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5 Black Environmentalists you should know

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Friday, April 19, 2024

Environmental Justice has long been a Black issue, our communities have historically, and even now, been disproportionately impacted by environmental issues. From chemical companies to contaminated water, Black and poor neighborhoods are far too often in close proximity to environmental hazards. Despite that, our communities have fought and continue to fight because we understand our lives and the environment are intertwined. Check out these five Black environmentalists who dedicated their lives to advocating for environmental justice throughout history. Hazel M. Johnson 1935 – 2011“For so long, environmental activism has been primarily a white, middle-class issue, far removed from the daily reality of inner-city life.”Affectionately known as the mother of the environmental justice movement, Hazel Johnson became a leading voice on the environmental racism impacting Black communities. After the Louisiana-born activist moved to Chicago, she became an influential figure in the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood she called home. Following the death of her husband from Lung Cancer, Johnson became concerned about a similar pattern of lung-related ailments plaguing other residents. Through her own investigation she learned the Altgeld Gardens was surrounded by several environmental hazards, including having been built over a landfill. Johnson eventually founded the People for Community Recovery, an organization to support Altgeld Gardens tenants and focus on environmental justice. Her persistent advocacy played a crucial role in President Bill Clinton signing an executive order to address environmental issues impacting minority and low-income folks. Wangari Maathai 1940 – 2011Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, speaks during the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, Friday, March 10, 2006, at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.ASSOCIATED PRESS“When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope. We also secure the future for our children.”Internationally renowned Kenyan human rights activist and environmentalist, Wangari Maathai devoted her life to making this world a more peaceful, equitable and greener place. In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an organization focused on supporting women, alleviating poverty and planting trees to conserve the environment. The Green Belt Movement resulted in the planting of over 30 million trees across Kenya. Maathai’s advocacy and impact traversed the continent and ultimately the world with her becoming the first African woman and first environmentalist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Margie Richard 1941 – Goldman Environmental Prize winner Margie Richard, of Norco, LA., smiles in San Francisco, Saturday, April 17, 2004.AP Photo“The environment is everything around us—the air, the water and the land. The Earth is the foundation of life. Environmental issues should never be ignored.”Margie Richard grew up in a historically Black neighborhood in Norco, Louisiana which is a part of a region known as “Cancer Alley.” Richard’s own house was just a few feet away from a Shell chemical plant. Witnessing her community be afflicted by health issues primed her for a life of activism. However, what solidified her journey into environmentalism was the 1973 Shell Pipeline explosion that killed two people. Another Shell plant explosion would happen in 1988 killing seven workers, and a year later, Richard founded Concerned Citizens of Norco. After a decades-long campaign led by Richard, Shell agreed to buyout the neighborhood and reduce its toxic emissions by 30 percent. Richard’s advocacy expanded beyond her Norco neighborhood earning her the honor of becoming the first African American to win the Goldman Environmental Prize.Robert D. Bullard 1946 – Robert Bullard, the founder of the environmental justice center, poses in his office on the Clark Atlanta University Campus in Atlanta, Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2004, between enlarged versions of two of his books.AP Photo“America is segregated, and so is pollution.”Often regarded as the father of environmental justice, Robert Bullard has been a prominent scholar and activist in the environmental justice movement spanning four decades. An award-winning author of 18 books, much of his work has been focused on environmental racism, sustainability, urban land use, and climate justice. Bullard is also the founding director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice and the HBCU Climate Change Consortium. Bullard’s advocacy and leadership has earned him dozens of prestigious honors, including receiving the 2020 Champions of the Earth Lifetime Achievement Award and being appointed to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council by President Joe Biden.John Francis 1946 – “We are the environment and how we treat each other is really how we treat the environment.”Inspired by the 1971 oil spill in San Francisco Bay, John Francis made a decision to live a more environmentally conscious lifestyle. One of the big changes he made was giving up motorized transportation and instead walking. After receiving pushback for his decision, Francis took a 17-year vow of silence. During that time, he remained committed to the cause, founding Planetwalk, a non-profit environmental awareness organization. Over the years, Francis, nicknamed Planetwalker, trekked across the United States taking detours along the way for several degrees, including a Ph.D. in Land Resources. In addition to journeying through the United States, he walked and sailed through the Caribbean, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. As the National Geographic Society’s first Education Fellow, Francis continues to spread awareness to the masses about the importance of taking care of the Earth. Check out our Earth Day Reads on the Black Joy Bookshop to learn more!

These Black environmentalists dedicated their lives to advocating for environmental justice.

Environmental Justice has long been a Black issue, our communities have historically, and even now, been disproportionately impacted by environmental issues. From chemical companies to contaminated water, Black and poor neighborhoods are far too often in close proximity to environmental hazards. Despite that, our communities have fought and continue to fight because we understand our lives and the environment are intertwined.

Check out these five Black environmentalists who dedicated their lives to advocating for environmental justice throughout history.

Hazel M. Johnson 1935 – 2011

“For so long, environmental activism has been primarily a white, middle-class issue, far removed from the daily reality of inner-city life.”

