Empowering Communities for Climate and Energy Justice

In 2009, Jacqueline Patterson became the founding director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program. It was a role that Patterson, this year’s recipient of the Kleinman Center’s Carnot Prize, had expected to be short-lived; she’d stay on just long enough to get the program underway.

By the time she moved on 12 years later, she had made significant progress in raising her understanding of the connection between environmental damage and the lived experience in some of this country’s most impoverished and vulnerable communities. As an advocate for climate justice, she has worked to address the fact that environmental damage increases the economic and health burdens on disadvantaged communities and makes it more challenging to break the cycle of poverty and marginalization.

Today, Patterson serves as the Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project, where her work empowers communities of color on the front lines of climate change, ensuring they have the resources, tools, and leadership to amplify their voices in policymaking. Her efforts focus on making the clean energy transition a genuine opportunity for justice and equity.

Full Transcript

Andy Stone: Welcome to the Energy Policy Now podcast from the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. I’m Andy Stone. In 2009, Jacqui Patterson became the founding director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice program. It was a role that Jacqui, who’s this year’s recipient of the Kleinman Center’s Carnot Prize, had expected to be short-lived. She’d stay on just long enough to get the program underway.

By the time she did move on, 12 years later, she had made significant progress in raising understanding of the connection between environmental damage and the lived experience in some of the country’s most impoverished and vulnerable communities. As an advocate for climate justice, she worked to address the fact that environmental damage increases the economic and health burdens on disadvantaged communities and makes it more challenging to break the cycle of poverty and marginalization.

Today, Jacqui serves as the executive director of the Chisholm legacy project. In her role, she works to empower Black communities on the front lines of climate change, ensuring they have the resources, tools and leadership to amplify their voices in policy-making. Her efforts focus on making the clean energy transition a genuine opportunity for justice and equity. Jacqui, welcome to the podcast.

Jacqui Patterson: Thank you. It’s a pleasure.

Stone: And congratulations on being the recipient of this year’s Carnot Prize for distinguished contributions in the area of energy policy.

Patterson: Yeah, it’s an honor. And yeah, I appreciate the shoulders of the folks who had gotten it before. So I’m just deeply humbled.

Stone: We’re very happy to have you here, very happy that you received this year’s prize.

Patterson: Thank you.

Stone: So for over a decade, until 2021, you were the Director of the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice program, dealing with climate justice issues with frontline communities in this country. And there has been research that’s been conducted that found that race is the number one indicator of where a toxic facility is placed or located. And these toxic facilities include facilities that produce and consume large amounts of energy. Tell us about this connection between race and the location of polluting infrastructure in our country.

Patterson: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. There’s studies that also show that zip code is the number one indicator, and it just so happens that those zip codes are zip codes that are predominantly occupied by people of color, whether it’s black folks, Latino folks in particular, and also indigenous people.

And when we look at the origins of those types of statistics, it lies in everything from property values and how it’s cheaper to build a large landfill that takes up acres of property or otherwise—  other large facilities— in places that where the property values are lower. Secondly, that it’s about the political might of the people who are in those communities, and whether they are able to effectively push back against these types of facilities moving into the communities. Or if they’re in communities, and these facilities are polluting, getting them out of communities. So the political power to be able to affect that change is also something where there’s a racial difference in political power in communities. So those are a couple of the factors.

Stone: So today, you’re the executive director of the Chisholm Legacy Project, which is named after Shirley Chisholm, who’s the first Black Congresswoman in the United States. And the project’s goal is to ensure that communities of color that are front lines in terms of experiencing climate impacts have the tools that they need to participate in decision-making processes that shape the energy industry and our response to climate change going forward. How are these communities today underrepresented, and what are the tools that they need to ensure that their voices are heard?

Patterson: Yeah. So many ways. One, even when you look at— so, Shirley Chisholm being the first African American woman to run for Congress, she certainly paved the path for what we see as so many more women of color in Congress. But there’s still an extreme differential in terms of the number of women of color in Congress. And certainly, when you look at governorships, there’s never been a black woman governor, I don’t think ever. And so when we look at those types of offices— we recently did a report on public utilities commissions and public service commissions. And there are some places where— for example, in Mississippi, which is I think 37 percent African American, there’s never been an African American member of the Public Service Commission in the 80 year history of the Public Service Commission. Similar with places like Georgia, with a large black population, you don’t see representation. So just time and time again, you see where there’s this lack of representation in decision making and political office and otherwise.

