Don’t Just Go Green...Go Just: The Fight for Environmental Justice with Dr. Bruce Strouble

In this episode of The Environmental Justice Lab, Dr. Joseph is joined by scholar, strategist, and activist Dr. Bruce Strouble, the founder of Citizens for a Sustainable Future and author of By Any Dreams Necessary - Anti-Racist Strategies for Sustainability, Resilience, and Environmental Justice in African-American Communities.

Dr. Strouble's expertise made for a dynamic conversation about what it really takes to build grassroots environmental power in Black communities. Dr. Strouble brings deep insight into how environmental injustice intersects with political disempowerment, economic inequality, and systemic neglect, particularly in the South. From democracy to youth organizing, he shares stories from the field and hard-earned lessons about community-driven change.

They dive into:
⚡ Why climate solutions often leave Black communities behind
🗳️ How local organizing and political literacy can shift power
🌱 What true sustainability means in communities that have been chronically under-resourced
💡 And why it’s time for the environmental movement to center justice

This episode calls us to rethink how we talk about “green” policy and who’s shaping the conversation. If you care about equity, grassroots organizing, and real solutions that empower the most affected, this is an episode you can’t miss.

🎧 Tune in to hear how Dr. Strouble is flipping the script and building a future rooted in justice, power, and people.

Connect with Dr. Bruce Strouble
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucestroublephd/ 
https://www.facebook.com/ProfessaStrouble/
https://www.instagram.com/dr_strouble/
https://twitter.com/ProfesaStrouble
[e-mail]
https://www.brucestroublejr.com

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [e-mail]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community: 
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: [e-mail]

Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to the Environmental Justice Lab podcast. I am your host,
Doctor Lives and Joseph. Thank you so much for joining
us and with us today. I have a very special
guest straight from Florida, USA, doctor Bruce Strubel. He has
his PhD in public policy as master's bachelor's in history.

(00:43):
He is an educator, an activist, an author, sustainability resilience professional.
He does all those things and he is the author
of the book By Any Dreams Necessary, Anti Racist Strategies
for Sustainability, Resilience and Environmental Justice in African American Communities.

(01:04):
He teaches at his local community colleges and I think
it fam you also, yes, well, sorry fam you Florida
A and M University and he is with us today.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
How you doing, sir, I'm doing great honor to be here, brother,
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
No, we appreciate you being here. Thank you so much
for joining us, and we got so much to talk about.
If you do work on environmental justice in African Commerican communities,
then I know you're a very busy person and you
already know. And if you've been watching the news, especially
in America, you know it's a lot going on over here,

(01:42):
and so I'm happy to have him with us, the
public policy expert that he is, to help us understand
and just figure out what's going on in this whole
policy space, particularly as it relates to environmental justice. So
let's start here. What are some of the things that
you've seen either change or be undone or be undermined

(02:12):
since the latest administration came into office as a released
environmental justice?

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Absolutely absolutely, thank you and again everyone, doctor Bruce Strobel.
And this is always a good place to start because
I always talk about the cylical nature of racism and
oppression and the various forms of oppression that people face
in our society. And what happens often is, I explain,
it is that as we believe we are making progress,

(02:38):
that progress often triggers our opponents to fight back harder
because they see any progress made by oppressed communities as
their community being oppressed or themselves losing. So in turn,
what they do is, with that backlash, we normally see
any rights gain, human rights, any justice initiatives, any initiatives

(02:58):
to diversify or themocratize our society and make it more
equitable for everyone, they roll that back. And we're going
through that Again, We've seen this happen multiple times in
American history, particularly after the American Civil War. You go
into the Black Codes, which all those rights to everyone got,
even the forty acres and the mule that gets taken back. Right,
And I'm going to connect this to environmental justice in

(03:19):
a second. Right after the reconstruction era, you see Jim
Crow and it kind of is always in this pushing
pull between democracy and racism, white supremacy in our society.
And what happens is here we are now in twenty
twenty five, and we're seeing a full fledged backlash against

(03:42):
the progress that communities of color and oppress people and
people who want to protect a planet and environment have
been making over the past twenty years. And this was
incremental progress. It wasn't like we had one sweeping victory.
But anything from NIPA being put in place, the National
Environmental Policy, to the Clean Air Act, clean Water Protections,

(04:03):
Justice forty, a lot of the legislation that President Biden
and his administration brought through. We're seeing all that roll
back under the auspice of getting rid of diversity, equity,
and inclusion. But what's hidden in a lot of those
executive orders that President Trump was to put forth was
a lot of rollbacks of the basic protections of our

