environmental and wellbeing movement that is required to save the planet and life on earth. She has been leading at EDN the End Plastic Pollution Campaign.
The mainstream environmental movement is under scrutiny for its homogeneity and increasingly called on to be more transparent about making large-scale commitments to change. In episode 11 of Think 100%, confront this dynamic and explore the solutions with special guest Whitney Tome, Executive Director ofGreen 2.0.
This is going to be a difficult but necessary conversation to pay attention to and act on in order for our movement to win on the critical issues facing our communities and planet.
On the show we’ll breakdown the movement’s diversity pipeline problem and the monolithic policy implications as they relate to key components including philanthropy, academia, government, and nonprofits. We will also confront the myth that people of color lack interest in the environment, examine regulatory and legislative challenges, and explore how greater diversity in strategy and message can help the movement educate and activate a broader base of support.
In advance of the show, we recommend that you read the following articles:
Whitney has worked with fishermen, environmentalists, advocates, political strategists, government employees, and thought leaders to develop the approach and solutions needed for the problem. Combining her facilitation skills, knowledge of environmental issues, and understanding of people, Whitney is able to walk into any room, ask the right questions, develop a strategy in the moment and leave everyone with action items and tasks.
Prior to joining the Raben Group, Whitney served as the director of diversity and inclusion at the National Parks Conservation Association where she lead, defined and crafted metrics and measures for the organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts. Whitney has advised complex ocean stakeholder processes as a Program Manager and Mediator at the Meridian Institute including facilitating public meetings for regional ocean planning bodies that included state, federal and tribal partners.
At Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Whitney served as a strategist, cat herder and trusted advisor in dozens of state and federal political campaigns. She also developed, launched and grew the Fisheries Leadership and Sustainability Forum – a partnership between EDF, Duke and Stanford. Whitney developed everything from the curriculum for fisheries managers to managing the steering committee, budget and partners for the Fisheries Forum.
In developing the Fisheries Forum. Whitney adopted a ‘soup to nuts’ management process. She developed the curriculum for and identified experts in fisheries science, law and policy to help educate federal fisheries managers. Her subtle, yet persuasive approach with fishermen, state and federal employees earned her respect. Within a few short years, due to Whitney’s continuous relationship building, and well-executed and informative events, the National Marine Fisheries Service asked the Forum to lead an entire sector of the largest conference in the United States focused on the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act – Managing Our Nation’s Fisheries Conference.
Whitney earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Middlebury College and a J.D. from American University’s Washington College of Law. She also won the International Chamber of Commerce’s (ICC) International Mediation Competition in Paris, France.
In addition to serving as Principal, Whitney is also the executive director for Green 2.0, an initiative to increase the racial diversity of the largest national environmental NGOs, foundations and federal government agencies.
In episode ten of Think 100%, United States Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) is joining us to discuss why she helped start the United for Climate and Environmental Justice Task Force and how her district is adapting to climate change. Also joining us is Rosemary Enobakhare, former Obama EPA official and current director of the Clean Water For All campaign. Rosemary has a wealth of experience building relationships with communities and is leading a coalition that is fighting off attempts to get rid of basic clean water protections by the current Administration.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal represents Washington’s 7th District, which encompasses most of Seattle and surrounding areas. She is committed to ensuring that every resident of the district has economic opportunity; fairness and equity; and safe and healthy communities. She is proud of the district’s role in leading the country on issues like the minimum wage, racial equity and innovation, and will work to support that work and lift it up as a model for the rest of the country. She has a strong focus on ensuring income equality, access to quality and affordable education, expanding Social Security and Medicare, and protecting our environment for our next generations. As the first Indian-American woman in the House of Representatives, Jayapal has spent the last twenty years working internationally and domestically as a leading national advocate for women’s, immigrant, civil, and human rights. Visit her website to learn more.
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Rosemary Enobakhare currently serves as the Clean Water for All Coalition Director. In this role, she is responsible for working with a broad range of partners to create and execute a Coalition that advocates and defends clean water protections at the Federal level. She was previously appointed by the Obama Administration to serve as the Deputy Associate Administrator for Public Engagement and Environmental Education in the Office of the Administrator at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In this role, she led the agency’s community outreach program and developed strategic engagement plans to positively impact the EPA’s public policy to ensure nontraditional communities were both apart of the conversations and the solution.