Affectionately known as the mother of the environmental justice movement, Hazel Johnson became a leading voice on the environmental racism impacting Black communities. After the Louisiana-born activist moved to Chicago, she became an influential figure in the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood she called home. Following the death of her husband from Lung Cancer, Johnson became concerned about a similar pattern of lung-related ailments plaguing other residents. Through her own investigation she learned the Altgeld Gardens was surrounded by several environmental hazards, including having been built over a landfill. Johnson eventually founded the People for Community Recovery, an organization to support Altgeld Gardens tenants and focus on environmental justice. Her persistent advocacy played a crucial role in President Bill Clinton signing an executive order to address environmental issues impacting minority and low-income folks.

Wangari Maathai 1940 – 2011

WANGARI MAATHAI

Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, speaks during the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, Friday, March 10, 2006, at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.ASSOCIATED PRESS

“When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope. We also secure the future for our children.”

Internationally renowned Kenyan human rights activist and environmentalist, Wangari Maathai devoted her life to making this world a more peaceful, equitable and greener place. In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an organization focused on supporting women, alleviating poverty and planting trees to conserve the environment. The Green Belt Movement resulted in the planting of over 30 million trees across Kenya. Maathai’s advocacy and impact traversed the continent and ultimately the world with her becoming the first African woman and first environmentalist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Margie Richard 1941 –

GOLDMAN RICHARD

Goldman Environmental Prize winner Margie Richard, of Norco, LA., smiles in San Francisco, Saturday, April 17, 2004.AP Photo

“The environment is everything around us—the air, the water and the land. The Earth is the foundation of life. Environmental issues should never be ignored.”

Margie Richard grew up in a historically Black neighborhood in Norco, Louisiana which is a part of a region known as “Cancer Alley.” Richard’s own house was just a few feet away from a Shell chemical plant. Witnessing her community be afflicted by health issues primed her for a life of activism. However, what solidified her journey into environmentalism was the 1973 Shell Pipeline explosion that killed two people. Another Shell plant explosion would happen in 1988 killing seven workers, and a year later, Richard founded Concerned Citizens of Norco. After a decades-long campaign led by Richard, Shell agreed to buyout the neighborhood and reduce its toxic emissions by 30 percent. Richard’s advocacy expanded beyond her Norco neighborhood earning her the honor of becoming the first African American to win the Goldman Environmental Prize.

Robert D. Bullard 1946 –

BULLARD ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM

Robert Bullard, the founder of the environmental justice center, poses in his office on the Clark Atlanta University Campus in Atlanta, Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2004, between enlarged versions of two of his books.AP Photo

“America is segregated, and so is pollution.”

Often regarded as the father of environmental justice, Robert Bullard has been a prominent scholar and activist in the environmental justice movement spanning four decades. An award-winning author of 18 books, much of his work has been focused on environmental racism, sustainability, urban land use, and climate justice. Bullard is also the founding director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice and the HBCU Climate Change Consortium. Bullard’s advocacy and leadership has earned him dozens of prestigious honors, including receiving the 2020 Champions of the Earth Lifetime Achievement Award and being appointed to the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council by President Joe Biden.

John Francis 1946 –

“We are the environment and how we treat each other is really how we treat the environment.”

Inspired by the 1971 oil spill in San Francisco Bay, John Francis made a decision to live a more environmentally conscious lifestyle. One of the big changes he made was giving up motorized transportation and instead walking. After receiving pushback for his decision, Francis took a 17-year vow of silence. During that time, he remained committed to the cause, founding Planetwalk, a non-profit environmental awareness organization. Over the years, Francis, nicknamed Planetwalker, trekked across the United States taking detours along the way for several degrees, including a Ph.D. in Land Resources. In addition to journeying through the United States, he walked and sailed through the Caribbean, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. As the National Geographic Society’s first Education Fellow, Francis continues to spread awareness to the masses about the importance of taking care of the Earth.

Check out our Earth Day Reads on the Black Joy Bookshop to learn more!

Read the full story here.
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California’s pro-housing laws have failed to raise new home numbers

New housing starts were around 100,000 a year when Newsom took office in 2019; they still hover around that number today.