(04:26):
most vulnerable communities. And it's really going to be if
it's left unchecked, the death of a resilience movement in
the United States, where we won't be able to well,
there won't be a policy support or a federal administrative
support of making sure that our communities are resilient while
we are ungougled. You know, the climate crisis is unfurling

(04:48):
right in front of our eyes, so we're all experiencing it.
We've been making the necessary strides to build up resilience
in our communities, particularly focusing on those most vulnerable who've
been placed in harm's way, and we see all that
being roll back. And I think that started day one
when Trump was in office. You saw a lot of
those executive orders he was just signing, and we later

(05:08):
learned that he wasn't even really too keen to what
was inside of him. This was all part of that
project twenty twenty five destabilize and get rid of government
protections for people who need them, because it renders those
people more vulnerable. More vulnerable people are easily or more
easy to manipulate and isolate politically and oppress. So that's

(05:31):
what we're seeing happening right now as we speak. And
while every aspect of it may not get the media coverage.
We might be focused on the ice raids, but all
there's an intersection between all these activities and it's all
going to come down on our communities if we don't
stand up to it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
No, I completely agree. And you made a lot of
great points, and I want to really dig into each
of them one by when we're going to come back
to the EJ, come back to the inner sectionality, the
intersectional nature of some of these issues that we're seeing.
You made a point, first of all, if you're listening carefully,
you can hear the history coming from this man. I mean,
he is a professor and it's coming out and we're

(06:12):
going to be blessed by all he has to share.
When you talked earlier about after the Civil War, you
made a comment about democracy and racism and rollbacks and
rights and protections and things of that nature being withheld.
Although the civil rights movement and Civil War itself, as

(06:35):
it freed the slaves, was meant to ensure that we
all had those rights. Do you see connections or disconnections
between things like democracy and the kind of policies that
we're seeing. And you mentioned racism, the different ways that
that manifests itself in our society.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
How do you put all that together?

Speaker 1 (06:56):
How do you see those things interacting and intersecting to
create these constitutions that we see right now?

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Absolutely so, again, it's push pull right democracy the way
I vision and I don't believe, and people will disagree
with me on this, but I don't believe that America,
the United States, has achieved democracy. I think it's an
aspiration that people have set out towards, and we start
moving towards it, and then something will pull us backwards.
But when you have a democracy, that means that people's

(07:25):
basic human rights are protected, and that you also have
free and fair elections with justice and due process and
all those values that we uphold in a democratic situation.
But what happens is people have throughout the history of
the United States and throughout much of Western society, they
try to isolate it and have democracy only for certain

(07:46):
groups of people, and then they also will use democracy
to pacify the masses, limited democracy to pacify people. When
that is getting to a boiling point. So you look
at basic human rights such as the freedom in autonomy
over your body, and we go back to the American
Civil War and the insto this leading up into that conflict,

(08:07):
and it's basically you know that in the South part
of the United States, there's so many uprisings, there's so
much commotion going on that it starts this mass movement
that we got to do something about this, and it
allows for rights to be doled out like Okay, we'll
give you some rights, but not full inclusion into the

(08:29):
democracy or into this governing system. You get limited inclusion,
and this leads people in a situation where those rights
could be taken back. So I think the connection is
that there's this kind of dances happening in the country itself.
The United States has been reluctant to fully move towards

(08:50):
a truly democratic society. People have talked about it, people
have used it as a political football to score political points,
as Malcolm X would say, like they would use black
people as their political football order to move their policy along.
But they just have always stopped short of fully committing
to making sure that everyone is equally involved in our society.

(09:13):
And then when we think about the principle of environmental justice,
which is the meaningful involvement of all people airr regardless
of race, their occupation, of their natural I'm sorry, of
their national origin, or any disability, they have the right
to participate in how environmental decisions are made. Right, So

(09:34):
what we're talking about is democratizing the environment. And we
could look right at those first executive orders and see
they're like illegal DEI. That's what the administration caught it.
They got rid of all of Biden's executive orders, which
we're trying to push forward on making sure that people
who look like me, women, disabled people, children are all

(09:56):
being equitably protected in our environmental policy. So when you
when you say that's illegal, you want to roll that back,
that's a waste, that's wasteful spending. Then you're telling me
you do not value the inclusion of all people in
decision making, which at its fundamental core is what we
mean by democracy.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
So you connect the DEI rollbacks to environmental justice specifically
because you're saying that in order to have environmental justice,
you have to have full inclusion of everyone, and d
I was doing that, and of course d I was
for corporations, for universities, for other institutions. But you still

(10:37):
think that principle, if it's pulled back, will affect the
environmental protection that we're trying to seek. It will affect
all the things we're trying to accomplish in this movement,
and so to pull it back out there is essentially
to pull it back here as well, and to prevent
us from moving forward.

