
Originally published at ilsr.org.
Jacqui Patterson, the director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program, joined ILSR co-founder and Waste to Wealth initiative researcher Neil Seldman and ILSR’s Communications Manager Nick Stumo-Langer for the latest edition of our Building Local Power podcast.

Jacqui joins ILSR staffers in the Washington D.C. office.
The discussion centers on the practical implications of environmental justice and how she balances her work at a national non-profit with the needs of 2200 branches and local chapters of the NAACP. The trio also delves into the difficulties facing local communities that attempt to make local ownership of energy resources a reality. Finally, Jacqui explains how her work intersects with a number of other activist spaces including organizing around women’s issues and racial justice in order to create a healthier environment and a vibrant local community.
“[I]t’s not as if I can sit here and say that we know the entire nation and every municipality, what they have and don’t have. But we know starting with the ones we’re working with that actually have a vision of what they want to do and we kind of build out from there,” says Jacqui Patterson, Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program.
Podcast (Building Local Power Podcast Episode #38): Play in new window | Download
Like this episode? Please help us reach a wider audience by rating Building Local Power on iTunes or wherever you find your podcasts. And please become a subscriber!
If you have show ideas or comments, please email us at info@ilsr.org. Also, join the conversation by talking about #BuildingLocalPower on Twitter and Facebook!
Related Resources:
- NAACP’s Coal Blooded Report Resource Page — This report and research product is a joint production of the NAACP, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and lead author Adrian Wilson. This resource page includes an action toolkit that serves as a plan of action for local NAACP units to effect change.
- Beyond Sharing: How Communities Can Take Ownership of Renewable PowerReport — “The electric utility monopoly is breaking up, but will renewable energy become another form of wealth extraction or will community renewable energy enable communities to capture their renewable power?”
- NAACP’s Just Energy Policies & Practices — “We believe everyone has a right to safe and affordable energy.” That’s the mission of the NAACP’s Environmental Justice program that our guest Jacqui Patterson had a hand in building.
- Local Solar Power: Red Plus Blue Makes a Green Tea Party – Episode 24 of the Building Local Power podcast — This interview with Tea Party co-founder Debbie Dooley revolves around the idea of energy organizing across partisan boundaries. Clean power knows no party bounds, especially in the American southeast.
- Reading & Exploring Recommendations:
Our guest recommended the following items:
- Energy Democracy: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions by Denise Fairchild, Al Weinrub, & Diego Angarita Horowitz
- Energy Justice Network [website]
- Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People by NAACP
If you missed our previous episodes make sure to bookmark our Building Local Power Podcast Homepage. Please give us a review and rating on iTunes or wherever you subscribe to podcasts
Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS
Audio Credit: Funk Interlude by Dysfunction_AL Ft: Fourstones – Scomber (Bonus Track). Copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license.
Follow the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on Twitter and Facebook and, for monthly updates on our work, sign-up for our ILSR general newsletter.
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
