Feel like you want to join the fight against climate change but also feel like you don’t see anyone involved that looks like you? There are in fact diverse people involved in fighting climate change and Katharine Hayhoe has featured one as the first guest editor of her newsletter in 2024.
“Heather McTeer Toney … the daughter of a civil rights attorney and public school teacher, has been fighting for environmental justice for decades. When she was only 27, she was elected mayor of her hometown of Greenville, Mississippi. She became the youngest person to hold that position, as well as the first African American and woman.” In her two terms as mayor she helped the city regain financial stability and also worked on repairing city infrastructure and cleaning up the water supply. “In 2014, Heather became the Regional Administrator for Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Southeast Region.”
In April 2023 McTeer Toney became the Executive Director of Beyond Petrochemicals, “tackling the oil and gas industry at their gut by recognizing the next move is into petrochemicals—the product they need to make more plastics.” McTeer Toney also published her first book in 2023: “Before the Street Lights Come On: Black America’s Call for Climate Solutions. In it, she calls for immediate climate action in and for marginalized communities. Black Americans are twice as likely to be hospitalized or even die from climate-related causes. Because of that, they’re best suited to spearhead the campaign for climate justice, she argues.”
The Daily Difference recently featured a list of youth climate change activists from the global south, Indigenous climate activists and Black environmental activists. If you can’t find someone that you identify with in the climate change fight where you live there are plenty of people to look to for inspiration from diverse backgrounds working around the globe.
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