Stone: You’ve pointed out in your work that not-for-profits, such as the Chisholm Legacy Project, are especially important in giving a voice to vulnerable communities of color. Could you explain why that’s so important?

Patterson: I don’t know exactly that, but there are many groups that are on the front lines of working with communities of color— black communities and otherwise— that are critical to being able to ensure that those communities have access to the resources that they need, whether it’s technical resources, financial resources, or whatever, to advance their own self determination. So there are groups that that serve as bridges to to those resources for communities that don’t even know these resources exist. And so that’s one of the roles that many organizations play, from the NAACP to United Methodist Women, to a lot of these organizations that have branches and chapters throughout the nation— are able to really engage communities and let them know what resources are available. So that’s certainly an important role.

Stone: One of the things that Chisholm has done specifically— you recently wrote a report. And the title of that report is Who Holds the Power?: Demystifying and Democratizing Public Utility Commissions. And Public Utility Commissions, or PUCs, are the state level regulators for gas and electric utilities. So in what ways do the decisions of the PUCs impact all communities, and communities of color in particular?

Patterson: Yeah, definitely. So I think about in Georgia, I believe it was, when the major utility company there, Georgia Power, was proposing to increase the solar-based generation to 20 megawatts, or something like that. And the Public Service Commission said, “No, we’d like to see 200 megawatts, minimally, in terms of— and so really holding utilities to a higher standard, is one example. In Mississippi, the Public Service Commission— at the behest of Brandon Presley, who was a commissioner and who worked very closely with frontline communities, and really had his ear to the needs and interests of frontline communities, and serving as a conduit for those needs, as all public commissioners should— he really insisted on a stronger mandate for Mississippi Power to have greater resources and investment in energy efficiency, so that we don’t need to use as much energy as we do use. And so that communities and households can actually save on their utility bills by having more efficient households. And so really holding those utilities to a higher standard in terms of serving the interests of frontline communities is a critical role of those commissioners and those commissions.

Stone: To take that a step further, I mean— so the Public Utility Commissions approve the rates that the utilities can charge to their customers, and how those rates are structured. So I would imagine that obviously has a big impact, particularly for households where, you know, meeting energy bills is quite a challenge. So the PUCs are notoriously technocratic, difficult to understand. I work in an area that’s very related to what they do, and I still find it often very confusing. So how is a person who’s not really familiar with this supposed to meaningfully engage? And that’s one of the things that Chisholm Legacy Project does, advocates for them so that they have the tools and the knowledge and the resources to engage. Is that correct?

Patterson: Yeah, exactly. Definitely. And even if someone knows how to engage, has the tools to engage, once you step into one of those proceedings, it can be very intimidating. Because those utilities, they will pay, you know, lawyers to really speak in a very highly— as you say, technocratic way. So as part of our training, we actually do mock proceedings so that people actually know what it feels like, and they don’t feel as blindsided when they get in there and experience that dynamic. So, yeah.

Stone: Those really are kind of David versus Goliath situations, as you mentioned, right?

Patterson: Definitely.

Stone: The corporations with very big financial interests come in with teams of lawyers. And how is a person off of the street, no matter what street it’s from, supposed to engage?

Patterson: Exactly. And so we really help them to understand that they hold the power in those proceedings and that they should stand strong. Like, no matter what legalese or technocratic language someone else’s is using, that it’s their opinion that matters the most. Not what someone’s reading off of some brief that they’ve written in some office somewhere. It’s their experience, as the people who are the rate payers, or people who are going to be impacted by our energy envelope. And so they feel certainly much more prepared to stand up in those situations.

Stone: Just a question along those lines. Most states have an Office of the Consumer Advocate. Do those offices adequately work on behalf of marginalized communities?

Patterson: They are notoriously under resourced. So they do as best they can, but as best they can with such few resources is pretty challenged, I would say.

Stone: So you’ve described the goal of what’s called “a deeper democracy.” And that’s one that’s capable of delivering environmental and climate justice. And I would imagine the energy transition is a critical vehicle for bringing that about. What is deeper democracy, if you could define it for us? And why is it essential, again, to delivering energy and climate justice?

Patterson: Yeah. Deeper democracy is, A, having representational governance. And so instead of having former company folks on the public utilities commission as an example, whose retirement comes from the profits of those companies and who still has relationships and bias towards speaking to the interest of the fossil fuel industry, we need to have the folks who are representing the interest of the public. Of the people, instead of the profiteers.