California YIMBY, an organization founded eight years ago to promote housing construction in response to an ever-increasing gap between demand and supply, held a victory party in San Francisco recently. “Welcome to the most victorious of California YIMBY’s victory parties,” Brian Hanlon, founder and CEO of the organization, told attendees. Its acronym (Yes In My Backyard) symbolizes its years-long battle with NIMBYs (Not in My Backyard), people and groups who have long thwarted housing projects by pressuring local governments that control land use. YIMBY’s party marked the passage of several pro-housing legislative measures this year, two of which have long been sought by housing advocates. Assembly Bill 130 exempts many urban housing projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, while Senate Bill 79 makes it easier to building high-density housing near transit stations in large cities. “2025 was a year,” Hanlon gleefully declared. The celebratory atmosphere was understandable because this year’s legislative actions capped a half-decade of ever-mounting state government activism on housing that followed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2017 campaign pledge to build 3.5 million new units of housing if elected. That goal was wildly unrealistic, as Newsom should have known, but he did push hard for legislation to remove barriers to housing development. His housing agency also ramped up pressure on local governments to remove arbitrary hurdles that YIMBY-influenced officials had erected and to meet quotas for identifying land that could be used for housing. However, the celebration omitted one salient factor: Pro-housing legislative and administrative actions have failed to markedly increase housing production. New housing starts were around 100,000 a year when Newsom took office in 2019, and they are about that number today, with the net increase even lower. As the Housing and Community Development Department admits in its statewide housing plan, “Not enough housing being built: During the last ten years, housing production averaged fewer than 80,000 new homes each year, and ongoing production continues to fall far below the projected need of 180,000 additional homes annually.” The Census Bureau calculates that since Newsom took office, new housing permits in California ranged from a high of 120,780 units in 2022 to a low of 101,546 last year. Newsom’s own budget agrees with the Census Bureau’s data for the same period and projects future construction through 2028 at 100,000 to 104,000 units a year. Those are the numbers. But how data on housing is collected and collated has been a somewhat murky process, and opponents of housing projects often challenge how they comport with quotas the state imposes on local communities. Fortunately, the Census Bureau has unveiled a new statistical tool that should go a long way toward having complete data that includes not only conventional single- and multi-family projects, but alternative forms of housing such as backyard granny flats, officially known as Accessory Dwelling Units; basements or garages that are transformed into apartments; single-family homes converted into duplexes or apartments; mobile homes or office buildings that become housing. The tool uses several sources of data but is heavily reliant on the Postal Service, which maintains a constantly updated roster of addresses that includes all housing types. More accurate data should make it easier to overcome conflicts and may even reveal that California’s pro-housing actions have had positive effects that current methodology misses. “The housing crisis has persisted in part because we haven’t been able to measure our progress accurately,” an article about the new tool published by the Niskanen Center, a think tank, concludes. “With the Census Bureau’s Address Count Listing File data, that excuse is gone. Now the question is whether policymakers will use this powerful new tool to finally build the housing America needs.”

Activism
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Government

Britain's Prince William Calls for Optimism on Environment at EarthShot Prize Event

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Britain's Prince William expressed optimism on Wednesday about tackling global environmental challenges at a star-studded...

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Britain's Prince William expressed optimism on Wednesday about tackling global environmental challenges at a star-studded event in Rio de Janeiro for the fifth edition of his EarthShot Prize.William's first visit to Latin America comes shortly before Brazil hosts the UN climate summit COP30 next week."I understand that some might feel discouraged in these uncertain times," William said during the ceremony for the award, founded in 2020 and inspired by a visit to Namibia."I understand that there is still so much to be done. But this is no time for complacency, and the optimism I felt in 2020 remains ardent today."Named in homage to John F. Kennedy's "moonshot" goal, the award was intended to foster significant environmental progress within a decade that has now reached its midpoint.The prize, which aims to find innovations to combat climate change, and tackle other green issues, awards five winners 1 million pounds ($1.3 million) each to drive their projects.Pop stars Kylie Minogue and Shawn Mendes, Brazilian musicians Gilberto Gil, Seu Jorge and Anitta, along with former Formula One world champion Sebastian Vettel, were among those who appeared or performed at the ceremony.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and London Mayor Sadiq Khan also attended.William will attend the UN climate summit in place of his father, King Charles. On his trip, he announced initiatives for Indigenous communities and environmental activists, and visited landmarks in Rio.(Reporting by Andre Romani in Sao Paulo and Michael Holden in London; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

Activism
Climate
Indigenous

Insurers calling for trees to be felled as cheap fix for subsidence, say critics

Campaigners say problem so common that some of the UK’s most irreplaceable ancient trees in danger of being lostWhen Linda Taylor Cantrill finally found her dream family home in Exmouth, Devon, it wasn’t the location, the square footage or the local amenities that finally made up her mind – it was the 200-year-old oak tree in the garden.“The way we felt about just standing in the shade of the tree was: ‘We need this house, because look how beautiful it is,’” she told the Guardian. Continue reading...

