Climate Justice, Y'all

This is Climate Justice, Y'all!, a podcast dedicated to lifting up and centering the climate and environmental justice movement in the South. Climate Justice, Y'all AI data centers are popping up all over the South, extracting resources from communities and increasing power bills. In this episode, we sit down with the leaders of the new Minus AI campaign, Lindsay Harper and Reverend Michael Malcom of our own People’s Justice Council and Power for Southern People Not Southern Company, to unpack what this surge in AI infrastructure means for Southern communities. From corporate accountability to energy justice, we’re breaking down who benefits, who pays, and how communities are organizing to push back.   The post S6E5: Reducing AI Impact: Minus AI with Reverend Michael Malcom and Lindsay Harper appeared first on Climate Justice, Y'all.

This episode is special to our hosts. Abigail and Maresha talk with Alabama native Catherine Coleman-Flowers. She is an environmental and climate justice activist bringing attention to the largely invisible problem of inadequate waste and water sanitation infrastructure in rural communities in the United States.As the founding director of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (formerly the Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise), Flowers builds partnerships — from close neighbors, to local elected officials and regional nonprofits, to federal lawmakers and global organizations — in order to identify and implement solutions to the intersecting challenges of water and sanitation infrastructure, public health and economic development.In addition to leading the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, Flowers is also the rural development manager for the Equal Justice Initiative, a member of the board of directors of the Climate Reality Project and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and a senior fellow for the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary. Previously, Flowers has worked as a high school teacher in Detroit, Michigan, and Washington, D.C. She has published articles in Anglican Theological Review, Columbia Human Rights Law Review, and American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, among others, and her first book, Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, came out in November 2020. Flowers was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship–commonly referred to as the “Genius Grant” — in 2020.

We're back for Season 2! In the first episode of the new season, Abigail and Maresha chat with the leaders of the organizations that developed the Climate Justice, Y'all podcast. The conversation is a both a look back at the first season and a look ahead to this next one. Welcome back, y'all!Rev. Michael Malcom is Executive Director of the People's Justice Council and Alabama Interfaith Power and Light. He is a licensed and ordained United Church of Christ Minister.Alexander Easdale is the Executive Director of the Southeast Climate & Energy Network (SCEN), where he leads and manages a network of 78 organizations across 11 Southeastern states. Michael Hansen is Executive Director of GASP, an organization based in Birmingham, Ala., working to advance healthy air and environmental justice in the Greater-Birmingham area through education, advocacy and collaboration.

Today is International Women's Day, a "global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women." We recorded this episode with EEECHO Co-Founder Kathy Egland last year, but what better way to celebrate International Women's Day than to highlight one of the most iconic Southern women in the fight for environmental and climate justice? We hope you enjoy this conversation with the lady affectionately known to some* as "Mama Kat." Katherine T. “Kathy” Egland is the Program Director and Co-founder of EEECHO. She is a native of Gulfport and has been active in the local and global community in addressing climate change and environmental injustice. Kathy chairs the Environmental and Climate Justice Committee for the National Board of Directors of NAACP. Her committee is in charge of governance responsibility of raising awareness of environmental and climate issues from a civil rights, social justice and equity perspective. As a residence of Gulfport, Mississippi, she survived Hurricane Katrina and was instrumental in the restoration efforts in its aftermath. She endured the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill in 2010, which contaminated the Mississippi Gulf Coast waters located a few blocks of her home. Kathy’s home is located less than four miles from Plant Jack Watson, a former coal fired plant which scored a failing D- on the NAACP’s ‘Coal Blooded’ Report. She organized community trainings and joined forces with The Sierra Club and other organizations, in efforts which led to the plant’s cessation of its coal burning operation in April 2015. This coalition has also led efforts promoting net-metering; commented on Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality’s Proposed State Implementation Plan Amendments in Response to EPA’s Startup, Shutdown, and Malfunction SIP Call, which led to revisions; and submitted testimony before the Public Service Commission opposing a rate increase to fund a portion of the cost of a failed carbon capture sequestration in Kemper County, Mississippi.*Rev. Malcom, co-founder of Climate Justice, Y'all co-creater People's Justice Council, insists he's the only one allowed to refer to Ms. Egland as Mama Kat. We thought it'd be fun to let y'all see behind the curtain a little bit.