So that’s just an illustrative example. But when we think about zoning boards, when we think about mayors, city council members, we have to be thinking of ensuring that people that are there are, in the words of Shirley Chisholm, “Unbought and unbossed.” They are truly representing the interest of the people. So that’s that’s critical.

Also, even if you’re not sitting in elected office, having that relationship. So when I gave the example of Brandon Presley at the Public Service Commission in Mississippi, or folks like Tremaine Phillips, who used to be at the Public Service Commission I think in Michigan, and —  but it’s a shame that we can name the ones who are actually accountable to people. But those are illustrative examples of folks who go out of their way to be in relationship with and have their ear to the needs and interests of communities. And they do try their best to be to represent communities when they sit in those chairs and make those decisions.

So those are a few examples. And then making sure that, you know, we exercise our power to vote. So we wield that power as well, to ensure that we do have representational governance. And it’s critically important that we inform ourselves all down the ballot in terms of, what are the ballot measures and issues that are being brought there, and who is being put forward? And do they have the ear and the interest and the accountability to us as the public?

Stone: Moving here more into the direction of climate justice. This move for a deeper democracy has also been tied into the need to move away from an extractive economy, extracting resources. Can you tell us more? What is that connection there, and what is the alternative to an extractive economy that would deliver more justice?

Patterson: So, just taking an example of the privatization of critical human-rights-based things that we need, whether it’s water or education or energy— the privatization of each of those has meant that if I don’t have enough money to pay my bill, but yet, the person who is running the company is making upwards of $40 million a year, but I get cut off for not being able to pay my bill. I’m dependent on electricity for my respirator, and I literally have to pay the price of my own poverty with my life because I don’t have the electricity to run my respirator. I mean, that is the the antithesis of a system that is rooted in what we call “a solidarity economy”, which uplifts the importance of people. The importance of planet. As opposed to the importance of profit, which is really leading so much of our economy right now.

Stone: Into this now comes the whole discussion of “just transition”. By the time this podcast goes live, there will have been a prior podcast where I had a conversation with Kirsten Jenkins, who’s an academic from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. And we talked a lot about the just transition and the definition of it. And I find it interesting that in some of your writing, you also point out that there is some, let’s say, debate over what just transition means. And I’d like to just quote something that you said in a 2017 interview with Bill McKibben in Yes Magazine. I think that was Yes Magazine online. And you said the following.

You said, “There’s a lot of sensitivity around the use of this term.” And you said “It’s a concern when big greens and others are using the term and getting funded for using the term. It’s become the term du jour for foundations and those frontline communities become objectified.” Talk about that, if you wouldn’t mind, just transition within the context of the varying definitions that we’re just talking about.

Patterson: Yes, sure. I was at the meeting of the black trade unionists, and they were talking about the report that we actually put out as a NAACP called Coal Blooded: Putting Profits Before People.

Stone: “Coal Blooded.”

Patterson: Yes. And the United Mine Workers stood up and said, basically, you know, they take exception to that framing. And we’re like, “Oh, good. Good to see you, because we invited you to be a part of this black labor initiative on just transition.” And— because we feel like folks in labor should be defining what a just transition is in the context of moving from fossil fuels into the new energy economy, when they are on the front lines of being most impacted by that transition.

So we have a challenge when, whether it’s big greens or others, are using the term just transition and then laying out what just transition looks like, without actually being led by how the people who are most impacted by the transition are saying what Justice looks like in the context of that transition. And so we’re really trying to make sure that we’re being held to account in terms of the ways that we articulate what a just transition is, and that we’re being led by the people who are on the front lines as well. Yeah.

Stone: So this leads to the next question I wanted to bring up. And it’s the concept of intersectionality. And intersectionality, as I understand it, considers how various aspects of a person’s identity come together to influence their life experience, including the discrimination and/or privilege that they may experience in their lives. And you, in your work, in your writing with the Chisholm Legacy Project, have identified 15 areas in which individuals may be impacted by climate change and an economy based on resource extraction. And it’s interesting, because these impacts go beyond what might immediately and obviously come to mind for someone.

One area that struck me is mental health. And I deal with climate change all the time in my work in the energy system, and the two are kind of joined at the hip, right? And sometimes I just need to step away, because it gets overwhelming. Okay? It gets a little too dark at times. I don’t live in a frontline community, at least as far as I know.

Patterson: Yeah.

