Incorporating Intersectionality With Wawa Gatheru
This episode features a conversation with climate scholar and youth climate activist, Wawa Gatheru. It was recorded in July 2024.
Wawa is the founder and Executive Director of Black Girl Environmentalist, an organisation dedicated to empowering Black girls, women, and non-binary people across the climate sector.
Wawa works to bring climate justice to the mainstream, and in addition to her work at Black Girl Environmentalist, is a popular climate content creator, focused on debunking climate nihilism, highlighting the unique contributions of Black environmental leaders, and equipping her audience with what they need to get involved in climate action.
In 2019, Wawa was named the first Black person in history to receive the prestigious Rhodes, Truman and Udall scholarships for her environmental scholarship and activism.
She has since become an inaugural member of the National Environmental Youth Advisory Council of the US EPA, the first federal youth-led advisory board in the US History. She is also a Public Voices Fellow on the Climate Crisis with The OpEd Project, in partnership with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Wawa sits on boards and advisory councils for EarthJustice, Climate Power, the Environmental Media Association, the National Parks Conservation Association, Good Energy, and Sound Future.
And, for her work alongside other organisers and activists, Wawa has been recognized as a Forbes 30 under 30 recipient, an AfroTech Future 50, a 776 Fellow, Young Futurist by The Root, a Grist 50 FIXER, a Glamour College Woman of the Year, and named a Climate Creator to Watch by Pique Action and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
In January 2023, she even joined Billie Eilish and seven other climate activists on the cover of Vogue.
Amongst other things, Wawa and I discussed the largely unsung leadership of African American women in environmental stewardship, the make-up and mechanics of inclusive and participatory movement building, and the need to amplify alternatives to the exclusionary narratives that dominate the climate space and beyond.
Additional links:
Visit the Black Girl Environmentalist website
Visit Wawa’s personal website
Read the Vice piece that sent Wawa viral
Check out the digital Vogue cover with Billie Eilish
Read Wawa’s Earth Day 2024 article in Vogue
Find insights on inclusivity over at the Green 2.0 website
Battling Petrochemical Expansion in Cancer Alley with Rise St. James
Explore The Vessel Project of Louisiana
Discover The Descendants Project
Dickon: Hi, and welcome to Communicating Climate Change, a podcast dedicated to helping you do exactly that. I'm Dickon, and I'll be your host as we dig deep into the best practices and the worst offences, always looking for ways to help you and me improve our abilities to engage, empower, and ultimately activate audiences on climate-related issues. This episode features a conversation with climate scholar and youth climate activist, Wawa Gatheru. It was recorded in July 2024.
Wawa is the founder and executive director of Black Girl Environmentalist, an organisation dedicated to empowering black girls, women, and non-binary people across the climate sector. Wawa works to bring climate justice to the mainstream, and in addition to her work at Black Girl Environmentalist, is a popular climate content creator, focused on debunking climate nihilism, highlighting unique contributions of Black environmental leaders, and equipping her audience with what they need to get involved in climate action.
In 2019, Wawa was named the first Black person in history to receive the prestigious Rhodes, Truman, and Udall scholarships for her environmental scholarship and activism, and has since become an inaugural member of the National Environmental Youth Advisory Council of the US Environmental Protection Agency. That's the first federal youth-led advisory board in US history.
She's also a Public Voices Fellow on the climate crisis with the Op-Ed Project, in partnership with the Yale Programme on Climate Change Communication, and sits on boards and advisory councils for the likes of Earth Justice, Climate Power, the Environmental Media Association, the National Parks Conservation Association, Good Energy, and Sound Future.
Plus, for her work alongside other organisers and activists, Wawa has been recognised as a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, an Afro Tech Future 50, a 776 Fellow, Young Futurist by the Root, a Grist 50 Fixer, a Glamour College Woman of the Year, and named a Climate Creator to Watch by PK Action and the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
In January 2023, she even joined Billie Eilish and seven other climate activists on the cover of Vogue. If you are not following this person yet, now is the time to do so!
Amongst other things, Wawa and I discussed the largely unsung leadership of African American women in environmental stewardship, the make-up and mechanics of inclusive and participatory movement building, and the need to amplify alternatives to the exclusionary narratives that dominate the climate space and beyond. So, let's get on with it, this is Communicating Climate Change with Wawa Gatheru.
From your perspective, how can communication best contribute in humanity's response to the climate crisis?