Ms. Enobakhare also served as the Deputy Director of Public Engagement and Faith-based Initiatives, in this capacity she was over the coordination of outreach to the African American, faith, women and business communities on behalf of the EPA Administrator. Prior to joining the Administration, Rosemary served as the Director of African American Outreach for the Democratic National Committee, leading the party’s efforts around engaging the African American Community in the 2012 election. Rosemary is a native of Jackson, Mississippi and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Spelman College.
Mustafa Santiago Ali, Think 100% co-host and Hip Hop Caucus Senior Vice President, spent 24 years at the United States Environmental Protection Agency working to right wrongs, revitalize communities, and enhance programs that protect our health and planet. He recently sat down with the great Samantha Bee to discuss how the Trump Administration is taking actions that will disproportionately impact the poor and communities of color, and why the current leader of EPA needs to go. Like right now. Seriously.
Our hosts Rev Yearwood and Mustafa Santiago Ali share some inspiring real-talk with United States Congressman Raul Grijalva (AZ-03), who for decades has been fighting for justice, equity, and accountability at home in the southwest and in the halls of Congress. The electrifying and Dr. Sacoby Wilson from the University of Maryland School of Public Health also drops by to discuss environmental justice, education, and science’s critical role in protecting our health, communities, and planet.
BroadcastDate: May 8, 2018
Broadcast Time: 6:00 pm ET / 3:00 pm PT
Stream: WPFWFM.org/radio
Live Radio: 89.3 FM in DC/Maryland/Virgina
Podcast: launching soon!
Episode 8 Guests:
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_team_member admin_label=”Grijalva” name=”Raúl M. Grijalva ” position=”United States Congressman” image_url=”https://v9yc37.p3cdn2.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/United-States-Congressman-Raul-Grijalva-AZ-03-small.jpg” facebook_url=”https://www.facebook.com/Rep.Grijalva/” twitter_url=”https://twitter.com/RepRaulGrijalva” _builder_version=”3.0.83″ header_font=”Barlow||||||||” header_font_size=”22″ header_letter_spacing=”1px” header_line_height=”1.6em” inline_fonts=”Barlow”]
Raúl Grijalva began his career in public service as a community organizer in Tucson. Four decades later, he continues to be an advocate for those in need and a voice for the constituents of his home community. From 1974 to 1986, Raúl served on the Tucson Unified School District Governing Board, including six years as Chairman. In 1988, he was elected to the Pima County Board of Supervisors, where he served for the next 15 years, chairing the Board for two of those years. Raúl resigned his seat on the Board of Supervisors in 2002 to seek office in Arizona’s newly created Seventh Congressional District. Despite a nine-candidate primary and the challenge of being outspent three-to-one by his closest competitor, Raúl was elected with a 20-point victory, thanks to a diverse coalition of supporters that led the largest volunteer-driven election effort in Arizona.
Throughout his career, Raúl has always fought for underrepresented voices. The passions that drove him as a School Board member to fight for and succeed at implementing bilingual education in Arizona are the same passions that motivated him to help pass the first bond package containing a $10 million commitment to reinvest in older, poorer neighborhoods while he was a County Supervisor. Likewise, they are what drive him today as he fights to reform our broken immigration system, ensure livable wages for American workers, and create vital land protections to safeguard our nation’s natural treasures for the next generation.
In 2014, Raúl was elected Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee by his Democratic colleagues on the committee. He also serves on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and is a Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, as well as a long-standing member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
[/et_pb_team_member][et_pb_team_member name=”Dr. Sacoby Wilson” position=”Associate Professor and Director of Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health, University of Maryland ” image_url=”https://v9yc37.p3cdn2.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Dr.-Sacoby-Wilson-Director-of-Community-Engagement-Environmental-Justice-and-Health-University-of-Maryland-small.jpg” _builder_version=”3.0.83″ header_font=”Barlow||||||||” header_font_size=”22″ header_letter_spacing=”1px” header_line_height=”1.6em” inline_fonts=”Barlow”]
Dr. SacobyWilson is an Associate Professor with the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Maryland-College Park. Dr. Wilson has over 15 years of experience as environmental health scientist in the areas of exposure science, environmental justice, environmental health disparities, community-based participatory research, water quality analysis, air pollution studies, built environment, industrial animal production, climate change, community resiliency, and sustainability. As Director of the Community Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health (CEEJH) Initiative, he works primarily in partnership with community-based organizations using citizen science to study and address environmental justice and health issues and translate research to action.
