"We try really hard to not only make sure that were centered on the matriarchal, but that we are willing to engage in self-transformation. To be introspective and to challenge each other and ourselves; to be not only accountable to each other but to be tender and kind. That may sound like the soft stuff, but thats hard stuff when you think about how colonized weve been and what our education has prepared us to be."
Elizabeth C. Yeampierre is an American attorney and environmental and climate justice leader. She is the executive director of UPROSE, Brooklyn's oldest Latino community-based organization.
"When I first came into the environmental justice movement, it felt very patriarchal. And it felt patriarchal coming from women, too, where it was competitive and everybody was sort of jousting to be at the front of the room and get all the shine. It doesnt feel the same in the climate justice space. Everyone shares shine. Everybody shares leadership."
"Today, companies in the Climate Leadership Council—BP, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips—are going into the Global South to provide resources to these communities so that they can engage in sequestration. To me, thats green colonialism. You basically have these companies that are responsible for creating the conditions the Global South is enduring now benefiting from this."
"New York City is like the bastion of capitalism and patriarchy."
"Were the descendants of enslavement and colonization, we are people who come from people whove always honored Mother Earth. This climate justice work is just an extension of us honoring those traditions."
"Its really important that the movement be intergenerational."
"Another example of green colonialism is what happens to a community when you have invested in environmental amenities, like doubling the amount of open space, expanding the median on Fourth Avenue, reducing emissions—doing all the things to make the community more environmentally sound. All of a sudden the community cant afford to live here anymore. The people that benefit are not [from] our community."