Speaker 2 (10:55):
Absolutely. And even when you look at those executive orders,
even the ones that we're talking about de I, they
were you know, they they made it about d I
because that became the buzzword, even going back to starting
with Governor DeSantis down here in Florida. But really, when
you start to look at some of the policies that
got pulled back under that that catch all phrase d
I because it didn't matter what they called it. But

(11:17):
then you see there's environmental justice being wrapped up in there.
And if those two were to be separated, we could
have discussions about the the effectiveness of DEI approaches, But
when you just wrap everything up in it, that make
sure that people are included. For example, a DEI practice
would be if Noah's giving out a grant or if

(11:39):
the EPA has a grant that they're going to make
sure that the review panel reflects the communities that are
going to be benefiting from the services, because I've sat
on those review pans where I've been the only black
person there and they're getting ready to dole out hundreds
of millions of dollars and they're like, oh, let's give
it to this university. And the university is, you know,

(12:00):
all white men who are going to be going into
communities telling people about environmental justice, people who have no
history in the environmental justice movement. So that's where the diversity,
equity and inclusion principle, or they call it jet justice equity,
diversity and inclusion. You'll see that when you start to
infuse those principles into your decision making and you say, well,

(12:22):
we want to make sure a certain percentage of this money.
That's what Justice forty was right. We want to make
sure a certain percentage of this funding. We want to
make sure that the people who are represented in the
decision making that we're inclusive. And you start to embed
those practices, over time, you start to get more just
and equitable decision making. So these are the things that
got rolled back immediately. This was like the front line

(12:43):
of what was cut down from the administration. So again,
I'm saying that those practices are what it takes to
move us towards democracy, and when you wipe those out,
you are sending us back towards the opposite extreme, which
is the oppression and racist that we've been fighting against.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
And So from your perspective, do you think that that
rollback was I don't want to say the worst part
of it, but with that the critical piece that is
hindering us from pursuing environmental justice. Now, do you see
something else that has been done or hasn't been done
that's kind of undercutting our efforts even more? Like, how

(13:23):
do you see and how do you imagine the ways
in which this current administration is operating that's really just
hamstringing the movement.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Man. So it's a critical element, but I wouldn't say
it's the only piece of this attack that we're facing.
A lot of the time, I'm talking with organizers from
all over the country. In fact, earlier I was on
the call with some organized from San Diego and from
Denver today and I was talking to Latino organizers. They're
having trouble getting people to meetings because they're scared to

(13:56):
come out because of the raids. For example, right, oh wow.
Other organizations they've had all their funding taken away, so
they've had to do massive layoffs. They're just trying to
keep the organization together. And it's just one of those
things where you transition from just being solely grassroots and
the government saying, here, sign this contract with us, and
you know, will provide you funding to do your work,

(14:18):
and you develop a dependency on that, and now you've
brought on all this staff, you've hired all these community members,
and then the government retroactively goes back and says, oh, yeah,
that grant and contract we signed with you, we're not
gonna honor that. That's crazy, like that's you know, like
so it's a betrayal and it uproots the whole movement.
And then it puts community organizers in a bad position

(14:40):
because I've been out here saying like, hey, I got
this funding, we could do this work, Come work with me.
I could give you a job, leave whatever job you
had before and bring your skills here. And now it's
been upended, and it's just it's caused a shock for
the environmental justice movement, and I think something when it
was initially happening, something I appreciated that doctor Bob Bullert

(15:03):
said is that the environmental justice movement has started in
the grassroots, and we have to stay true to our
grassroots efforts or else we end up in these situations
where now people could tell us if you use the
word environmental justice, we're gonna cut your funding and take
away your nonprofit status. So it's just got everyone back
on their heels. But I just last week I was

(15:24):
at the Southeastern Environmental Justice Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, led
by the Harambe House and doctor Mildred McLain and all
the people there from all over the Southeast. Everyone is
still ready to fight, Everyone is still committed. So just
shaken but not stopped. I think everybody just got shook
up and disoriented. But we are reorganizing and getting ready

(15:47):
to push back. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, no, it's exciting to hear.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
I want to talk more about how so you made
that point about letting you know organizers people being afraid
to come out because of ice rays. That's obviously what
we would considered to be immigration discussion. Obviously there's discussions
about criminal justice and criminal justice reform. But just talking
to you now and thinking about something that we've been discussing,
is clear these things all intersect, that they're all connected together.