Dr. Wilson has been very active professionally as an environmental justice advocate. He is a Co-Founder of the DC/Maryland/Virginia (DMV) Environmental Justice Coalition. He is a member of the USEPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC), a past Chair of the APHA Environment Section, on the Board of Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, a former member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the CDC NCEH/ATSDR, and former Chair of the Alpha Goes Green Initiative, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He is also a senior fellow in the Environmental Leadership Program.
Dr. Wilson has received many awards for his contributions and achievements as an environmental justice researcher and advocate. He received a 2018 Audubon Naturalists Society Taking Nature Black Environmental Champion Award. He also received the APHA Environment Section Damu Smith Environmental Justice Award in 2015. From the University of Maryland School of Public Health, he received the George F. Kramer Practitioner of the Year Award (2014-2015) and the Muriel R. Sloan Communitarian Award (2012-2013). He received a USEPA Environmental Justice Achievement Award given to Low Country Alliance for Model Communities, North Charleston, SC and Mitigation Agreement Committee. Additionally, Dr. Wilson received the Steve Wing International Environmental Justice Award in 2008.
Board Member, Community Campus Partnerships for Health Editorial Board, Environmental Justice Editorial Board, Citizen Science Senior Fellow, Environmental Leadership Program (Class of 2005)
The reality of the movement is picking up the government’s slack. Rev Yearwood and Mustafa Santiago Ali discuss fights for policies that protect our clean air and water alongside two of our movement’s greatest allies – moms and scientists! Moms Clean Air Force Local Government Senior Advisor Heather McTeer Toney, Moms Clean Air Force Public Health Policy Director Molly Rauch, and Union of Concerned Scientists President Ken Kimmell unite to fight back on Think 100% – The Coolest Show On Climate Change.
Heather McTeer Toney, Local Government Senior Adviser, Moms Clean Air Force: Heather served as the first African-American, first female and youngest mayor of Greenville, MS. In 2014, she was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as Regional Administrator for Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Southeast Region. Known for her energetic and genuine commitment to people, her work has made her a national figure in public service, diversity and community engagement. Heather works on local government policy initiatives and leads the Moms & Mayors program of Moms Clean Air Force. Heather holds a bachelor’s degree from Spelman College in Atlanta and a law degree from the Tulane University School of Law. She loves triathlons and bacon, and at any time can be found chasing her toddler or riding in old classic cars with her husband and daughter.
Molly Rauch, Public Health Policy Director, Moms Clean Air Force: as public health policy director, Molly develops clean air campaigns, creates educational resources, manages media outreach, cultivates partnerships and collaborations with other organizations, and writes about public health, science, and policy. She lives with her family in Washington, DC, where she serves on the District of Columbia’s Commission on Climate Change and Resiliency. Her writing on environmental health has appeared in Goodhousekeeping.com, Parents.com, and Huffington Post, among other publications. A native New Yorker, she holds a master’s degree in public health.
Ken Kimmell, President, Union of Concerned Scientists: Ken is president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a leading science-based nonprofit that combines the knowledge and influence of the scientific community with the passion of concerned citizens to build a healthy planet and a safer world. Mr. Kimmell has more than 30 years of experience in government, environmental policy, and advocacy. He is a national advocate for clean energy and transportation policies and a driving force behind UCS’s “Power Ahead” campaign to build a large and diverse group of clean energy leadership states. [more about Ken]
Our hosts kick it with United States Representative Nanette Barragán (CA-44) to learn about her work fighting environmental injustices in her district in South Central Los Angeles, shaping policy as a freshman Member of Congress, and her thoughts on Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize. Our hosts also discuss the power of culture in building thriving urban communities through education, mobilization, and opportunities with Darryl Perkins, Director of Impact and Co-Founder of Broccoli City Music Festival. The Festival takes place annually in Washington D.C. with over 30,000 in attendance, featuring some of the most influential hip hop artists out there including Cardi B, Migos, and Miguel.
Nanette Diaz Barragán was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 2016, becoming the first Latina ever to represent California’s 44th Congressional district.
Born in Harbor City and growing up in its surrounding harbor communities, Nanette’s humble beginnings shaped her interest in issues that matter locally: environmental and health justice, immigration reform, strengthening the economy, and affordable and accessible education.