Wawa: Yeah, so honestly, I don't believe that we can solve any issue without being able to describe it. And that's where communication really does come in handy. Myself as a kid, I didn't really resonate with environmentalism, and I think there are many different reasons why that was. But one was that I didn't properly understand the scale and scope of the climate crisis. I very much saw it as an issue that was only impacting the polar bears and the melting ice caps. I didn’t really understand how it could possibly impact my life, or my loved one's life, or even the geographies that I've come to know and love growing up. And so it wasn't until I had an environmental science class in high school, and I had a teacher that really knew how to communicate climate in a really effective way, that I began to really come to terms with the gravity of the issue. And that's why I've always been such a supporter of any initiatives to specifically communicate climate change in a way that's accessible and expansive, specifically for young people, so that we are more equipped as we grow up to understand how we can help contribute to climate solutions.
Dickon: For listeners who aren't aware of Black Girl Environmentalist, could you give an introduction to the organization and its work?
Wawa: Black Girl Environmentalist is a US-based national organization that is working to address the retention and pathway issue in the climate sector that uniquely happens for Black women and Black gender expansive folks. We're really dedicated to empowering early career individuals, so 0 to 10 years of experience, by supporting them through three impact areas, which are green workforce development, narrative change, and community empowerment.
Dickon: You often draw attention to the pathway and retention issue for Black girls, women, and gender expansive people in the climate movement. But I wondered if you could unpack that a bit for us, you know, what's missing and what's the result of that?
Wawa: Thankfully, there is some comprehensive research on the topic. Green 2.0 has an annual assessment on the racial demographic makeup of the environmental sector in the US. So again, a lot of my responses today are localized within the United States, but I think there are things that can be connected to the broader climate movement internationally. But ultimately, we can really break it down to two major categories: the first one being unconscious and conscious bias, that’s discrimination and insular recruiting. And the other would be pretty lackluster effort and disinterest in addressing diversity in intentional and meaningful ways.
So, to go to the first category, the environmental sector and the climate environmental movement was founded really from a white middle-class to pretty affluent, wealthy demographic. And that living legacy really perpetuates and shapes the movement narrative that continues to uphold this dominant social power. And the environmental organizations haven't done the best job at using existing internship pipelines effectively or creating their own. And as a result, diversity continues to decrease, as responsibility ultimately increases, because it's people of color that are experiencing the worst of the climate crisis and environmental injustice. But we are simultaneously not represented effectively in these spaces. We also know that there are historic and continuing disparities in regards to access to education, wealth, and employment, economic stability, etc., as well as kind of going back to talking about the dominant social power that has crafted the environmental-climate-sustainability movement, as a response to that; the focus of mainstream and environmental climate organizations and their work priorities are led by programmatic focuses have never really focused on truly equity. And so with that, as a reality, there's been a general disinterest, I would say, as a result, people of colour that understand the way that equity is so central to climate work and the fact that there are many organizations that take up space in the environmental climate sector that don't understand that. That certainly plays a role in people of colour also, as a response, not being as likely to even want to apply in the first place.
And then with the lackluster effort and disinterest in addressing diversity, I mean, generally there is an unwillingness to really show an appreciation of why diversity matters in the context of staff makeup and in our movement, because that requires a lot of dollars. That requires a lot of money, and a lot of diverted attention from quote unquote, what truly matters. I think sometimes people separate these issues as being contending and unrelated. And because of that, other issues might be and often are prioritized rather than, for example, diversifying the staff of an organization.
Dickon: With all of that in mind, how do you actually work then to engage Black girls, women, and gender expansive people and bring them in?
Wawa: I mean, that's the money question, right? That's what we're all trying to do. And that's what we're trying to do with BGE. And there's different ways that we're aiding in that, I hope.
That's through our programming. That's through our efforts to create ecosystems of care for community members. So, I think oftentimes with organizations in different sectors, like if you remove climate, our concept isn't novel by any means. There are organizations that exist in the space industry, that exist in STEM overall, that exist in education that are working to really diversify those spaces, because we understand that diverse leadership really helps with the overall durability and sustainability of our movements. And, you know, in the case of climate solving the biggest issue of all time.
But I think what does set us apart is, A, our organization is run by our demographic. Our demographic is primarily Gen Z, Black women and Black gender expansive folks, it's early career individuals. And our team is 100% Gen Z, early career individuals. So when we're crafting programming, when we're crafting a narrative strategy, when we're crafting events, we're doing so very intentionally because we really understand the circumstances. And, B, because we're so proximate to our demographic, our demographic is very, very open to communicating with us. Environmental justice and its principles include so many different things. Participatory justice is a big part of that. And participatory justice for us means that we do not create a program without involving our community first. Our biggest program to date is our Hazel M. Johnson Fellowship Program. It's our most costly program. And it's one that we had an idea for, but ultimately, the very specific components of it were created through several town halls that we hosted with our community.