Buckle up, because this week's episode features some heavy hitters in the world of renewable energy advocacy. Seriously, these two are brilliant. Sit back and enjoy!Dr. Holmes Hummel founded Clean Energy Works to accelerate investments in cost-effective distributed energy solutions to open the clean energy economy to all. As a champion for inclusive financing, Dr. Hummel led Clean Energy Works to win four international searches for breakthrough climate strategies, including the FiRe Award for high-impact innovation at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance "Future of Energy Summit" and the Keeling Curve Prize for Finance in 2019. Previously, Dr. Hummel served as the Senior Policy Advisor in the Department of Energy’s Office of Policy & International Affairs from 2009-2013, and among other responsibilities, led the agency's finance working group. Dr. Hummel holds a doctorate degree from Stanford University for interdisciplinary research on energy technology scenarios that achieve 100% clean energy for all.Tamara is the Managing Director of Clean Energy Works. She brings more than fifteen years of managerial experience in the nonprofit and public sectors, including serving as Director of programs and policy in two mayoral administrations in Atlanta and as City Council Chief of Staff in Houston. She also served as Director of Programs and Services for the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance where she administered regional energy efficiency building retrofit programs and for which she was designated a White House Champion of Change in 2011. Ms. Jones holds a Masters degree in Political Science from Yale University.

This week's episode features a pair of amazing Appalachians in conversation with our hosts.Bri Knisley is the Tennessee Campaign Manager for Appalachian Voices, where she organizes campaigns for energy democracy and justice in the Tennessee Valley Authority Footprint. Over the last several years, the fight for coal ash worker safety and expanding union jobs at TVA has been central to realizing a grassroots vision for clean, equitable and publicly controlled power in the TVA region. A Virginia native who now splits his time between Johnson City, Tenn., and Wise County, Va., Willie has organized with environmental and social justice campaigns in the region for more than a decade. He is Appalachian Voices' Central Appalachian Field Coordinator.

In this episode, we chat with two visionary leaders in Alabama and Georgia: Dr. Mikhiela Sherrod and Susan Diane Mitchell.Dr. Mikhiela Sherrod is the Executive Director of Agricultural Missions, Inc., an 85 year old ecumenical organization that supports rural people in the US, Africa, Caribbean, Latin America in using advocacy and agriculture to address the structural causes of poverty and injustice. She has over 17 years of experience working as a community organizer with Black farmers and rural communities of color in the U.S. and developing countries.Dr. Sherrod leads a long-term development and capacity restoration agricultural program in Liberia and Sierra Leone that uses regenerative agricultural practices that reinforce adaptation and mitigation of climate change. She is also experienced leading research and evaluation projects that use a racial equity lens to assess and address disparities in health, access to food, and economic opportunities. Dr. Sherrod is vice president of the US Climate Action Network board of directors. She earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Tuskegee University and a PhD in Genetics from the University of Iowa.Susan Diane Mitchell was born in Washington, DC, the first child of student parents attending Howard University in the 1960s. Growing up for her formative years in the nation’’s capital, surrounded by a culturally rich and excellent education, Susan continued her path in Oakland, California, matriculating in both the finest public and private schools in the area. Ecology, community service, and creative thinking were key principles of her education. The love and sacrifice of her mother and family for her education prepared her well, and upon receiving an Honors Program scholarship, Susan graduated Bishop O’Dowd Catholic High School and left the Bay Area to study at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1985. She founded the Dynamite Hill-Smithfield Community Land Trust in 2016, and currently serves as their Co-Executive Director. In 2017 she became a Co-Founder of SWEET Alabama, where she still serves as a member of the Advisory Board. As a three year member of the AmeriCorp, she served with Urban Ministries, the YWCA Central Alabama, and The Literacy Council.

Abigail and Marésha sit down and talk with Nina Morgan about her work as climate and environmental justice organizer for GASP. Nina's an incredible organizer — but we may be a little biased since she's also a part of the team that's making this podcast happen! Nina is graduate of UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) where she studied Anthropology and Sociology. Nina mapped over 3,000 trees on campus using GIS and served as a decathelete in the 2017 DOE Solar Decathlon competition. Nina is also a co-founder of the Magic City Youth Initiative, where she works to uplift and support a youth-led movement for social justice in the Greater-Birmingham area. As a Black, Southern, working-class person, Nina is committed to creating a world in which people and planet are cherished, protected and liberated. Sit back and enjoy the conversation!

In this episode, Abigail goes one-on-one with Major Joe Womack. Born in historic Africatown, a community in Mobile, Ala., Joe graduated from the Mobile County Training School in 1968 — the first training school for Black folks in the state of Alabama. After earning a degree in business administration from Saint Paul's College in Virginia, he served 20 years in the United States Marine Corps Reserves. Joe led operations in Japan, Korea, Pensacola, and New Orleans. He worked for 16 years at Shell/Dupont, where he was the first Black professional to be promoted at the chemical facility. Joe has initiated many locally led community efforts, including: Mobile County Training School Alumni Association, Africatown Community Development Corporation, Mobile County African American Summit, Black Military Workers of America, Inc., and the Mobile Environmental Justice Action Coalition. Major Womack is an inspiring leader in promoting positive and sustainable change and currently leads a nonprofit organization called Africatown-C.H.E.S.S. (Clean, Healthy, Educated, Safe & Sustainable Community).