As the youngest of eleven children raised by immigrant parents from Mexico, Nanette knows about the challenges that many low-income minority families face firsthand. Her father, a local repairman, instilled in her a strong work ethic and influenced her love for baseball (in particular, for the Los Angeles Dodgers). Her mother who only completed the 3rd grade cleaned homes, cared for others and worked in factories to make ends meet. Nanette learned from her parents values of hard work, and obtained her undergraduate degree from UCLA and her Juris Doctor from USC Gould School of Law.
With a desire to give back to her communities, in the late 1990s Nanette began her career in public service. She steered outreach efforts for African Americans in the Office of Public Liaison for the Clinton White House and worked for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) focusing on racial health disparities and discrimination.
Nanette was the first woman in 12 years to be elected to the Hermosa Beach City Council, and was then elected by her peers as the first-even Latina to serve as Mayor of the beach city. During her two-year term on the city council, Nanette was a strong advocate for environmental justice – she successfully stood up to a powerful oil company and stopped a proposal to drill 34 oil and water injection wells in Hermosa Beach and out into the Santa Monica Bay.
Nanette served as an extern to Justice Carlos Moreno of the Supreme Court of California and, at the Los Angeles Legal Aid Foundation, she fought for justice for low-income families.
In 2016, Nanette decided to take her advocacy to the national level. She ran to represent her neighbors, friends and family members in Congress, with a focus on bringing change and opportunities for those who need it most.
In the 115th Congress, Nanette was elected by her peers to serve as the freshman class president as well as a regional whip, working with her colleagues and reporting back to leadership their thoughts on legislation. Nanette also is member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, and serves on the Homeland Security Committee (https://homeland.house.gov) and Natural Resources Committee (https://naturalresources.house.gov).
[/et_pb_team_member][et_pb_team_member _builder_version=”3.0.83″ name=”Darryl Perkins” position=”Director of Impact and Co-Founder of Broccoli City Festival” background_layout=”light” image_url=”https://v9yc37.p3cdn2.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Darryl-Perkins-Broccoli-City-April-24-2018.jpg” header_font=”Barlow|700|||||||” header_font_size=”24″ header_letter_spacing=”1px” body_font_size=”20″ body_letter_spacing=”1px” body_line_height=”1.5em” twitter_url=”@BroccoliCity” facebook_url=”https://www.facebook.com/BroccoliCity” linkedin_url=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/darryl-perkins-24020817/” body_font=”Barlow||||||||”]
Darryl is a creator and developer of social ventures that build sustainable communities, social capital, financial capital, and a healthy environment. He believes we shouldn’t have to choose between doing good work and making money; he works to rethink, re-imagine, and execute successful strategies to achieve both.
Darryl is a co-founder of Broccoli City, a social enterprise (not for profit/for profit) that roots itself in a triple bottom line strategy that focuses on people, planet, and profit. The Broccoli City team are working to “redefine the cool” towards people being active and engaged participants in their community. They are creating a culture that celebrates and rewards people who are “getting active” and doing the work to make our communities healthier.
On April 28, the sixth annual Broccoli City festival is taking place in Washington D.C. with performances by some of the biggest names in Hip Hop including Cardi B, Migos, and Miguel. The first Broccoli City Festival was started in 2013 to draw attention for Earth Day, aligning with the brands mission to build thriving urban communities to sustain future generations by mobilizing and educating urban millennials through social impact campaigns and major events. Through their programs, they are creating higher standards of sustainable living, environmental sustainability, renewable energy, economic opportunity, and access to high quality food and shelter.
Broccoli City Weekend, is an incubator for all who strive to create a better world. Broccoli City will host a variety of events leading up to the festival, everything from city runs, to community action events, to an all night art escape, culminating with the all-day Broccoli City Festival. The Broccoli City Week highlight will showcase the first Broccoli City Conference, a 2-day interactive conference co-hosted by GOOGLE DC, focusing on the brands mission to build thriving, resilient communities by improving and highlighting Environmental Justice, Economic Sustainability, Culture, Food Access, and Education in undeserved communities.
Rev Yearwood and Mustafa Santiago Ali sit down to chat with the founder of Grist, the no-nonsense and cutting edge platform focused on solutions to climate change, sustainability, and social justice. For the past three years running, Grist has featured the work and profiles of 50 people cooking up the boldest, most ambitious solutions to humanity’s biggest challenges. In this episode, our hosts also interview two of those fixers, Nicole Sitaraman, Senior Manager of Public Policy at Sunrun, and Anthony Torres, Youth Climate Leader and Campaign Strategist at Sierra Club.
