S1 E7: Climate leadership

S1 E7: It’s the penultimate episode of A Little Green and it’s time to talk policy. Christina gets up to speed on the latest climate action in Washington. What’s on the table? And who’s at the table? 

What becomes clear is that it’s going to take bold, transformational climate action to steer us toward a livable future, and the Green New Deal has come to symbolize just that. Christina talks with fellow podcaster Georgia Wright about what this Green New Deal is all about.

Jade Begay of NDN Collective and Ali-Reza Vahabzadeh of the American Sustainable Business Council join Christina to shed light on the Biden administration’s approach to climate change and how they’re incorporating those important environmental justice principles we’ve learned are so vital to climate action.

Christina brings things back to New York to dig into one amazing example of a bold, just, and intersectional initiative with Anthony Rogers-Wright of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. It’s called Renewable Rikers.

With so much great work being done by these organizers in the climate movement, Christina wonders why we haven’t made bigger strides on the national and global scale. It turns out that we’re dealing with a “leadership crisis.” Christina looks at the ugliest manifestation of this leadership crisis with Sarah Jaquette Ray, and Katharine Wilkinson explains who needs to take the wheel if we’re going to move forward.

Highlights:

• What is the Green New Deal? (2:24)
• Understanding President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and how climate factors in (5:14)
• What intersectionality looks like in action (14:50)
• Why the climate crisis is a leadership crisis (18:09)
• The dangers of moving forward without taking justice into account (21:03)
• What transformational climate leadership looks like (23:05)

Terminology:

• Green New Deal
• Civilian Climate Corps
• Grassroots advocacy
• Eco fascism

Resources:

• Read more about the Green New Deal and Civilian Climate Corps
• Mobilizing an Indigenous Green New Deal
• Hear from Inherited podcast’s Green New Dreamers
• Learn more about the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council
• Check out Renewable Rikers
• A sinking jail: The environmental disaster that is Rikers Island (Grist)
• Climate Anxiety Is an Overwhelmingly White Phenomenon (Scientific American)
• What We Like (and Don’t Like) About the Biden Climate Plan
• This is What Supporting Climate Justice Looks Like