When Linda Taylor Cantrill finally found her dream family home in Exmouth, Devon, it wasn’t the location, the square footage or the local amenities that finally made up her mind – it was the 200-year-old oak tree in the garden.“The way we felt about just standing in the shade of the tree was: ‘We need this house, because look how beautiful it is,’” she told the Guardian.Little wonder then, that when an insurance company suggested chopping the tree down in an effort to arrest the subsidence affecting the house, Taylor Cantrill says she turned “into Boudicca”, to stop the chainsaws – launching a years-long battle that, this year, she finally won.Hers might seem like an isolated example of arboreal activism, but the issue of insurers recommending tree-felling as a cheap fix to building issues is one played out daily in Britain.The problem, according to some campaigners, is so common that they fear it could bring about the loss of irreplaceable ancient trees.Data on insurance-related tree-felling is difficult to pin down, but underwriters are braced for a increase in subsidence claims this year. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) said there had been “unusually high spring temperatures” – often a cause of such claims.The tree that the Taylor Cantrills’ insurers blame for subsidence. Photograph: Jim Wileman/The GuardianAs part of the Haringey Tree Protectors group, Gio Iozzi has been heavily involved in efforts to save a 120-year-old plane tree in north London. “I see it as big a problem, on a par with the water pollution scandal,” she said.Like Taylor Cantrill, she chose her home because of the trees nearby and believes insurers prefer to fell trees suspected of causing subsidence rather than pursuing engineering solutions such as underpinning houses.It is a view shared by the Woodland Trust, which said it was a “significant concern”. Caroline Campbell, who leads the trust’s work on bringing the benefits of trees to the urban areas that need them the most, said: “Mature and veteran trees are often removed before causation is proven, and in many cases where alternative engineering or root management solutions could resolve the problem while retaining the tree.“The general approach from many insurers remains risk-averse, defaulting to removal as the quickest or cheapest option.”The ABI said: “It is not the case that insurers default to tree removal as a matter of convenience or cost-cutting. Insurers will assess each claim on a case-by-case basis, and will consult with experts to determine the most appropriate course of action.”In Billingshurst, in West Sussex, another group is still fighting to save two oak trees villagers believe are at least 200 years old, and that insurers say are the cause of damage to nearby homes.After hiring a lawyer, and thousands of people signing a petition in support, the Save Billi Oaks campaigners have fought their local authority to a standstill. The authority had initially granted permission to fell the trees, despite tree preservation orders being in place.Last month, councillors voted unanimously to pause those plans while they took legal advice. It is understood the council will revisit the matter on 5 November.One of those fighting for the trees, Gabi Barrett, said: “If it weren’t for the community stepping up, both trees would have been felled.” .She added: “The trees are stunning, perfectly balanced and over 200 years-old. They are the only trees of that age and status that remain on the estate. They provide shade in summer and mitigate flood risk in the wetter months.”She said that “from the get-go, saving these trees has been a community effort”.But it has not yet secured the future of the trees. They remain vulnerable, partly because the council fears incurring liability if it does not agree to the insurer’s request to cut them down.Campbell said the effect of losing the trees could be devastating for the local environment: “Even a single insurance claim can lead to the felling of multiple street or garden trees, and subsidence is known to be one of the largest claim types facing the insurance sector.“The cumulative impact over time is substantial, contributing to canopy loss in exactly the urban areas where trees are most needed for cooling, air quality and flood mitigation.”And, while mature trees are effective at taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, newly planted ones – often cited as mitigation when an ancient tree is felled – are much less so. Chopping down mature trees can also release the CO2 back into the atmosphere.The ABI said firms “explore alternative solutions” to felling, but these were not always suitable. A spokesperson also said underpinning “itself has an environmental impact through the use of carbon-intensive concrete”. They added: “The insurance industry takes its climate responsibilities seriously.”Taylor Cantrill’s successful defence of her beloved tree will be an inspiration to others with a similar fight on their hands. For those, like Barrett, the battle to preserve their local greenery is personal. She said: “My children were born in Billingshurst – I have fond memories of stopping for a snack in the shade under those trees on the way back from toddler group. I would find their loss devastating.”

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A Warning for the Modern Striver

A new biography of Peter Matthiessen chronicles his many paradoxical attempts to escape who the world expected him to be.