So, we hosted three different town halls. The first was explaining that we wanted to create our own pipeline program and partner up with different environmental organizations. And in that call, we really got feedback from our community, they were asking and telling us, what are the sectors that they want to have access to? What are the components of a truly supportive program that would help eventual fellows really develop in their career journey? They told us how much money an hour they feel like was necessary in a lot of the big cities that are necessary to complete these internships, folks told us that they wanted a living wage stipend, they told us what type of professional development opportunities that they wanted. So, we went back as a team. We did the work of compiling that information with what we already were intuitively leaning towards. Then we had two more sessions where we talked to folks. We really do that for all of our programming.
The other thing is we provide a lot of autonomy to our hubs. Our hubs are really the heartbeat of our community empowerment work. Those are 12 cities where we have trained hub leads, one to two hub leads per city. We're in everywhere from LA to New York City to Knoxville, Tennessee, to Columbus, to Philly, where I'm based, to Atlanta, to Chicago, to New Orleans. And there, the hub leads put on events that are very close to the ground, meaning that they are events that their community wants. They really fall under specific areas. It's either around advocacy, wellness, outdoor recreation, or service. From there, they get the autonomy to do the events that best serve them. We provide the hub leads with a stipend. We give them an event stipend as well to host the events. From there, we've had the most beautiful constellation of different events that our hub leads are leading that are really creating these very specific ecosystems of care for Black women and Black gender expansive folks who are Gen Z and early career to meet each other, to build community, and to really hopefully see themselves as long-term members of this conservation climate sustainability.
Dickon: One of the key focus areas that you mentioned is narrative change. I wonder if you could describe this concept for listeners and also explain where and how you're active in this space. How does this theme intersect with the previous one, the pathway issue?
Wawa: Ultimately, I think narrative change and narrative strategy comes down to crafting a narrative that dismantles another prevailing narrative that can be harmful to whatever issue or mission that you're attempting to advance. I'm not a communications expert, but that's how I've synthesized it in my brain and with BGE. But for a Black Girl Environmentalist, if I was to sum up how we've navigated our narrative change strategy, it ultimately comes down to our long-term effort to A, elevate the lived experiences of Black girls, Black women, and Black gender expansive peoples. And B, to push back against the mainstream and prevailing narrative that has for so long told us and told everyone else that we are not interested in earth stewardship. We are not interested in environmentalism. And we're not interested in the green economy space. All three, which are lies, but again, are prevailing narratives that are believed by people that aren't Black Girl Environmentalists. And then also, they're internalized by us.
And you know, it's always so interesting because we have an abundance of polling, particularly in the U.S., that tell us that it is people of color that actually care the most about the planet, that care the most about climate change, that are most likely to, for example, vote for someone that cares about climate compared to our white counterparts.
You know, for example, Latin Americans care the most out of any demographic when it comes to climate change, and Black Americans closely follow that. So, it's always like this, you know, prevailing narrative that doesn't really match up with the reality that I've known, or so many of us have known, but it has been successful for so long. And so, we really want to make sure that our demographic, and beyond, know that it's untrue, and that when we really do tap into the unique leadership of Black girls and Black girl environmentalists, our movement becomes stronger.
Dickon: I think this chimes in nicely to what you just described. So, in past episodes with previous guests like Josephine Latu-Sanft and Tory Stephens, we've talked about the importance of how people are portrayed in the stories being told about them, and the impact that that has, as you just mentioned, on how they're perceived and how they perceive themselves. An issue I've seen you talk about elsewhere is eco-womanism. I wonder where ecowomanism fits into this thinking and your narrative change aspirations?
Wawa: Well, I can first define what ecowomanism is, and I appreciate that you asked that specific question, because I think people don't really know, and aren't really well-versed in what ecowomanism is. So, ecowomanism is a framework that was created by Dr. Melanie Harris, who is an incredible scholar and ecowomanist herself, that really discusses the unique leadership of African-American, Black American women as it relates to environmental stewardship. It's really a theology. It's almost like a spiritual experience for us, in the ways that our stewardship is fundamentally tied to how we understand care for ourselves and our community. Earth stewardship has never been separate from that.
In regards to how that connects to the importance of how people are portrayed in the stories being told about them, I think that climate narratives have, again, really followed that dominant white narrative for so long. Even the narratives, that have been put out, that focus on the unique experiences of people of color, there has always been like this prevailing issue around who are the power makers behind the scenes, right?
If we're talking about a film, are there, for example, if we're doing a story on indigenous rights, are indigenous people actually the ones that are helping to tell the story behind the scenes, helping to craft the narrative arcs that we're talking about?