Episode Guests
Chip Giller – Founder – Grist: Chip Giller founded Grist in 1999, intent on using a new type of journalism to engage the next generation on environmental issues. Grist, which publishes online, now has an audience of more than 3 million monthly readers, and has been especially successful reaching readers in their 20s and 30s. Readers follow Grist.org for information, inspiration, and conversation—as well as an injection of much-needed humor. Now, with a new mission focused on the story of solutions, Chip is bringing together the protagonists of that story with a new program, The Fix @grist. The Fix is a network of unlikely, emerging leaders working to achieve a planet that doesn’t burn and a future that doesn’t suck. Chip has been honored with a Heinz Award for launching the country’s most influential green media platform, and been named a TIME magazine “Hero of the Environment.” He has been featured for his work in such outlets as Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and Outside, and appeared on broadcast programs including NBC’s Today show. Before launching Grist, Giller was editor of Greenwire, the first environmental news daily. He and his family live on Vashon Island, outside of Seattle.
Nicole Sitaraman, Senior Manager of Public Policy at Sunrun
2018 Grist Fixer Profile: The most thrilling changes in clean energy often happen in the wonkiest places, and that’s where you’ll find Sitaraman: drafting memos or testimony, meeting with legislators or local energy commissioners. At Sunrun, the largest dedicated residential solar outfit in the United States, Sitaraman leads regulatory and legislative outreach across the Mid-Atlantic to ensure solar markets remain stable and equitable. You could say she’s a big part of Big Sun.
She’s also a part of Sunrun’s new collaboration with the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program, which works to install solar panels, provide job training, and improve access to solar in communities of color.
Outside Sunrun, she’s on the Solar Energy Industries Association’s Consumer Protection Committee, which polices companies and arms consumers with information to ensure they get a good deal. And she convenes a group of African-Americans who are passionate about helping young people get a foothold in the industry. Today, African-Americans are only 7 percent of the solar workforce, despite making up 13 percent of workers overall. Says Sitaraman: “We need installers, but we also need the C-Suite.”
Anthony Torres, Campaign Strategist at Sierra Club:
2017 Grist Fixer Profile: A lot of climate hawks spent late 2016 and early 2017 in reassessment or mourning. Meanwhile, Anthony Torres was busy channeling his fellow engaged millennials into direct action, including coordinated sit-ins at the offices of New York’s Chuck Schumer, the new Senate Minority Leader, and Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware. The message: Do not play ball with the polluter-in-chief. “For folks who are looking for a better way in their local communities: Start the hard conversations. Resist often in the ways you know best, because you are from that community.”
The son of a Nicaraguan immigrant father and a working-class New Yorker mother, Torres grew up with sea-level rise on his Long Island doorstep, and he understands how poverty, climate, and other social challenges are all knitted together. He’s proven especially adept at rallying peers to his side, both in an official capacity at the Sierra Club (where he helped coordinate communications and direct actions that aided in a defeat of the Trans-Pacific Partnership) and in extracurricular work with groups like #AllOfUs, a progressive collective aimed at organizing young people around threatened communities. His advice on connecting different constituencies: “Activists need to create a story that is accessible to people who are not necessarily in our movements but who are in need of a bold and inspiring vision,” Torres says. “To me, it’s telling a story of America that intersects with race, gender, and class” and turning what might seem like differences into “a weapon in our arsenal that creates an America that never has happened before — a country for all of us.”
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The Koch Brothers Vs. God
The fossil fuel lobby preached its gospel in Virginia. Now, black churches are fighting back.
Rev. Paul Wilson fastens enough buttons on his jacket to stay warm on a chilly fall afternoon but still keep his clergy collar visible. He’s whipping up a crowd of demonstrators in downtown Richmond, Virginia, where they’re waiting to make a short march from Richmond’s Capitol Square Bell Tower to the nearby National Theatre. His eyes covered by sunglasses, and his head by a newsboy hat, Wilson speaks to the assembled about their Christian responsibility to protect the planet.
They’ve gathered for the Water Is Life Rally & Concert, an event to protest the proposed construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The development, a joint venture between several energy companies (including Richmond-based Dominion Energy), would carry natural gas 600 miles from West Virginia to North Carolina.
The pipeline’s proposed route runs directly between Union Hill and Union Grove Baptist churches, the two parishes where Wilson serves as pastor in rural Buckingham County, 70 miles south of Richmond. The proposed site for the pipeline’s 54,000-horsepower, gas-fired compressor station is also set to be built right between them.