(16:15):
Can you help us make those connections more clearly. So
we're talking about immigration reform and ice rays, We're talking
about criminal justice and racial justice. We're talking about environmental justice,
We're talking about DEI, We're talking about all these different things.
How are they connected to this push for environmental justice?

Speaker 2 (16:35):
So I think at the centerpiece of this you have
land use decisions, right, and then you have decisions about
people's bodies. So when we're talking about people who work
on the land directly, people who live in communities that
are most vulnerable are the most exposed, those frontline communities.
These are in many times the same people who are

(16:58):
the most likely to be victimized by other oppressive systems. So,
whether that's our unjust immigration policies, whether that is as
you just mentioned, uh, the mass incarceration efforts, it's people
coming from those same communities that are being impacted, whether
it's our indigenous brothers and systems who have also been

(17:19):
moved removed from land that they had ancestral ties to
through this kind of colonial settlism UH settler colonialism process.
So UH. And then are black and brown communities across
the nation which are continuously being what my mentor HUBERTA.
Jackson Luman called serial force displacement, where we've been just

(17:40):
continuously moving people over time, disrupting and uprooting communities. Those
are the areas those people who are victimized by these
oppressive systems. Those are the areas where you're going to
have the highest environmental degradation and the most pollution and
toxic emissions taking place. Because I think, ultimately with the

(18:01):
research shows is that those are the pass of least resistance.
You could dump your nitrogen oxide there, you could dump
nitrogen into the water supply. There are lead in the
water or in the school water there. You could build
your plant right next to a school or a park
in those communities because the people don't have the political

(18:23):
ties and the voting power to stop you. And the
reason why is because they've been systematically disenfranchised for quite
some time. So this is how these decisions are being made.
We look no further than Jackson, Mississippi, where once the
people start organizing, we see the government will come in

(18:45):
the state government came in and superseded the local government.
I think they were able to eventually overturn that. But
that's just the kind of struggle that we are constantly
rooted in, and it transcends from local, state to the
federal level, and now we're seeing it at all levels
of government across the country.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Okay, So I mean, if all that's going on, then
I guess from your perspective, what's the response then, because
I imagine we can't do everything all at once, and
I imagine that as you speak to people across the
country who have varying degrees of environmental injustice happening in

(19:24):
the community, they have very specific issues that they're trying
to help that you're trying to get your advice on
to help them overcome.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
So what we're we going to do? I need to know.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
I got you. So this is where I'm trying to address,
and by any dreams necessary, my book is Anti Racist
Strategies because I'm saying we have to comeback racism as
we encounter it wherever we are. So the crux of
this is that it's a movement that everyone could participate in,
and you don't necessarily have to get out in be
a tree hugger like me to do so, or go

(20:02):
out and plant trees, or go out to the protests.
But in your line of work, it's the decision making
that we do in your community. Is the type of
organizing that you do that is challenging some aspect of
the system. Now, eventually we do have to coalesce, we
have to build stronger networks between our organizations. But at
the basic unit, we should be organizing in our local

(20:24):
communities with people who want to see change and addressing
the issues as they exist in our community. So if
there is a and there are political solutions, and then
there are also community based solutions, and you could pick
what's appropriate for your specific situation. So in my book,
I talk about various political options that we could consider,

(20:44):
some of them more feasible than others, depending on what
we're able to enact at either a local, state or
federal level. Like we might not be able to get
some things through a Republican Congress right now, but we
might be able to see that change twenty twenty six
to twenty twenty eight if voting is still option, which
I hope I'm hopeful that it is. But then I
also advocate for people to organize politically at the local level,

(21:07):
and I think that's become more popular in the last decade.
But I want to see local elections getting the same
amount of attention that we give our federal elections because
you can have You can want to get rid of
the Donald Trump in the White House, but you have
a Donald Trump right there on your city council who
you ignoring, and they're making decisions that are equally as harmful.