I think sometimes simply having folks on screen may be the limit of how others see power being distributed. But I think power in regards to narratives has to be all encompassing, right? There should be a world where people of color, Black and indigenous people are being provided funding to tell their own stories and to integrate their theologies and expertise from start to finish. And so I think that it's really, really crucial that that happens. And I think there's another thing to be said, that I don't think Black and Afro indigenous narratives have been validated as being climate narratives at all. Yeah, I don't think I've actually seen that be done in a very explicit way thus far, ever. And so I'm excited for that to happen. At some point.
I know that Ms. Sharon Levine, who is the founder of Rise St. James, and I had the opportunity to go spend time with her in New Orleans, she has a big project coming out soon, which I think will be a very visceral type of representation and narrative representation of the ecowomanist approach to climate solutions that is really, really taking place in the U.S. in the Gulf South. And the ways that Black women climate organizers are opposing the petrochemical industry and are doing so in a way that really, really highlights this unique ecowomanist approach that we have.
Dickon: So, for myself and listeners who want to expand their knowledge of a more diverse set of leaders in, and contributors to, the climate and environmental space, whether contemporary or historical, where would you send us? To whom would you direct us to learn more?
Wawa: A huge part of narrative strategy with BGE, and then also just the way that I think about reclaiming environmental narratives is really rediscovering environmentalists of color and, you know, with me, like Black Women Environmentalists of the past that were never really acknowledged as environmental leaders but certainly in regards to like their values and their narrative, quite literally were.
Harriet Tubman's a really good example. Harriet Tubman, who was a disabled Black woman who is known to have helped fellow Black Americans to freedom using the Underground Railroad and was someone that deeply understood the wilderness. Her ability to traverse through the American South and to be able to do so in the midst of folks attempting to thrust her and her fellow kin back into enslavement, that required a very, very deep understanding of the landscape. And she certainly was a pioneer, an environmentalist, a Black Girl Environmentalist.
Dr. Martin Luther King isn't a Black Girl Environmentalist, but was an environmentalist and we see that in his words that he's left behind, and even some of his last speeches, for example, in Tennessee with sanitation workers, MLK quite literally talked about how one's environment impacts one's health and connected the dots between how black workers were often and continue to do a lot of the work that many people would rather not do are often experiencing environmental hazards that contribute to adverse health impacts. He was quite literally talking about environmental injustice, and he was an environmentalist.
Looking ahead, and looking into people that exist right now, I always tell people that we must turn our attention to the Black women leading on climate in the Gulf South. The Gulf South is the most critical region for our climate future in the United States; it's a region that has been targeted by the petrochemical industry for so long and the way that they've done it is so perverse. The same industries that poison Louisiana, that poison the Gulf South, are quite literally fueling the climate crisis and they are quite literally turning thriving and beautiful communities into sacrifice zones. The toxins and these industries and these petrochemical plants that are poisoning Black families, Black women, Black girls, Black youth, Black elders. They're doing so on land that used to be plantations that were enslaving their very ancestors.
So, so many of those folks quite literally have a very unique history with that land because their introduction to that land was one of exploitation from enslavement to reconstruction, into Jim Crow, into the Civil Rights era, into the continuation of the Civil Rights era in the form of environmental and climate injustice, and what we've seen is we've seen leaders like Miss Sharon Levine, like I just talked about, who is the founder of Rise St. James. We've seen Dr. Beverly Wright of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Roishetta Ozane of The Vessel Project of Louisiana, Joy and Jo Banner of the Descendants Project, that are really, really working hard to oppose these petrochemical companies, to really ensure that there is an effective narrative strategy, so that people are connecting the dots between how this system of placing these toxic facilities in their communities is a deliberate one, it is one that has been done by the path of quote-unquote least resistance. They are selecting poor Black communities to do this because they don't believe that they are able to mobilize political power and community will to push back.
They are quite literally living examples of why that was never true and will never be true, and they have done so much even earlier this year one of our biggest climate wins here in the u.s was one that really didn't receive much attention. President Biden paused all new expansion of dangerous gas export hubs in the U.S., which have been called “carbon bombs.” And that was due to the grassroots and continual and relentless organizing by the very same Black woman I talked about, and so I'd really recommend for folks to go and learn more about those women that I mentioned, follow their organizations, donate if possible, and really just amplify the work that they're doing. That could be as simple as sharing on social media, word of mouth, just making sure that people understand what is happening in the belly of the beast in a region that houses cancer alley and the petrochemical corridor and has some of the highest rates of cancer, not only in the country, but in the world.
Dickon: How do we end up with a movie like Erin Brokovich but no one's talking about this?
