Environmental Issues

In this blog, Angel and Edwin discuss how Puerto Rico’s recent bankruptcy, hurricanes, earthquakes, and socioeconomic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have provided a unique opportunity to comprehensively incorporate these issues into the formulation of a new economic model that prioritizes sustainable economic growth, climate change, natural disaster risks, and public health issues: the blue economy.

In the film Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust, intergenerational women from Native American, Japanese American, and rancher communities form an unexpected alliance to defend their land and water. In this blog we hear from Ann Kaneko, Director and Producer of Manzanar, Diverted, and Impact Producer Jin Yoo-Kim on how they centered community and consent in their filmmaking process

Yesenia Rivera is the Executive Director of Energy Allies. As ED, Yesenia centers climate-impacted communities in clean energy projects, policy advocacy, and education. Yesenia has been a community organizer from the start, working alongside climate-impacted communities. Her first-hand experiences of energy insecurity mobilized her to advocate for eliminating barriers to solar for all. In this post, Yesenia shares how her grounding in community activism has informed the brand and programmatic transformation of the NGO she leads to create true allyship with local climate-impacted communities.

Coming from a tradition of resilience through humor expertly modeled by her family, Jasmine grew up surrounded by wordplay, a love for the environment, and parents that could have been authors. Early on, this piqued her interest in how we talk and, later, how we talk about climate change. In this blog, Jasmine explores the current rhetoric employed when discussing climate change, its history and implications, and alternative approaches we can adopt moving forward.

SaAnkhessa Meskheniten is a senior at Trinity Washington University and majoring in Business Administration with a minor in Environmental Justice. To mark the end of her fellowship with Green 2.0, she explores her experience in the environmental field and how Black Americans can reclaim leadership within the movement.

In this blog Richemond Assie, Transparency Advisor at UNDP, and Eva Huttova, Global Coordinator for GEF Enabling Activities and Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency Portfolio at UNDP, dive into the details surrounding COP27 and their organizations work to support climate transparency and accountability on an international scale.

The Partnership for Southern Equity (PSE) is an Atlanta-based nonprofit that advances policies and institutional actions that promote racial equity and shared prosperity for all in the growth of metropolitan Atlanta and the American South. Through forums, research, and organizing efforts, PSE brings together the regional community to lift up and encourage just, sustainable, and civic practices for balanced growth and opportunity.

The Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters is a community-built initiative by Northeastern Minnesotans for Wilderness in Ely, Minnesota — a gateway town to the Boundary Waters. The movement has grown into a national coalition of 400+ conservation, hunting & fishing organizations, and businesses united by the same original goal: to achieve a permanent ban on sulfide-ore copper mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters, Voyageurs National Park, and Canada’s Quetico Park.

Judene Josephs is a Jamaican national and junior student at Howard University studying economics with a double minor in political science and mathematics. She is passionate about international development and environmental economics. Judene aspires to highlight the environmental disparities small island nations experience and work to support them through economic and sustainable development. During her Green 2.0 fellowship, she brought an intersectional perspective to her work and fused her interests of economics and the environment together, learning from their connection.

Alyssa Rae Garza is pursuing their master’s degree in sociology at the University of Texas in El Paso, and developed a passion for climate justice after learning about environmental injustices in their hometown. She participates and learns from local grassroots coalitions and movements while applying an intersectional and jotería-muxerist (queer-Chicana/Latina/Latinx) lens to shape community organizing practices.