(21:27):
You can have a Donald Trump on your school board
that's diverting all your funding from your public schools to
private education, and it puts us right back in the
same situation. So you asked, what do we do organize
at the local level? And between those organizations, we need
to form networks, and then we need to start catalog
and who's working on what, sharing ideas, sharing resources, setting

(21:49):
collective goals, having regional summits, and it's no longer could
be about people just getting together to talk and grandstand
and give fancy speeches. We need to know what work
is going to be done, what are the goals, what
are the objectives, what outcomes are we pursuing, and how
are we progressing on them. And when we have people
who are calling themselves leaders in our community, let's start

(22:11):
assessing them, like, how did you move the metrics when
you got into your position at this organization or when
you were at this church and y'all got involved in
this movement? This was the situation. It's been ten fifteen
years and things have only gotten worse. Let's get somebody
else a chance to or let's take a different strategy.
But I think it's a matter of starting us to

(22:33):
I think Marcus Garvey would say, and I'm paraphrasing, but
you know, we are not We are out organized in
many situations. That seems to be one of the significant
weaknesses on our side is that. And of course it's
hard to organize in these conditions, but it's a necessary
sacrifice we're gonna have to make. You're gonna have to
have allies who you don't perfectly agree with or get

(22:56):
along with, but we're gonna have to find ways to
work together to a dress problems that are immediate to
us and then be willing to support, educate, and share
resources with people that help address some of the larger challenges. So, yeah,
I think that is the rout of how we start
to dig our way out of this hole they're trying
to push us into.

Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
No, that's great, and I completely agree to. I mean,
there's always strengthen numbers, to strengthen organizations and communities, building
those coalitions and demonstrating the influence that's possible and present
when all that happens. I wonder now that we're talking
about it, about what we believe is really the way

(23:38):
forward as we look back on how things have been
for the last.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
I would say two or three years, because there was a.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Lot of excitement right around the things that Biden's administration
was doing the you know, the Office of Environmental Justice.
I remember when his administration combined the Office of Environmental
Justice with the Civil Rights Office, had a big office,
three billion dollars, hundreds of new staff, and there was
a lot of excitement behind some of his executive action

(24:07):
toward environment Jesse. He had a couple of environmentally justice
oriented executive orders. People are really you know, celebrating them,
and like you said, we kind of built some of
the infrastructure on that with an understanding that's going to
be the way that we move forward.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Was that a mistake?

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Man?

Speaker 2 (24:28):
With hindsight? I could say we may have put too
much trust in a system that we didn't have enough
control over. And I'm guilty of this as well, So
I'm not saying anybody anyone did this alone, but yeah,
when we look at what happened, we built our infrastructure

(24:50):
on an unstable foundation, which is the American political system,
and I think it's important to retain an element that
is strictly grassroots at all times. That's not to say
that we can't build with externally supported infrastructure, but we
have to do that while remember we have to learn

(25:11):
from this right now, right when we go forward. We
have to if this ever becomes a situation again where
we got federal support for what we're doing, we cannot
give up our autonomy and our ability to operate in
the grassroots while trying to move forward, because look at
the consequences, right, You can have the rug pulled out
from under you like we just had collectively across our movement,

(25:33):
and it's unsettling. It breaks trust, it causes people to suffer,
and I think we should go into these situations moving
forward expecting that when that help is coming, an election
could simply change everything. So you have to keep you know,
if you're a chess player, you can't just depend on
one piece to get everything done for you. You could

(25:55):
use that piece, but you keep you you keep your
pond structure together while you you position your queen and
your bishops. So all the chess players that get that,
you don't play anything.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
About yeah, yeah, no. Because I was thinking about this.
I was reading this book by doctor Pellow called Critical
Environmental Justice Studies, and he makes this, He makes this
point which I hadn't thought about, and I'm curious to
get your perspective on this.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
He says, you know.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
One thing that he wants organizations to do is to
find ways to operate autonomously, because he believes that the
system itself, the state system, the federal system, was never
designed to support and uplift the marginalized in our communities.