Restlessness is deeply rooted in American mythology. We are a country of pilgrims, engaged in a lifelong search for what Ralph Waldo Emerson called an “original relation to the universe”—a unique understanding of the world that doesn’t rely on the traditions or teachings of past generations. Those who internalize this expectation will walk, trek, and seek—anything to shed an inherited skin and find an undiscovered self they can inhabit. If only skin, inherited or not, were so easy to shed. As Emerson wrote, “My giant goes with me wherever I go.”Few have embodied this supposedly American quality with more complexity than the writer Peter Matthiessen. And few have captured it with more clarity than Lance Richardson in his new biography of Matthiessen, True Nature. Richardson portrays the peripatetic life of Matthiessen—a celebrated author, magazine editor, and undercover agent who died in 2014—not as an eclectic series of adventures but as a single, 86-year spiritual quest. As he writes, Matthiessen’s “inner journey determined the choices he made throughout his long life; it is the string on which the various beads of his career were strung.” Matthiessen fled his monied upbringing in a flawed yet fascinating attempt to escape the person the world expected him to be.The central project of Matthiessen’s existence was a relentless, often painful attempt to locate what, quoting Zen Buddhists, he called a “true nature”—an authentic core beneath the layers of identity that he had received or constructed. His life story provides a warning for today’s perpetually dissatisfied strivers: mainly members of the tech or business elite who have made a name for themselves, only to still feel empty and insecure. Many use their considerable resources to set out for other territories in search of something they’re unlikely to find.[Read: You don’t know yourself as well as you think you do]Like many pilgrimages, Matthiessen’s journey began with a foundational trauma. Born in 1927, he had a storybook childhood on New York’s Fishers Island that was ruptured one summer by an incident on his father’s boat. The young Matthiessen had been learning to swim, so his father took him out to the harbor and threw him overboard to see if the lessons had stuck. As Richardson writes, Matthiessen made the mistake of clinging to his father’s shirt as he was thrown and nearly broke his arm on the side of the boat. He would later call this humiliation “the opening skirmish in an absolutely pointless lifelong war” with his family, and his adulthood was a series of escapes from that original wound. He fled to Paris, the classic expatriate move, but did so under bizarre circumstances—co-founding The Paris Review while serving as an agent for the CIA. Thoreau went to Walden Pond to flee a society he saw as corrupt; Matthiessen, for his part, went to the center of the establishment’s undercover operations to fund and facilitate his own existential escape. Jill Krementz The only writer to ever win National Book Awards for both fiction and nonfiction, Matthiessen was an architect of the postwar intellectual world, a contemporary of giants such as Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, and William Styron. His peers often waged their philosophical battles in the public squares of New York and Washington, but Matthiessen grew wary of the ego and performance required of the literary lion. Instead he traveled to the mountains of Nepal in search of snow leopards, and deep into China and Mongolia to catch a glimpse of the rarest cranes on Earth. But what he was really searching for was far more personal.Matthiessen’s pursuits weren’t solely internal; his work was also a very public counterpoint to the materialism and social conformity that he believed defined the second half of 20th-century America. His seminal book, Wildlife in America, published in 1959, was a meticulously researched history of the natural world and the devastating effects of human activity. Richardson rightly calls it “a landmark in nature writing,” which predated Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Matthiessen’s search for a preindustrial Eden also drives The Snow Leopard, his best-known work. On its surface, the book is the account of his two-month trek into Nepal’s Himalayas with the naturalist George Schaller, in 1973. But it is also a record of what Matthiessen called “a true pilgrimage, a journey of the heart” as he grieved the recent death of his wife. The hunt for the elusive, almost mythical snow leopard becomes a metaphor for the search for spiritual enlightenment, a release from the travails and humiliations of everyday human life.I first read The Snow Leopard when I was 20. It filled me with the misguided but tantalizing belief that a life of meaning was to be found elsewhere. It inspired my own pilgrimage to the Alps, retracing the trails that Friedrich Nietzsche hiked while writing his greatest work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra; I sought the kind of authenticity that seemed impossible to find in a comfortable American suburb. The journey was enabled by a scholarship to a good school—a form of privilege that was almost entirely lost on me. Matthiessen’s profound and lonely meditations at 17,000 feet were, similarly, made possible by National Geographic funding, a name that opened doors, the very worldly security he was trying to transcend.Perhaps he understood, on some level, the irony. Richardson writes that in the Amazon, many years before his subject traveled to Nepal, Matthiessen had encountered a genuine wanderer, a French Canadian drifter named Johnny Gauvin, and felt a sudden, uncomfortable self-awareness. Displacement and its attendant poverty were Gauvin’s way of life. Matthiessen realized that he was no authentic man of the wilderness, but an affluent visitor. “It’s a disturbing quality, and one that induces a certain self-consciousness about one’s eyeglasses, say, or the gleam of one’s new khaki pants,” he wrote in The New Yorker in 1961. Pilgrimages sometimes cause collateral damage too. In later life, he admitted that it may have been a mistake to leave his 8-year-old son so soon after the death of his wife to embark on the Himalayan expedition.Matthiessen’s example provides a powerful archetype for the modern day. The tech billionaire who flies to space seeking the “overview effect” is in search of something beyond the ken of the material world, which he has already conquered. The annual ritual of Burning Man sees wealthy people enact a temporary shedding of their consumerist skin, even if getting there requires enlarging one’s carbon footprint. The Silicon Valley executive who flies to Peru for an ayahuasca retreat is on a journey Matthiessen would have recognized intimately. Long before embarking on his formal Zen training, Matthiessen was an early psychonaut, experimenting with LSD in the 1960s. In search of mind-altering effects, he sought a chemical shortcut to the dissolution of the ego, a forced glimpse of the “true nature” that his privilege and ambition otherwise obscured. Matthiessen’s path from psychedelics to the rigorous discipline of Zen meditation shows what a genuine spiritual journey looks like: It is extremely difficult, deeply private, and never-ending. There is no shortcut. Jill Krementz [Read: A reality check for tech oligarchs]Did Matthiessen ever find what he was looking for? Richardson’s elegant and rigorous biography wisely leaves the question open. But what it does make clear is that “true nature” is not a stable or permanent destination. It is a process, an experience, a temporary vision, an opening caused by a sudden confrontation with the world beyond us. Later in life, as Richardson writes, Matthiessen compared it to a tiger jumping into a quiet room. Reflecting on his tiger moment—a vision of his dying wife experienced in a sesshin, an intense form of Buddhist meditation—Matthiessen noted that “for the first time since unremembered childhood, I was not alone, there was no separate ‘I.’ Wounds, anger, ragged edges, hollow places were all gone, all had been healed; my heart was the heart of all creation.” But this beautiful instant is, by definition, temporary.Matthiessen, ultimately, refused to fit into any tidy box. He was an environmental activist who hobnobbed with the jet set, a devoted Buddhist who wrestled with a titanic ego, a man who knew that all things ultimately return to nature but fought against death to the very end. Matthiessen embodied many ironies, but one might feel particularly evergreen: The conditions that make possible a search for existential fulfillment are often what make it so very difficult to find.

Activism
Business
Chemicals

Oil refinery closures leave workers searching for a job that ‘just doesn’t exist’

For the refinery workers being laid off — most of whom lack a college degree — it’s unlikely they’ll find another job that pays as well, despite recent efforts by the state to help.