Wilson fears the station could put his congregation and the surrounding community at risk of a range of ailments, especially asthma, because those living near natural gas facilitiesoften suffer from chronic respiratory problems.
“God gave man dominion over the earth, but not permission to destroy it,” Wilson later tells me as we discuss the pipeline over coffee at a diner in a suburb north of Richmond.
Even though the Water Is Life Rally was held in the Bible Belt, Rev. Wilson was the only speaker who cited scripture and invoked Jesus Christ. Drums and tambourines reverberated in unison to chants of “No justice, no peace! No pipelines on our streets!”, and the event’s other speakers railed against the greed of Big Oil companies and U.S. imperialism.
At another rally focused on fossil fuels a year earlier in Richmond, religion was front and center.
In December 2016, gospel music stars descended on a local community center in Richmond’s East Highland Park neighborhood. Hundreds of residents from throughout the area had answered the call to attend a concert marketed as an opportunity for enlightenment, both spiritual and environmental.
As a sea of hands waved through the air as eyes closed in prayer, what many in the crowd didn’t know was that they were the target of a massive propaganda campaign. One of the event’s sponsors was a fossil-fuel advocacy group called Fueling U.S. Forward, an outfit supported by Koch Industries, the petrochemicals, paper, and wood product conglomeratefounded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch.
The gospel program was designed to highlight the benefits of oil and natural gas production and its essential role in the American way of life. During a break in the music, a panel discussion unfolded about skyrocketing utility costs. The lobbyists and businesspeople on the panel presented a greater reliance on fossil fuels — billed as cheap, reliable energy sources — as the fix. Later, a surprise giveaway netted four lucky attendees the opportunity to have their power bills paid for them.
The event was one big bait and switch, according to environmental experts and local activists. Come for the gospel music, then listen to us praise the everlasting goodness of oil and gas. Supporting this sort of pro-oil-and-gas agenda sprinkled over the songs of praise, they say, would only worsen the pollution and coastal flooding that come with climate change, hazards that usually hit Virginia’s black residents the hardest.
Protesters from Buckingham County, Virginia, the planned site of an Atlantic Coast Pipeline compressor station, marched at last year’s Water Is Life Rally. Irene Leech
“The tactic was tasteless and racist, plain and simple,” says Kendyl Crawford, the Sierra Club of Richmond’s conservation program coordinator. “It’s exploiting the ignorance many communities have about climate change.”
Rev. Wilson likens that gospel concert to the Biblical story of Judas accepting 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus. Like many African Americans in Virginia, he initially didn’t connect environmental policy with what he calls the “institutional racism” — think racial profiling, lack of economic opportunity, etc. — that can plague black communities nationwide. Now he considers “the sea level rising or the air quality in the cities” another existential threat.
So in response to the Koch brothers’ attempt to sway their flocks, Wilson and others affiliated with black churches in Virginia have channeled their outrage into a new calling: climate advocacy. For Wilson, environmentalism has become a biblical mission.
“The climate is changing,” he says. “And it’s black folk in Virginia who will lose the most.”
The billionaire Koch brothers are one of the driving forces behind right-wing campaigns throughout the country. One of their primary activities is promoting fossil fuel production. According to Virginia environmental groups, that involves efforts to deny the existence of climate change and stifle renewable energy policies.
In struggling cities and towns, Big Oil bills itself as a savior, raising the hope that new plants and pipelines, like the Atlantic Coast project, will bring jobs and tax revenue. With an extensive network of advocacy groups throughout the country, the Koch brothers can spread that message anywhere, outsourcing efforts to sway public opinion without people realizing they’re pulling the strings.
In Richmond, industrial factories and interstate highways are often adjacent to African-American communities, causing air pollution and contributing to higher instances of asthma among blacks. Kenya Downs
Fueling U.S. Forward, until recently, was one of those campaigns. When HuffPost first reported on its existence in early 2016, the group had an annual budget of roughly $10 million and was run by Charles Drevna, a former petroleum industry lobbyist, and James Mahoney, a board member and former executive for Koch Industries. Later that summer, Drevna spoke at the Red State Gathering in Denver, telling the right-wing activist conference — in a speech where he referred to EPA employees as “clowns” — that the fossil fuel industry was losing ground because it was failing to connect with the public, especially minority communities, on a cultural, emotional, and personal level.