(26:44):
It was set up and designed to support you know,
wealthy landowners, uh, well educated, you know, plantation owner, slaveholders.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
This is how the.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
System was structured and set up, and it always operated
with racist, sexist intentions, is how he frames it. And
so to, in his words, to partner with that system,
we'd be setting yourself up.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Now.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
I don't know if I fully agree with that because
I think things have changed. But I wonder what you're thought,
as someone who does history, who teaches history, particularly American history, Like,
what is your perspective on the idea of you and
your organization partnering with the US government, with the state
government in Florida especially, to try to push the issues

(27:38):
that you know, those structures and those institutions would not
support on their own, They wouldn't be interested in that
without something getting gained from your support and from your organization.
How would you think that through and what would your
response be to that kind of thinking that we need
to just be separate from those I.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Hear that in our respect that and as a critical race,
there is I fundamentally agree that the system itself is
orientated to create the results that we're getting. With that said,
the infrastructure that is in place of our governing bodies
in the state of Florida, the United States, it could

(28:21):
be manipulated. It could be utilized to siphon off benefits
for people in need, and we've seen that happen time
and time again. It can be used as an instrument
to hold back another oppressive force. However, there's always that
interest convergence with that you know that often is to
some other person's benefit. But I think as a means

(28:42):
of survival, to get to that point where we could
be fully autonomous, we have to use every tool and
resource available to us while also remaining conscious that you know,
this is a double as sword and while I'm using it,
it could still cut me. So I don't think we're
in a position we're of survival where we could just

(29:03):
say we're going to fully go off on our own.
And if I'm wrong on this one, then you know
I would be happy about it. But I just don't
my assessment, we're not in that position to say we
could go fully off independent on our own with no
attachment to the governing infrastructure in place like it just
doesn't seem realistic to me, and I could just be
jaded from my experiences. But if there are examples, I

(29:27):
know normally when people are talking like that, kind of
like that separatist ideology, it's going to require you to
leave the country completely, and I still think you would
run into problems. So we need a Ford operating base
and if any resources that you could bring down from
federal institutions when they're acting in our favor, even if
there's with ulterior motives, as long as we could stay

(29:49):
clear on our direction and our goals, we should use
whatever resources are available to us. And I might be
in the minority on that one. I don't know that
everyone shares that opinion, but I'm just so committed to
progress that I'm willing to take resources as long as
I could direct them to help help the people. And

(30:10):
I recognize the consequences of that, but I'm looking at
the consequences of the people being completely without and I've
seen where that has gotten this as well. And I
think when you do a cost benefit analysis of those
two situations, I think using whatever resources are available to
make sure that we're surviving and getting to the next
step and making progress, I think it the end is worth.

(30:32):
The end justifies the means.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Let me ask you a policy question. I want to
lean on your on your on your policy background. I
made the argument last year, by this time last year,
when the executive orders were coming out of the Biden administration,
that while they sounded good and I read them and
talked about them on the podcast, they were great, they
were completely unsustainable because there weren't any laws in place.

(30:59):
I've noticed that a lot of presidents they come in,
they have their agenda, and they run the executive order route,
and it feels like that's the easiest thing to undo
if you're no longer in office. And so I wonder,
from your perspective, from a policy perspective, what would be

(31:21):
the best approach policy wise to create an environment where
we can sustainably fight for these initiatives for this justice
work across the country confidently.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Man. So that's a great question because it kind of
goes back to what I was just saying that if
I put myself in Biden shoes and I'm in I
got a hostile Congress, I have limited political capital, but
people are an immediate need. I too, would probably start
off leading with executive orders while then not try to
work through some you know, he tried to work through

(31:59):
his Build Back Better and other policies to come along
with that. But you know, you've got to navigate that
political labyrinith and you have a recalcitrant Republican Party at
that time, which is hell bent on stopping any idea
of progress that you're trying to make. So it's unlikely

(32:19):
that he would have been able to get anything through
the House, so you go the you know, something's better
than nothing. We get these executive orders understanding that you're
going to have to win more elections to keep them
in place. So that is a hard pill to swallow.
But again we're talking about, you know, what's in the
best interest of our immediate survival, because even to have sustainability,

(32:44):
you've got to have immediate survival. So it's something that
has to be balanced. Now an optimal situation, we have
to be able to have legislative influence. And since the
name of the decision escapes me, but there's always been challenges.
But since we've decided that corporations corporate personhood, citizens United,

(33:11):
thank you, Since that decision is just made that more elusive.
That will have true electoral influence from the actual body
of people over the the our representatives. We seem to
have lost that. So it puts us in a really
tough situation. But I think I think we have to

(33:32):
focus on specific areas where we do have the influence
and try to push it through there. But yeah, that's
a that's just like one of those it's like how
do you stop the sun from shining? Like, man, the
mess is so significant, But I think, you know, goes
back to the proverb how do you eat an elephant