In summary For the refinery workers being laid off — most of whom lack a college degree — it’s unlikely they’ll find another job that pays as well, despite recent efforts by the state to help. Wilfredo Cruz went to the doctor in October of last year to have his brain scanned because he was experiencing vertigo — a dangerous condition when you’re a refinery worker like Cruz and your job entails climbing 200-foot towers and fixing heavy machinery.  While he waited at the doctor’s office, he picked up his phone and felt a moment of panic, seeing 100 unread text messages in the last hour.  The Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles had just said that it was going to close, and Cruz learned in that moment that he would eventually lose his job, along with nearly 1,000 other employees and contractors.  “It was a big shock, a gut punch,” said Cruz, who thinks his last day will be sometime in April. Workers say layoff notices will begin to go out in the next few months.  It’s just one of a handful of refineries that have closed or that intend to close in the coming months. For the workers — most of whom lack a college degree — it’s unlikely they’ll find another job that pays as well, despite recent efforts by the state to help. Though the Trump administration signed legislation creating billions of dollars in tax cuts for oil and gas companies, it’s not going to save these jobs or offer the workers any money to train for new ones.  “You have people earning between $80,000 to $200,000 a year, and almost everyone is a high school graduate and that’s it,” said Cruz. “To go out and look for another job that’s even somewhat comparable, it just doesn’t exist.”  When he isn’t at the refinery, Cruz is wearing a plain black shirt, shorts, and New Balance sneakers — anything that’s easy to clean if his 2-year old son throws food at him, he said. His vertigo is better these days, almost a year after the refinery said it would close, but he now has to find a job so he can support his family and pay his mortgage. The best bet, he said, is to go back to school and start a new career in cybersecurity. Thousands of jobs lost California has about 100,000 workers in the fossil fuel industry, according to an August report by the Public Policy Institute of California. That’s about the population of a small city, such as Merced or Redding. As the state continues its transition to renewable energy, many of those jobs may disappear — and some already have. Refineries have been closing all across the U.S. in recent years, but California has been hit hard, especially in Contra Costa County, Solano County and parts of southern Los Angeles, near Long Beach. First it was the Marathon refinery in Contra Costa County in 2020, which put hundreds of people out of work before the plant converted to renewable fuels with a fraction of the former workforce. Then Phillips 66 began shifting one of its Contra Costa County refineries to renewables and closed an affiliated plant on the Central Coast. A Valero refinery in Solano County is also expected to close in the next few months, leading to more layoffs. Publicly, oil companies have given vague justifications for the closures, though oil industry advocates, such as the Western States Petroleum Association, blame the state’s increased regulation and its renewable energy transition. Environmental groups point to the decrease in oil demand as more Californians turn to electric vehicles.  With thousands of jobs at stake, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-led state Legislature this summer tried to strike a deal with Valero to avoid the closure of its Solano County refinery. Those conversations are still “ongoing,” said Daniel Villaseñor, the deputy director of communications for the governor.  What the state has offered so far is a $30 million pot of money, which refinery workers can use to train for new jobs. The money went out to four different workforce organizations last February, and they have until 2027 to distribute it to workers in various ways, such as through scholarships.   First: Workers cross a street as smoke billows from a fire at the Martinez Refinery Company in Martinez in Contra Costa County on Feb. 1, 2025. Last: A worker stands atop a tank car that carries liquefied petroleum gas at the Marathon Martinez Refinery on April 27, 2020. Photos by Jose Carlos Fajardo, Bay Area News Group The United Steelworkers union, which represents many of the Phillips 66 refinery workers, received about a third of the money and recruited Cruz to help find eligible workers at his job. Some of his colleagues are trying to become truck drivers, emergency medical technicians, or radiologists, but the state money rarely covers all the training expenses, he said.  In his spare time, Cruz is enrolled in an online, year-long certificate program in cybersecurity at UC San Diego and is using the state money to cover the $4,000 tuition. He said he wants a remote job, something that would allow him to spend more time with his son.  The steelworkers union has pushed Newsom for much more, ideally “hundreds of millions of dollars per year” to help retrain the refinery workers it represents, said Mike Smith, the national bargaining chair for the union. The governor has yet to make any new promises.  Six-figure salary, no degree required The average work day at a refinery might entail crawling into small spaces, withstanding searing heat, or operating heavy machinery with precision. And it can be dangerous: In 2006, the roof of a storage tank collapsed, killing one person and injuring four others at the Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles, which was then owned by an earlier iteration of the company.   Twelve-hour shifts are the norm, including many night shifts, and overtime is common. Nearby residents complain that the Phillips 66 facilities have a foul smell and that they pump cancer-causing chemicals into the air, creating health risks for the entire community. Workers are required to wear full-body fire retardant uniforms each day because fires are a constant risk, such as last week, when an explosion rocked a Chevron refinery in El Segundo. There was no major damage. Flames and smoke from a large fire rises from the Chevron refinery in El Segundo on Oct. 2, 2025. Photo by Daniel Cole, Reuters Though the work can be physically demanding, the rewards are plentiful. Union workers at the Phillips 66 refinery complex make about $115,000 a year, plus a pension and an 8% match on 401k contributions, said Smith.  Together, the Phillips 66 refineries in Los Angeles and the Valero refinery in Solano County produce about 17% of the state’s gas. Without these facilities, Californians could see higher prices at the pump, according to an independent analysis by the federal government. Laurie Wallace, a self-described artist, never wanted to work in oil and gas, but the money was a big draw, she said. For years, she was working as many as three different jobs, saving up money for punk and ska concerts while flipping burgers at In-N-Out, helping customers at Ace Hardware, or working shifts at a local cafe. Her husband at the time learned about a training program for refinery workers. He said he was going to apply and when she said she was interested, he told her she would never get in.  “I took the test and got the better score,” Wallace said. “I don’t do well with people telling me not to do something.” In the nearly 18 years since that exam, she’s worked at the Phillips 66 refinery complex in Los Angeles, handling the heavy machinery that transports California’s oil and gas. Wallace often earns over $100,000, especially with overtime, allowing her to achieve what many might consider the American Dream: a four-bedroom house in the Long Beach suburbs with an affordable mortgage and family vacations every year, including cruises to Mexico and trips to Las Vegas.  