Stone: But how does the reality of climate change, in the experience of being a minority in a frontline community, impact mental health in these communities? And I just want to say one more thing. There is research from the American Psychiatric Association, a survey that was done, that showed that half of black people say that climate change impacts our mental health.

Patterson: So I think about folks who are like myself, being from Chicago, living now in Maryland. I think about growing up on the south side of Chicago, where I lived near the Dan Ryan Expressway, which is one of the biggest expressways in the country that is just— has so many polluting emissions coming from it being so highly trafficked. I lived near a landfill. I live within 10 miles of three coal fired power plants.

And I think about the challenges around kids who were in my school with asthma. One of the kids from my school passed from an asthma attack. You know, folks in our church with COPD. I don’t know what the early mortality rates could be from being in a place that it has so many toxins in the community. And so that’s on the driver side of the climate continuum.

And then on the other side, we always had floods in our basement. But I didn’t realize until I got to be an adult, how many— like, when I talk about that— how many people say the same thing. “Yeah, we had flooding our basement.” “Oh, we also had flooding.” But yet, I don’t know any white people who say that. Like—

Stone: The South Side of Chicago?

Patterson: South Side of Chicago. Yeah. And so we’re more likely to live in communities that are in flood plains. I also had terrible allergies growing up, and I assumed that it was something out there, you know, some plants that are native to the south side of Chicago, whatever. But I think it was because of molds. But that was never discussed at all. Never—

Stone: Mold from flooding?

Patterson: Mold from the constant chronic flooding that happened in the basement. So that the basement had to be just a mold factory down there. But I had no one ever, in my entire life, tied it to mold. But I’ve never had allergies anywhere else, except another place that I lived in that also had a mold issue. And so I’m just allergic to mold, you know.

 

But then I’m also— my mom is from Mississippi. And even though I don’t have that many— like, I’ve gone back to Mississippi and, you know—  but the family that was in Mississippi, we don’t really have— they’re not really there as much anymore. But— they’re Chicago. Some of the folks who are in Chicago came up to Chicago through the Great Migration. The folks who do still have relationships with folks in Mississippi talk about, whether it’s the tornados or the the disasters that happen, in terms of the chronic hurricanes that happened there—you know, I also lived in kind of a gangland situation, on the south side of Chicago as well.

So there’s all these different things that are going on there. And then you’re tied to a state where people are chronically being displaced, chronically passing away from these disasters. And so there’s these cumulative ways that climate change is weighing on you, just with factor after factor after factor. We talk about intersectionality. They all come together in our single lives. Audre Lorde, “There’s no such thing as a single issue struck struggle, because we don’t live single issue lives.” And the issues in our lives are so compounded in terms of negative risk and impact that the resilience that folks have from having been brought over, like, as cargo in ships. To be objectified, to be this enslaved labor that built this country. To being corralled into living into certain places that have the most risk for the most negative impact. To then have all of that continue to kind of come together as layers of impact. The fact that people are sane and able to work and, you know, still function, is a sheer testament to resilience.

Stone: That’s a lot of weight.

Patterson: Yeah.

Stone: It’s a lot of weight.

Patterson: Yeah.

Stone: Jacqui, in that same report, which was titled From Adversity to Advancement, you also talked about 45 Black-led climate justice solutions. And it’s amazing. There are literally hundreds of examples that you give of people from communities working on climate justice across a range of issues. Could you take one or two that stand out to you, and illustrate for us what’s going on?

Patterson: There’s an adage that says that people who are closest to the problem are most able to design the solution. And the brilliance, the innovation of Black leadership as it relates to climate justice is really a living testament to that fact. I think about being in Los Angeles, and working with Karen Earl, who’s the CEO of the Jenesse Center for Domestic Violence Prevention and Intervention. And she talked about the ways that women are trapped into these abusive relationships because of financial challenges.

So we were talking with her about the possibility of doing a solar installation on her transitional housing. She says that energy is their highest bill. And if they could not have that bill, then they can repurpose that funds to go into— they have to turn away people because of the number of women who find themselves in abusive situations. And so they were able to go from that state of having women coming through there because of their financial challenges, to partnering with groups like Homeboy Industries— which is in LA, and it works with people who are formerly part of gangs to train them on energy efficiency and clean energy installations— as well as GRID Alternatives, which also trains volunteers to do solar installation.