Wawa: I love Erin Brokovich but you're so right. Erin Brokovich is arguably one of the most successful depictions of the power of people and communities having that David and Goliath circumstance where David wins, where the people win.
I feel like these are the stories and narratives that we need, they're happening right now. And so when people talk about feeling hopeless or people that have succumbed to nihilism that it's too late and that we can't really make a change.
You can quite literally see people that in the face of the worst, the very very worst, refuse to give up. That tells all of us everything that we need to know about perseverance and the fact that we can win. Because each of those women that I shared about have had massive wins and there's so much to learn from them.
Dickon: You've quite clearly shown what intersectional environmentalism looks like, I think, in the answers that you've given already. But I wonder if you could share how you define intersectional environmentalism, and maybe tell us why it's crucial in today's climate and environmental spheres, and also stories?
Wawa: Intersectional environmentalism, as a framework, is a vehicle for environmental justice, right? It's environmental justice in another form, it's bringing intersectional theory that we've received from Kimberlé Crenshaw into the contemporary, into understanding that if we want to protect the planet, we have to protect people too, and where people are hurting planet is hurting, and vice versa.
To answer on why it's critical in today's climate, I mean it's just a reality. If we look at a concept like prison ecology. Here in the United States, we have obviously a huge issue with mass incarceration and the way that it is predominantly Black and brown - not only men, people don't realize Black and brown women are experiencing mass incarceration at extremely high rates, we're just not in the narrative - But there is an argument to be said about mass incarceration being a continuation of Jim Crow, and I agree with that concept. But you know it's so interesting: our prison populations are included as being a vulnerable population alongside babies and children because they're a population that is experiencing the brunt of so many different issues and have been politically disempowered, disempowered socially. And when it comes to environmental hazards, it isn't really something that we talk about.
Right now, extreme heat is such a big issue everywhere. Extreme heat is really specifically impacting our prison populations. Folks are more likely to experience heat stroke, heat exhaustion, and people are experiencing it at super young ages. And it's so interesting because places where you see prisons are located that's an example of sacrifice zones right? It's like Nimbyism, nobody wants a prison in their backyard, so the places that are going to have a prison are likely communities that are already disadvantaged and also communities that are experiencing environmental hazards in proxy to being quote-unquote seen as disadvantaged or not having the political clout to oppose a prison, let alone, for example, a petro-chemical plant. And there's so many and there's so many instances of environmental hazards and plants being placed in close proximity to prison populations.
So, that's like my big roundabout example of how if we talk about protecting the livelihoods of prisoners, then we're also talking about the livelihoods of holistic ecosystems that they're a part of and that surround them. That includes non-human species, that includes the human communities that are on the outskirts of prisons, that includes workers that are in prison that are also experiencing, for example, adverse health impacts because of heat.
And so again, we can't talk about one thing without talking about the other. And you can make those connections with any social ill, which is why climate is so dangerous because, you know, climate is a threat multiplier. It creates new problems, but it also intensifies all existing ones.
Dickon: How does a failure to address the kinds of needs that we've talked about perpetuate the systemic inequalities that are already in place and already disproportionately disadvantaging certain people and not others today?
Wawa: We would be refusing to understand how protecting people and planet is integral to climate solutions, failing to recognize the adverse impacts the climate crisis has on people of color, and thus ensuring that people of color have access to funding to mitigate and adapt to the issues, as well as having our expertise and lived experiences be validated and be in positions of leadership and power.
The consequences of that is essentially us perpetuating the very systems that created the climate crisis, right? The climate crisis didn't come out of thin air. It's a man-made problem. It's not a “we” all created the climate crisis. It's very specific individuals, very specific institutions, and very specific systems, right? Colonialism, imperialism, manifest destiny. We can even look at, in the case of the United States, the big economic shift that happened after the abolishment of slavery. The United States launched itself into the industrial revolution that again, didn't pay for itself. It was paid for by blood money. By wealth that was accumulated through the exploitation of people and land, through chattel slavery. So, the industrial revolution was a continuation of those systems and was very much so key and crucial into cultivating the very problem that we find ourselves in the climate crisis. And so if we tried to create solutions that essentially re-appropriate people and planet, specific types of people, right? People of color and non-human species. If we repackage a green future that still perpetuates hierarchies, social injustices that don't recognize, again, our collective power and unique expertise, etcetera, then is that really a just climate future? Maybe it's a climate future, but is it one that truly understands and embraces justice? No, it isn't.
So I think it really comes down to what type of future are we building? Are we building a future that is, quote unquote, greener, in having less greenhouse gas emissions, in allowing certain types of people to live a life beyond survival? Or are we building a future that attempts to address the issues that brought us here in the first place and creates a world that is better for everyone?