She’ll likely see a pay cut in any future job. In a 2023 study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, UC Irvine professor Virginia Parks helped survey those who had been laid off by the Marathon oil refinery in Contra Costa County in 2020. She found that roughly a quarter were unemployed or no longer looking for work over a year after losing their jobs. Some workers found opportunities at other oil refineries, though they made less money because they lacked seniority or a union. Others found jobs at utility companies or chemical treatment plants, and a few started working in health care or retail.  “I don’t think (refinery workers) need long training programs but they do need some sort of reskilling,” said Parks, who wants the state to provide workers more financial help. She’s especially interested in state grants that give workers income support while they search for a skilled job. “Otherwise they’re just going to find whatever (job) they can.” Her study found that workers who did find a job after getting laid off made about $38 an hour — $12 less than before.  Lots of experience but few ways to prove it Since the layoffs at the Phillips 66 refinery complex will happen slowly over the next few months, Wallace still has a job for now. Her department is responsible for receiving and shipping the oil and gas that arrives at the Port of Los Angeles, work that is so essential that she thinks she’ll be one of the last people laid off, potentially in 2027. Over the years, she’s driven the trains that transport tons of oil and gas, operated cranes to carry pieces of pipelines and climbed on top of the massive fuel storage tanks that line the 110 Freeway. Often, she said she worked six or even seven days in a row. Laurie Wallace at the end of her overnight shift in front of the Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, Los Angeles, on Oct. 1, 2025. Photo by Stella Kalinina for CalMatters In April, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and got a modified schedule. Now she works night shifts and only two or three days in a row. After finishing her radiation therapy around 2 p.m., she changes out of her usual attire, a punk T-shirt and jeans, and gets into her work uniform. She then has to get through Los Angeles traffic, bypass the plant’s two layers of security, and travel across the refinery, which takes up multiple city blocks, or about 650 acres. Her shift begins at 4:30 p.m., where she spends 12 hours in a room, alone, under fluorescent lights, actively monitoring 16 different computer screens for changes in pressure or chemistry.  After so many years, staying alert during a night shift is second nature, she said with a laugh. “I’m a little high strung. I have no problem staying awake.”  The stakes are high. If she isn’t paying attention and a machine fails or a tank has the wrong pressure, fuel leaks can occur. In 2014, a hole burst in an underground pipeline near the refinery, pouring 1,200 gallons of oil into a residential street. Although Wallace has used many cranes over the years, she doesn’t have a crane operator’s license. In fact, all of the training that she’s done happens on-site, and her employer isn’t required to track it or give her any credential, such as a license or certificate, that could transfer to another job. After the Marathon refinery in Contra Costa County closed, former workers struggled to substantiate their skills when looking for new jobs, the UC Berkeley Labor survey found.  Drawing directly on the study, and with support from the steelworkers union, longtime labor activist and state Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat, proposed a bill this year that would require employers to provide their workers with proof of any on-the-job training or education. The governor has until Oct. 12 to sign or veto the bill. It’s only “a first step” though, said Parks, a co-author of the study. Long-term, she said refinery workers should have the option to acquire independent certificates or credentials, such as a crane operator license, that prove their skills and don’t rely on an employer at all. “It’s not ideal but it’s temporary”  So far, only a fraction of the oil and gas workers who are eligible for state support have actually received it.  “We just started enrolling members,” said Rosi Romo, who coordinates the grant program on behalf of the steelworkers union. Though the steelworkers union received the money last March, only about 100 people have participated so far, said Romo, most of them in Southern California. She said the program can fund 650 scholarships, offering up to $15,000 in tuition for each worker  In Kern County, where the oil industry is a major employer, the local job centers received over $11 million from the state, which they’ve used to help nearly 370 former oil and gas workers retrain in new careers, including trucking and nursing. The job centers have enough money to serve around 750 people, said Danette Williams, who works in marketing for the centers, known as the Employers’ Training Resource. Unlike the steelworkers union, which is only giving out scholarships, Williams said the Employers’ Training Resource is also offering to reimburse 50% of wages during the first 480 hours of the workers’ new jobs. Romo said she wasn’t aware that was possible under the union’s contract with the state, but if it is, she said she’d try to offer the same benefit. The other organizations who received the grant money did not respond to CalMatters’ questions.  The Phillips 66 refinery in Wilmington, on Sept. 30, 2025. Photo by Stella Kalinina for CalMatters Romo, along with other representatives from the steelworkers union, said the work schedule at the Phillips 66 refinery complex is one reason why workers have yet to use most of the money. As of August, about a quarter of union employees have already left the facility for other opportunities, said Smith, the national bargaining chair for the union. The remaining employees are left working overtime.  Once layoffs begin in the coming months, Romo and Smith said they expect an uptick in the number of workers taking advantage of the scholarship money. Phillips 66 did not respond to multiple requests for comment about its overtime policies or other ways it may be supporting workers’ job transitions.  Cruz said he’s working six days a week now, 12 hours each day. To make progress on his cybersecurity course at UC San Diego, he tries to listen to lectures and audiobooks during his commute or while eating lunch or dinner during his two, 30-minute breaks. After he puts his son to sleep around 9 p.m., he has a few hours to study, though he has to wake up at 5 a.m. to make it to his shift on time. “It’s not ideal but it’s temporary,” he said. Wallace has a slight advantage, since she started taking online classes in 2020 to complete her associate degree. She’s still one class short, but she hasn’t had the time to finish it. Between her radiation therapy and the 12-hour night shifts, she said it’s unlikely she’ll be able to study for at least another year while she works with the skeleton crew that’s closing the refinery. If she had time, she said she would finish her associate degree and use the state training grant to help offset the cost of a bachelor’s degree. But because the state tuition grants expire in 2027, it’s quite possible she won’t be able to use the tuition money at all.