And so they were able to do training for seven women who are residents for the transitional housing, to get up on their own roof at the transitional housing and install their solar. And then those women became trained to be a part of the solar industry. So they all were able to move out of the transitional housing, making space for other folks to come through. And now they are living independently, financial independence. They don’t even have to look back in terms of being in a relationship with their abuser. And they are also saving the planet from the kilowatt hours of energy that would have been produced by fossil fuel industry, by creating this.

Stone: So there’s a resource for freedom, in a sense.

Patterson: Yes, exactly. And, you know, saving themselves and saving the planet. And so it’s really what we call multi-solving models. And that intersectionality around women’s rights, around economic opportunity and around environmental stewardship is the type of innovations that are necessary when we have kind of the converging crises that we see out here in society. So that’s a good illustrative example.

Stone: So I’d like to ask you a question that’s close to home here in Philadelphia. In 2019, there was a refinery in Philadelphia called Philadelphia Energy Solutions. The largest refinery of oil products, oil and gasoline and other fuels, on the East Coast. And it literally blew up in the summer of 2019. Equipment was not properly maintained, is my understanding. And there you have it. The refinery is huge. It is as large as the whole center of the city of Philadelphia, although it’s on the south side of the city, outside of the center. And it is surrounded by these classic, underserved, frontline communities.

After that explosion of the refinery, there was quite a debate on what would happen with the site in the city. The owner of the refinery, as well as some of the labor unions, pushed to have the refinery repaired and reopened, because so many jobs— at least that’s the union perspective—so many jobs depended upon it.

Ultimately, what happened is a company called Hilco Redevelopment Partners— I think they’ve since changed their name, but that’s the name at the time— from Chicago, specializes in repurposing industrial sites, purchased the property. And the plan at this point is to use that site as a logistics hub—it’s well connected by the river, by railways, by highways— as well as build a bio Life Sciences Center. One of the challenges here is, logistics hubs don’t require as many workers as a refinery does. And life sciences require people with very specific skills. I would imagine many of them would be coming from other parts of the city.

What do you do when you have these legacy fossil-fuel-related infrastructures where communities rely on those same places for employment, but they’re also the same facilities that are polluting the air and the water in that same community? How do you juggle these competing interests, it sounds like?

Patterson: Yeah. So, I think about the examples of places where the community was actually involved in the redevelopment. And that the redevelopment actually was not only something that was in resonance with the interests of the community, but also created jobs that communities held. A lot of times with these polluting facilities, too often, the folks who work there don’t even live in the community. So that’s one thing. And so it’s kind of the concept of the jobs, often, as much as it’s the reality of the jobs. And so I think of examples like the Navajo Generating Station, which, after it shut down—

Stone: That was a coal plant, right?

Patterson: That was a coal plant, uh-huh. And after it shut down, the— I think it was Native Renewables and others— then were able to get together and develop an entire solar field on that property. And so it was able to continue to generate energy, but doing it in a way that was, again, in resonance with the planet and the needs of the planet. So I think of opportunities like that.

I think about the Fisk and Crawford coal-fired power plants on the south side of Chicago. The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization and PERRO and others in that area then worked together with the city to say, “Okay, how are we going to redevelop this area?” And they were able to come to a plan that would actually benefit the community directly and not be harmful to the community. Because even the logistics center, the question is, “How many trucks? How many ships?” I mean, we know that there’s negative health impacts of the shipping channel. And definitely of having thousands of trucks pass through, what often happens with logistics centers.

I think about the Crenshaw Rising, where the community came together after the Crenshaw mall closed down. And the community came together, they were able to raise $25 million in capital. So it’s not a matter of something where you’re talking about giving something away. Actually, communities can raise capital if given the opportunity. And so then it became— the idea was to develop a multi purpose for the property that includes some land preservation, some job opportunities, some industry. But not industry as in polluting industry. Some housing. Some mixed use— real mixed use property that is based on principles of sustainability.

People United for Sustainable Housing in Buffalo, New York, they have a real community-driven approach to land development there. Right now in Baltimore, there’s like 13,000 vacant houses and 21,000 vacant lots there. And they’re really having a community-driven process to determine what’s going to happen there. Now, the governor has allocated $1.3 billion that’s in the hands of the people to redevelop those lands. And so that’s the approach that we need to be thinking about, as we as we shift away from the fossil fuel economy and these large, polluting facilities.

Stone: That the communities have a say in what’s going to be in their midst.

Stone: Jacqui, thanks for talking.

Patterson: My pleasure. Thanks for listening.