Dickon: I think we've painted a powerful picture for listeners about some essential topics here, as well as where and how communications can contribute in a positive and constructive way. But thinking more broadly about exposure and impact, I have to ask about the Vogue cover. Could you give some background on how this came about, any doubts or concerns you may have had when considering the collaboration, and how you navigated those, and how valuable this platform was for your advocacy work?
Wawa: Yeah, that was really weird and cool, and I sometimes can't even believe that it happened because it happened so quickly. But essentially, Billie Eilish decided to personally invite myself and seven other climate activists, youth climate activists, to join her on the cover of Vogue.
That wasn't the first time I had worked with, particularly Maggie, her mom, with her non-profit Support & Feed. And it wasn't the first time that I had met Billie.
A month before we were invited. I was the board chair for the Environmental Media Association and their youth advisory board, and so I had invited Billie and Maggie to be awarded for their work in regards to environmental stewardship and raising attention to the climate crisis using their unique platform, and they accepted and came.
And yeah, a month later, I got the crazy weird, cool, strange but very very cool email from Vogue saying that Billie really wanted for us to join her. And it was a really interesting time for me in particular. I received that email and within like an hour, I found out that my grandmother had passed, so it was very, very strange for me because I was so excited, and then I found out that one of the people that had been so critical in me, even like having a deep connection to the planet as a kid, had passed, and so I actually considered not going. Not because it wasn't an incredible opportunity, but because I wasn't sure I'd be emotionally okay to do it.
But I had some really good conversations with loved ones, and I was like, “If I'm gonna go, I'm going to do my best to do my best to best to make my grandmother proud.” And then also talk about really the intergenerational reality that is for so many of us, which is that I myself am in the ecowomanist tradition because of the matriarchs and powerful matriarchs that have raised me in my leadership and in my understanding of connectivity to the Earth. And how we oftentimes don't pay enough attention to Black and brown matriarchs as being really critical Earth stewards.
So, that was a narrative that I really wanted to bring. And I think I did my best to do that. You know, Billie and her team aren’t the first celebrities that have reached out or that I’ve worked with, but I would say out of anybody, Billie, her mom, her team, they are so incredibly intentional and they really, really care. We know that in front of the camera. We know that from like initiatives that they've done beyond this with Overheated, to the type of materials that they use within her vinyls, for example. But like behind the scenes as well, building real relationships with a keen interest to really understand what is needed in the climate movement to strengthen the conversation overall. And I have a lot of deep respect for Billie, her mom, Support & Feed her team. They're all like actually really good people that care. Yeah, it was a really awesome experience.
You know, what was interesting is that I don't think any of us have actually talked about this, but hey, I'll bring it up. There was a letter after Vogue shoot that we sent to Vogue where we asked them if they'd be open to having a conversation about declaring a climate and ecological emergency, because I understand, obviously, Vogue has a very unique type of cultural relevance in fashion and fashion is one of the most powerful marketing engines on planet Earth. And we didn't actually get a response.
But ultimately, I do think that the experience was overall a net positive. Did it translate into like specific concrete types of opportunities? I'm not sure. I know for sure that it helped elevate all of our individual work and our ability to say that we were a part of this historic, first and only, digital cover of Vogue. There was an opportunity for it to be paper. And, you know, they were like, “No, we're going to make it digital. We're going to be really cool.” We're going to bring on the iconic director that facilitated the piece.
But I would wager that it definitely had a lot of impact. It came out January 2023. I think that people began to pay attention to my work in Black Girl Environmentalist in ways that, again, I can't approximate for sure, because I don't know what's going on behind people's minds as to why they paid attention. But I could probably guess that has played a pretty, pretty huge role in that.
And I think the other thing that has to be acknowledged is like the majority of us that were platformed were youth of color. And I think that that was really, really powerful in the narrative of what does next gen leadership look like in the climate movement and having a vision of Black, Indigenous and other POC young people be the prominent vision back to anyone that engaged with that, Billie's fans and beyond. I think that's incredibly powerful. And I, don't think that there has been something on that scale on a platform that big, that very clearly welcomes and embraced youth of color as being climate leaders in this way. And with someone of the type of status that Billie has, and her and her team very deliberately doing that, I have a lot of respect for them. And that goes back to like the intention of it all.
Dickon: What advice would you give other young people passionate about their own respective causes, but running into the same old barriers, the same deaf ears, the same feelings of powerlessness, and the same closed doors? What do you think has been the secret to your success?
Wawa: There can be a lot said about platforms, and how that looks like in the landscape of the climate movement. And then also the privileges that I and a lot of young people in this space that have, quote, unquote, platforms, and the way that many of us are located in the Global North.