(33:54):
one bite at a time? Like, so we just we
keep chipping away at it wherever we can. But it
goes back to what I was saying earlier, like, we
have to have an intentional, concerted effort. And I think
that's one of the things that's lacking, is it's just
we need kind of a concerted effort that, no matter
what's going on politically, we're trying to move in this direction.
And people had gotten away from that, and sometimes one

(34:15):
of the consequences of all these executive orders and people
thinking everything is sweet is that it takes your eyes
off the prize. People are like, oh, I could kick
back now. It's like, no, now, we need to push
forward even harder while we have this momentum so that
when the pendulum swings the other way will be further
enough along so that the setbacks won't put us all

(34:36):
the way back to the nineteen thirties like we are now.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
No, I completely agree. Okay, okay, last posse question. This
is my last possy question because I always wonder this. So,
like you said, the penjeum does swing right, so we had.
You know, if we want to think Democrat Republican kind
of throughout the most recent history, I mean we had
two in terms of George W. Bush to turn of

(35:00):
Obama one Trump one Biden one Trump Again, it's going
to swing back, and there's going to be a situation
where there's going to be a Democratic president who controls
the House in the Senate, and they'll have what they're
going to call themselves. They're going to say they have
a mandate. They always say that I have a mandate.

(35:21):
Now that I've been elected, does that whoever that person is,
does this become their signature issue? Do we push them
to spend that capital here versus spending it on some
type of specific budget bill or some type of Medicaid

(35:42):
for all program, Or do we talk about the fact
that we need environmental justice. Here's an environmental justice related
legislative initiative, go there and we push them in that direction.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, man, you asked some tough ones. I need to know.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
I need to know. We're gonna tell them when they
get back in.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Oh man, Okay, So the progressives get in power. See,
I don't know if just the more conservative wing of
the Democratic Party will support that you know they will
be like, no, let's just get somep the middle of
the road that brings everybody together, that everyone could compromise
all so I don't think they would, But if you

(36:27):
could get the progressive element in power, even someone a
leaning progressive empower, then I think we have to push
it because we're talking about there's so much tied into it,
because we're talking about the infrastructure of the country. We're
talking about the climate crisis in the country's the ability
to survive it. We're talking about the future and health

(36:47):
of the planet. So all budget discussions, all everything pales
in comparison to this. But for some reason, no one
is willing to I guess there's the fear of being
perceived as a zealo about it. But the science backs
what we're saying. It's not like we're just out here
making this up like it's happening. People are experiencing it.

(37:08):
There were you know, people felt those wildfires in Altadena
and in California. People felt that that freak flood storm
that went through Asheville, North Carolina. You see what I'm saying,
like it's happening. This is what people were predicting for
years so it's here. So I think we have to
be adamant that the political capital is focused on making

(37:33):
sure that we are doing what's necessary for humanity to
survive this situation. And I just it's it sucks because
like the current administration has done so much damage to
the United States international reputation and our ability to negotiate
because no one's gonna believe they're negotiating. And good thank

(37:54):
for the US saying well, we know how your country operates.
Four years you want to lead and you want to
act like this, and the next four years you walk
everything back. So how would anyone trust us? The United
States may not be the world leader in terms of
climate progress, We may end up having to follow other
countries because that political capital is so short lived. But

(38:18):
with that said, yes, the answer is yes, we have
to push it. We have to make sure it doesn't
have to be called that I'm okay with. However they
name it. They want to name it the Future Infrastructure
of the United States, Save the United States Act, whatever
they want to call it. So maybe it's in the
marketing we tell them like this is to improve the economy,

(38:38):
to protect the economy and protect the United States from
a cataclysm, and maybe people will get behind it like
that if we market it correctly. Because if we come
out and say we need to plant trees and we
need to get green spaces, we need to make sure
that there's not toxic emissions poisoning black and Indigenous communities
for some reason, that doesn't resonate with enough Americans.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, yeah, uh, you're right, you're right. And of course,
the last time around with Biden, there was you know,
Senators Mansion and send them from Arizona who put a
lot of his initiatives on hold and made it difficult
from the past thing. So you're right, there is a
situation where you could have some conservative leaning Democratic voices