“We’ve done a terrible job in working with individual communities, working with the minority communities on how important energy is to them,” he said in a Facebook Live chat during the gathering with Fueling U.S. Forward’s communications director at the time, Alex Fitzsimmons. “And who gets hit the hardest when there’s a spike in energy costs? They get hit the most, and they get hit the hardest.”
At the Richmond gospel concert, Fueling U.S. Forward sought to link energy production to the everyday issues that it said stymie economic mobility for African Americans — such as prices at the gas pump, heating, and electric bills. That message was delivered in part through discussions featuring prominent African-American business leaders.
“It was a deliberate strategy to manipulate black Virginians into supporting fossil fuels,” the Sierra Club’s Crawford says.
One of the participants was Derrick Hollie, a career marketing consultant who is also the founder of Reaching America, a nonprofit that describes itself as “focused on innovative solutions for African Americans not based on right or left wing views but what makes sense for a more united America.” Reaching America cosponsored the Fueling U.S. Forward gospel concert along with Radio One, an entertainment network targeting African Americans now known as Urban One. The corporation once employed Hollie as a national sales manager.
Fitzsimmons, the group’s communications director, has moved to Perry’s Department of Energy, where he’s the chief policy advisor in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The organization’s website appears to have been shut down last fall, all videos from its YouTube page have been removed, and its social media platforms haven’t been updated in more than a year.
But Fueling U.S. Forward’s message lives on. Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, employs talking points that echo those Drevna used while promoting the organization in conservative circles, complaining that the EPA’s regulations pick “winners and losers” in the energy space.
Rev. Faith Harris remembers first hearing ads about the Fueling U.S. Forward gospel concert on urban radio stations back in 2016. A minister, teacher, and environmental activist at Virginia Union University, a Richmond-based historically black college, Harris was among many African Americans in the region angered by what she calls a “purposeful misinformation” campaign. She says it was surreal to hear a D.J. invite listeners to “learn the truth” about whether the country is using enough fossil fuels.
“I called the radio station to ask, ‘How could you do that?’” she recalls. “The debate isn’t whether there are enough fossil fuels, but about the health and environmental impact they have on the way we live on this planet.”
In the months after the gospel concert, the backlash bubbled slowly through neighborhoods, led mostly by community activists and clergy like Rev. Harris. It picked up steam following the Times article. Ultimately, Fueling U.S. Forward’s strategy of influencing one of the black community’s most sacred institutions — the church — would prove to be folly.
Within environmental advocacy circles, Harris says, there was an increased urgency to tell neighborhood leaders that the concert was part of a public relations campaign for oil and gas interests. The campaign had the unintended effect of rallying the Richmond black community against the Kochs and their goals.
Revs. Harris and Wilson now regularly tell their congregations how the fossil fuel industry harms low-income communities and people of color. Sea-level rise on Virginia’s coast has put low-lying cities in the Hampton Roads area, including Norfolk and Newport News — both of which are more than 40 percent black — at risk of extreme flooding. A hurricane during high tide could see entire neighborhoods populated primarily by African Americans and the poor swallowed up by the Chesapeake Bay.
“We in the church community have a moral responsibility to be out-front on protecting our flock from climate change,” Harris says. “I call it an authentic pro-life agenda. The Christian church, for too long, has allowed ‘pro-life’ to be defined solely as conception when, in fact, life is much more complex. It includes our quality of life while we’re here.”
“We have a coal factory right in the neighborhood,” says Antonio Branch, a community organizer with Richmond-based Virginia Civic Engagement Table, an organization aimed at educating vulnerable communities about risks to their health. “I’m asthmatic. My mother is asthmatic and she grew up in the same area. My son is asthmatic, and I have a baby boy who may soon be diagnosed.”
Branch considers the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline “part of a larger environmental attack” on minority communities in Virginia and neighboring North Carolina, two states on planned pipeline route. Many of the region’s proposed oil and gas projects sit near poor and rural areas. In Virginia’s Buckingham County, home to Rev. Wilson’s churches, the community closest to that facility is 85 percent African American. By contrast, the state’s overall black population is 19 percent.
“This isn’t a coincidence,” Branch says.
While gospel provided the soundtrack to the Fueling U.S. Forward event in Richmond, it was bluegrass and folk that pumped through the loudspeakers at December’s Water Is Life Rally. Rev. Wilson was one of a dozen or so African Americans taking part in the event. Most of those assembled to protest the Atlantic Coast Pipeline were white millennials and baby boomers who donned anti-establishment paraphernalia and waved “No Pipeline” signs to the honking cars that passed by.