I'd say that there definitely is a, I don't know if prioritization is a word, but maybe it is of platforming young people who are from the US, that are from the UK, and that are from Europe, in ways that it isn't as accessible for folks that are not in those geographies. But I would say overall, with building a platform, I think that there's a lot of work that needs to be done. And I think that to be honest, it wasn't really intentional. I think a lot of it came down to luck. I have been in the climate space since I was 15. And I never had a platform, I never had anyone really seeing or recognizing my work in a very obvious way, until I went pretty viral in 2019. Not even because of my climate work, but because I had made academic history in the US. And so I went really, really viral on Twitter, and then ended up doing a lot of TV appearances and things in my state of Connecticut. And that's where people like, I guess, started to pay attention to what I had to say. And it was really weird, because I was like, “Oh, I've been saying the same thing for a really long time. But now you're interested. Okay.”
And then in 2020, I wrote an article for Vice, that I had actually been commissioned to write before, quote, unquote, summer of 2020 became summer of 2020. It was just like I had finished undergrad in college. And I wanted to write a piece about what my experience as a young black person growing up in the climate space was. And I think it just intersected with this, then really big global conversation and racial reckoning, to where a lot more people I think were interested in hearing what I had to say. And that piece went really viral. And then people started following me. And then like Vogue.
But as time has gone on, I've kind of just let go of my fear of perception and just been like, “If I share my thoughts, if I share my organization, if I share what I'm thinking, maybe other people will resonate with me, and maybe I'll make friends.” And that's kind of how I've navigated it.
But I'd say if someone's more intentionally going about it, I think, yeah, letting go fear of perception, I think a lot of us can get really and I say this, a lot of us, I'm including myself, can get really tied up in fear of what people think about what we post online, or how we say things, or how we're thinking about things, etcetera, and we can be our harshest critics. But ultimately, I think we have one life; climate work is community work. It was because I started posting and because I started writing that I got connected with so many Black women that gave me the idea for BGE. And we started out as an Instagram page, like digital communication is what grounded what has now become a fully functioning, functioning operational organization. And that was because I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna start sharing that I need that type of community. And people saw that and resonated. And I'd say that letting go of your fear of perception and instead embracing the people that can and will connect with you is really, really awesome. And that is also a good practice for finding your champions, finding your champions that are also your age mates, finding your champions that are older, younger, finding like-minded individuals. And it also obviously leads to more opportunities for collaboration. I think collaboration makes the world go round. The circumstance that we find ourselves in, it's obviously dire and requires a very specific type of urgency. But the situation of being young people that are oftentimes experiencing barriers and people don't wanna listen, and maybe it's sometimes it's older people that might infantilize our energy and our enthusiasm and our radical ways of thinking, that has happened for every cohort of young people, right?
Young people have always been very progressive. Young people have always led social movements and have always been saddled with these types of institutional barriers. And yet we've always found a way. And so I would remind folks that so many of the movements that have allowed us to even know how to organize, right? Like, so much of my understanding of organizing comes from quite literally the textbook of Civil Rights leaders, right? Those were other young people that were deciding that they were going to love a better world into existence, even if they weren't receiving the type of support that they definitely needed, but they still were able to do it.
And then I'd say the advice that I gave previously, still rings true, like finding your champions, letting go of your fear of perception, understanding that collaboration over competition is always the way to go. Collaboration is how the world goes around, and realizing that there is a lot of power in numbers. And yeah, I think that we will be able to solve this thing with the power of community and being relentless in our fight.
Dickon: How can older generations of activists and communicators support and collaborate with Gen Z in the climate movement?
Wawa: I would say, obviously like active listening is so important. I think, like, listening without pushing yourself to respond always and that's something that I always have to do. I'm neurodivergent, so sometimes when I'm talking to someone, I feel like, in order for me to come off as engaged, I have to always have a question right back, and in doing so, I sometimes am not listening in the way that I need to listen, and sometimes it's quieting my own brain and just like zeroing in on what someone has to say and not pressuring myself to respond and just giving that time and attention to the person or people who are talking.
