Cooler Earth

The youth climate and environmental justice movement has entirely reshaped the landscape of climate policy and change-making. Young leaders from around the world have been central in not just leading mass mobilizations to demand action on climate and racial justice, but also in redirecting the public narratives and perceptions of the climate crisis and our roles in solving them.Gabriela Rodriguez and John Paul Mejia are the co-hosts of House On Fire, a youth-led podcast powered by the CLEO institute. They are both Latinx activists, educators, and leaders for change in their community; we talked about all things climate activism, radical imagination for a better future, and our shared Colombian heritage.

Insights into human psychology have provided the climate movement with a wealth of information about how different demographics interpret, process, and behave in regards to messaging and communication strategies. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Mathew Goldberg about his work at Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication, his research on message persuasion and fossil fuel money in politics; and his insight into how we can better integrate knowledge of human psychology to strengthen support for climate action.

Genevieve Guenther is a former Shakespeare and renaissance literature scholar, who is now using her extensive knowledge of language and the power of communication to provide tools to strengthen how we talk about the climate crisis. In 2018, she founded End Climate Silence, an organization dedicated to push the media to connect news stories about extreme weather and climate impacts directly to the climate crisis and its causes. For too long, the coverage has been silent about climate science, especially when it comes to already reported stories that are undoubtedly connected to climate.In this episode of the podcast, we talk with Genevieve about what drove her to become active in the climate space, using literature to inform stronger climate communications, and why we need to hold the media accountable when it comes to this crisis, the greatest challenge of our time.

Surviving the climate crisis will require collective action on a grand scale; but this action must be led by the communities facing firsthand the impacts of climate change. It is these voices from the frontlines who are most valuable to the movement, and community leaders who are best positioned to make a change and have lasting impact in correcting for overlapping justice issues and lead us to a planet that is not only livable, but just.Mayra Cruz works to build and foster leadership on climate change and climate resiliency in Miami. As the Climate Resilience Program Coordinator for Catalyst Miami, Mayra works with communities to solidify leadership and advocacy skills in order to advance justice and equity in the county. In this week’s episode, we talk with her about building resiliency from the local level, and creating a strong civil society that is equipped to address climate change along with other, most pressing social justice issues.

While there is an urgent need to mitigate the climate crisis and the impacts that accompany it, we also need to be thinking about how we plan for and recover from these climate-fueled disasters. Samantha Montano is what you call a “Disasterologist.” She has a doctorate in emergency planning and is currently a professor at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Dr. Montano is heavily invested in researching and working on achieving equitable policy around how we plan, prepare, and recover from disasters. For this episode, we sat down with her for a conversation around the climate crisis, the lessons that can be learned from the coronavirus pandemic response, and how our systems are woefully underprepared for the impacts of climate change.

Lauren Kurtz is the Executive Director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF), where she works tirelessly to preserve the integrity of scientific research and defend the livelihoods of scientists facing legal battles. In this episode, we talk with Kurtz about the importance of the legal fight for science in the face of mounting, concerted attacks to suppress, invalidate, and intimidate scientific researchers and the parallels of science denial we’re seeing between climate science and COVID-19.

Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali is a long-time advocate for social and environmental justice. He is currently the Vice President of Environmental Justice, Climate, and Community Revitalization at the National Wildlife Federation, as well as the founder of Revitalization Strategies, an organization dedicated to addressing climate and economic issues in vulnerable communities. In this episode of the podcast, we speak with Dr. Ali about the role faith has played in his work for social justice, the need for community-led solutions, and the inextricably linked relationship between social and environmental justice.

Wielding the power of the law to change these current realities, and to advance justice and environmental protections is a powerful way to create and codify meaningful, long-lasting change. That is what drives EarthJustice, a nonprofit public interest law organization committed to preserving natural places and wildlife, advancing clean energy, and combating climate change.Today on the podcast, we talk with Adrienne Bloch and Kim Smaczniak of EarthJustice, who are harnessing the power of the law to fight climate change.