Members of Virginia Civic Engagement Table (left) protested as part of the Water is Life Rally. Kenya Downs
Kiquanda Baker, the Hampton Roads organizer for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, helped put together the Water Is Life Rally. She sees African-American leadership as an essential part of changing the narrative surrounding climate change. But she admits that while the community is becoming more engaged in green issues, it hasn’t quite begun to break down the archetype of the white environmentalist.
Adding environmentalism to the fight for social justice that’s part of the African-American experience, she says, is the most critical aspect of swaying communities of color to fight global warming.
“Our role as community leaders is to show that all of these issues are connected,” Baker says. “The more aware we are of environmental injustices, the less likely our communities can be tricked into rallies by the Koch brothers.”
Baker says outreach efforts are slowly making progress throughout the state, even if community members aren’t yet the most vocal activists. But she’s encouraged that African-American residents are increasingly active where it counts most: the voting booth.
“A few folks I talk with, they may not be at the point where they’re ready to canvas or march,” she says. “But they are better informed about who they’re voting for and which corporations and interests would also be getting their vote.”
Virginia’s black community is also becoming more active in pressing elected officials on the environment and climate change. Two months after the gospel concert, clergy members joined the Virginia Conservation Network — a coalition of organizations and community members that advocates for clean energy and environmental justice — for a panel discussion on how to inoculate themselves from Fueling U.S. Forward–type messaging. Freshman Democratic Congressman A. Donald McEachin, who’d recently been elected to represent Virginia’s 4th District — which runs from the southwestern suburbs of Richmond to the southeast corner of the state — joined the discussion. He has since joined with two other freshman representatives to form the United for Climate and Environmental Justice Congressional Task Force.
After Harris and other activists spent months petitioning the state government, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe established an Advisory Council on Environmental Justice in October. Its role is to provide the governor with independent recommendations on combating “disproportionately high or adverse effects from pollution” that fall on low-income residents and communities of color. Harris is one of the advisors, and she sees her participation as part of a larger theological crusade.
“In black communities, the clergy has always been the leading voice of the oppressed,” she says. “So when it comes to making sure our flock have a planet to call home, it’s a fight we have to be in front of.”
Rev. Paul Wilson is educating both his congregations and surrounding community about attempts by fossil fuel proponents, like the Koch brothers, to exploit people’s misunderstanding of climate change. Kenya Downs
Rev. Wilson has also been preparing for the battle ahead. He’s already been arrested for protesting the Atlantic Coast Pipeline at the Virginia Governor’s Mansion. (He was sentenced to community service.) But as he made the trek back to Buckingham County after the Water is Life Rally, he was worrying about what the future holds, both for the pipeline he’s battling and his community.
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is already a year behind schedule, and last November’s statewide elections could signal that momentum is swinging back in environmentalists’ favor. Democrats picked up seats in the House of Delegates, which could alter the timeline of the pipeline’s development. Several bills are currently up for vote that would require pipeline operators to obtain more permits before construction could begin.
When he’s not tending to his two churches, Wilson is a fifth-generation owner of a funeral home. He expects his daughter to take over the family business in the coming years, and his grandson has already chosen to study mortuary science, making it likely he’ll be the seventh generation to oversee the funeral home. Wilson hopes that by the time his grandson is running things, the environmental threats to his family and church members won’t have business booming at the funeral home for all the wrong reasons.
“God didn’t put me on this earth to pimp death for profit,” Wilson says. “That’s what the Kochs and these energy folks are doing to my people now. It’s up to us in the church to stop it.”
Heather McTeer Toney, Local Government Senior Adviser, Moms Clean Air Force: Heather served as the first African-American, first female and youngest mayor of Greenville, MS. In 2014, she was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as Regional Administrator for Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Southeast Region. Known for her energetic and genuine commitment to people, her work has made her a national figure in public service, diversity and community engagement. Heather works on local government policy initiatives and leads the Moms & Mayors program of Moms Clean Air Force. Heather holds a bachelor’s degree from Spelman College in Atlanta and a law degree from the Tulane University School of Law. She loves triathlons and bacon, and at any time can be found chasing her toddler or riding in old classic cars with her husband and daughter.
Ken Kimmell, President, Union of Concerned Scientists: 
Chip Giller – Founder – Grist
Nicole Sitaraman, Senior Manager of Public Policy at Sunrun