Activism
Chemicals
Education

Suggested Viewing

In His Own Home

Heavily armed officers of the University of Florida police department in Gainesville, FL, responding to a 911 call from a neighbor who heard screams, break into the campus apartment of Ghanaian graduate student, Kofi Adu-Brempong. Clad in SWAT gear and ready to attack, they see the disabled doctoral student, sitting with a metal table leg in his hand and within a minute of entry, shoot the unarmed man in the face. Adu-Brempong, who because of childhood polio, needed a cane to walk, and had been suffering from mental illness, now has severe facial injuries, and is charged with resisting arrest. He is guarded outside his hospital door, his legs shackled together when going to the bathroom. The officer who shoots Kofi, and who had previously been caught cruising through town throwing eggs at residents of a Black neighborhood, is not suspended or fired. Student protests lead the administration to drop charges but calls for revoking SWAT-like teams on campus go unheard. Kofi’s shooting is not an isolated incident but part of an ongoing pattern of police brutality against Blacks and a stark reminder of the dangers of increasingly militarized campuses nationwide. In His Own Home came out of outrage by a small group of concerned community members committed to seeing social justice happen on a local level. This documentary is an educational and organizing tool, especially calling for our communities to be safe from violence by racist and over-armed police.

Social Justice
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Uncovering the Permian Climate Bomb

The fossil fuel industry is building a global threat in the oil fields of West Texas. Miguel Escoto, who has lived close to this region his whole life, witnesses the industry’s villainy for the first time by viewing oil and gas site emissions through optical gas imaging cameras, becoming a stand-in for a world that has yet to grasp the gravity of the Permian Climate Bomb.

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TripleF***

The spirit of a movement that sometimes reminds us of our young revolutionary self, who still believed that he:she could change the world. This green filmed documentary mirrors the global situation and the diversity of climate change related activism.6 continents, 3 dozen filmmakers, countless activists and seasoned scientists. It is not about just one person but about many who stand up. TripleF*** is a documentary on the global climate movement, containing material from six continents (North - and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Antarctica), filmed green by cooperating film teams on site. The topic of climate activism itself as a protagonist takes us on a global journey to activists' lives and forms a dialogue within. Why did so many young people became activists? What is life as an activist like, how do they deal with political stagnation, harsh criticism and even threats and why do they still continue? Very personal but not private - to protect the activists' privacy, sensitive topics are woven in as a fictional part. This is the first of 5 Episodes. In this episode, which also stands for itself as a midlength film, the history of climate change related activism is highlighted. In its core spirit of a holistic approach, the project is been realized similarly to its topic of the climate activists' movement: independent, global, green.

Climate
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Documentary

The Youth Climate Corps BC

In collaboration with communities across British Columbia, the Youth Climate Corps challenges what resilience looks like through youth led, locally designed, climate action initiatives.

Youth
Activism

Carbon Men Salvation: The Senator's Dilemma

Climate change is heating up the world at an accelerating rate, but Congress is frozen to action. Humanity is heading towards devastation; there is only one chance to change the future by traveling into the past. Brilliant climatologist student Anna Jones is researching a massive glacier in Antarctica that is on the verge of collapse. This disaster will drown coastal cities, trigger unprecedented climate refugee numbers and loss of life, while inciting wars. Anna’s father, Dan Jones, the newly elected Senator from New Jersey, is pivotal to the success or failure of a key climate bill. The vote is imminent. Powerful climate denier factions work against the necessary climate actions, even as the planet teeters on the prime tipping point where human behavior, science and legislation collide. Only Noah Poem, a time traveling scientist from the future, can help Anna Jones convince her climate doubting father to do the right thing. But time is running out as science fiction meets science fact. The fate of the human race hangs in the balance. One vote could save humanity.

Government
Climate
Activism

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