I think it's also really important for older people, people that have more access to resources, people that have larger networks, obviously, like the older you get, the more people you know, the more relationships that you have. I think, that so much of this work and work in general it does come down to community and collaboration, but in order to utilize those things people have to know your work. I think what so many of us are looking for is people to you know bring our work and our names into rooms that are often not accessible for us. I think there's a very specific ask around: you know we can't flatten the Gen Z term; the experience of youth climate activists who aren't Black or Indigenous is very different, again we're all weathering the same storm that it's a climate crisis but we aren't all in the same boat, and particularly Black and indigenous youth stand the most to lose in the face of the climate crisis yet, there's no study that can verify this, but anyone who goes to any climate space international COP climate negotiation, I ask all of you to look around or even ask, “How many African-American youth are there?” I'm talking about African-American youth, youth that are the descendants of chattel slavery in the Americas who have ancestors that went through reconstruction Civil Rights era, Jim Crow etc., it's a very very specific unique demographic. The very demographic that the environmental justice movement came out of. The very demographic that are the descendants of Civil Rights leaders. There is a very specific and unique type of erasure that's happening there that is not right, especially what I was just talking about with the Gulf South.
The communities that are being impacted in the Gulf South are African-American communities, so how come their youth are not being invited into these spaces? That they’re not being recognized as leaders? That they’re not being recognized as helping to create solutions as a means of survival?
So, I would say make sure that you're bringing African-American youth into the space make sure that Black and Indigenous youth are platformed in very intentional ways because again our communities really are ground zero for climate change, environmental degradation, environmental hazards, and so many other social ills that we are also navigating as we try to live a life beyond survival.
Dickon: What's the single most important aspect of communication that we should be paying attention to in our climate communication endeavours?
Wawa: Discussing the climate crisis as being much more than an ecological crisis. It's a communication crisis, it's a leadership crisis, it's a connection crisis, and it's a funding crisis, and when we really understand the climate crisis in its entirety we see it as a polycrisis and we need to talk about it as such.
Dickon: The flip side of that is what's the biggest mistake that you see communicators make when attempting to engage the public on climate change issues?
Wawa: Communicators in climate have some of the hardest jobs because we understand how the climate crisis is a polycrisis but we also don't want to confuse people because climate uniquely connects with every social issue and because of that it can be confusing for us to figure out how to communicate it in a way that connects with people, in a way that needs to. And I think we get really caught up in that. And I think it's a valid confusion and frustration, and it is so real. I'm not a communications expert, but even as someone in climate like communication touches every aspect of my work, and that is something that I see as a struggle. But I would say that the best way to address that is leaning into it; that is one of the only if we were talking about benefits with the climate crisis, because it does connect with everything. So because of that, I do think that there is an entryway of interest and passion for every single person.
So as communicators, that's on us to figure out succinct narrative strategies that connect with these big social issues that people clearly do care about, and really communicate in a way that very specifically and intentionally dives into how climate uniquely impacts those issues. And that if we want to build a future that is addressing that issue, whether it's racial justice, education, healthcare, jobs, whatever it is, that addressing climate is required for us to get on the other side of that issue, solving it or creating better opportunities for people to access those things; ultimately, the connectivity of it all is that we want for people to live better lives and that people experience the world's in ways that promote their well-being and the general well-being of their community.
Dickon: It was wonderful talking to Wawa for this episode and incredibly thought-provoking; but what in particular stuck with you from our conversation? What will you take from it and apply to your own work?
For me, first and foremost, it's that yes, this is a podcast about communication, yet look how quickly and easily we phased in and out of so many other issues. It's all connected, no matter how much we might wish sometimes that it wasn't. As Wawa said, that's just the reality. We won't overcome the challenges that we're facing today without leaning into that and picking apart the patterns that produced those challenges in the first place, and that includes challenges within climate communications.
It's been said before in previous episodes, but I think it deserves repeating. As communicators, the words we write, the stories we tell, the voices we include and exclude, the perspectives we champion, the people we portray in this or that way, it all feeds into a collective understanding of reality. So, if we're serious about solving the intersectional issue that is climate change, surely we have to be asking ourselves, who are we platforming? Whose story are we giving space to? Whose voice has been left unheard? Who is in the image and who has been left out? Who is on our expert panel? Who is given access to our conference or event? And so many more questions that are really the low-hanging fruits.
Next up, honestly, I think some regular contemplation needs to be had about how I may or may not contribute to perpetuating the dominant patterns of power within the climate and environmental sphere. Am I helping or am I just taking up space? Where should I be active and where should I step away? How can I set up systems or audits to ensure self-awareness?
So that's what I'll be taking with me, but how about you? What did you hear? What will you be incorporating into your climate communications endeavors?
Thanks to Wawa Gatheru, for sharing her time and insight with the show. It was great. You can find links to some relevant resources in the show notes. Thanks also to you for listening to Communicating Climate Change. If you enjoyed this episode, why not leave it a rating or a review? Your feedback not only helps to shine a light on the guests and themes that resonate with you the most, but also boosts visibility, meaning the series reaches more people, expanding the community and driving the conversation forward. After all, that's what it's all about.
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