(39:21):
preventing that kind of project from happening. So I completely
understand that, and you're right. It's a hard situation to
manage all those different perspective, all those views, all those
desires all at once.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
It's hard.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
But you know what, we elected you to do the
hard things, So if you're listening, it's.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Supposed to be hard.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
I want to end. I want to end though on
a really positive note. I know that you do a
lot of community work, you do a lot of consulting work,
with people who are trying to get their communities on track.
What are some of the things that you've been seeing
that have been issues that you've been either working people alone,
that you've seen personally, And how have you through your work,

(39:59):
your organzations, your connections, have you and your your sphere
of influence have y'all been pushing to improve those situations
that you're concerned about.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
So, yeah, one of the things I'm most proud of
right now is just our work with youth. I think
what sometimes goes unrecognized is that when adults are having
these conversations, are the news is on and the kids
are hearing it's like, oh, there's a war, there's bombs
going off, the planet is in decline, and it's like

(40:32):
this is their future and they're hearing that their future
is looking dismal. And this has an effect on our kids.
And I don't think people are paying attention to that.
They're on these tablets now and they're doom scrolling a
lot of times, seeing like, you know, ten years this
is going to happen tomorrow, This is happening lat So
that causes depression, and we know that suicide rates arising.

(40:53):
We know that people are depressed since COVID education has
been struggling and starting to rebent now. So I think
a lot of the research is showing that as we
start to do social emotional learning and we connect that
with learning about the environment in your place in the environment,
we're seeing some fantastic gains and inspiring young people to

(41:15):
be environmental stewards, but also to be politically literate, improving
their literacy rates as well, and their desire to learn
science and their desire to learn math as it relates
to the environment. Because I think a big thing that
people will always say is like, man, when am I
ever going to use this in the future? Just like no,
Like you're gonna use it right here, because we need

(41:37):
some way to get out here and figure out how
do we stop this aquifer from drawing up in the
next twenty years, you know what I'm saying, Like how
to we prevent water wars between Florida and Georgia. That's
up to y'all. So when the kids actually aren't enjoying it,
So I have, through more organizations Citizens for a Sustainable Future,
we have what's known as the Brewer Resilience Youth Empowerment Program.
We partner with in our region of Florida, several organizations

(42:00):
and we're bringing kids in and they're getting a robust
environmental justice education, leadership advocacy training, and then they kind
of moved through our program. We got paid jobs for
youth in the program as well, so a lot of
them is their first job experience and they're like the
pride that comes to the families and to the end,
they had their first job and it's like, I'm an

(42:22):
environmental steward for this organization. They're going to carry that
into college if they go, or into their first employment situations,
and uh, it really makes me happy. It's a way
to give back. Aside from that, all over the country,
whether it's through my Groundwork team at Groundwork USA, we
have through all our affiliates, they have green teams where

(42:45):
they got youth out there building bioswells, put in rain gardens.
In my team in Jacksonville, they were doing cool roofs
on people's homes, lowering temperatures in their communities. So my
colleague Kate Mitgoya wrote a good book. I'm supposed to
hear promoted my book, but I want to plug her
book as well because it's called climate action for busy people,

(43:09):
and she just talks about just the different steps that
you could take at a micro level that can come
in a conglomerate they start to make a significant change.
So there's all these different actions that people could take,
and just to be a part of that that kind
of fulfills me and recharges my battery to stay in
the fight.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Oh that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
So focusing on the youth specifically, I think that's a
great way to set us up for the future. Because
the future it can be grim, but if you have
people who are trained now prepared to move forward and
to fight for better future, then it could be really bright.
What else are you doing? I know you're doing more
than that. Tell me what you got going on. I

(43:51):
know you got stuff going on, so tell us about it.
We running at the time. I want to know all
things you got going on before we go.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Aside from the organizations I work it, we organize the politically,
particularly in African American communities, with the focus of kind
of building these nonpartisan political literacy academies. Whereas we call
ours here in Tallahassee flirter it's called Tallahassee Alert, and
it's just we bring candidates in, we bring people, we

(44:20):
bring community members in, and it's like, talk to these candidates,
this is the city commission candidates. These are your appointed
officials who make decisions on this or they decide where
this money goes. Get involved. They like, know how that
money spent. They had a budget of one hundred million
dollars last year, What did they do with it? Why
aren't we paying attention? And I think it's ultimately people

(44:43):
just don't make that connection. So with out there being
a venue for people to get access to it, they
will just kind of stay focused on what they're what
they're doing. But when you if you build it, the
people will come out there. But I actually do want
to know why how they spent my tax money and
how they spend my property taxes. So yeah, just getting
people back engaged with local politics is one of my passions.

(45:03):
Uh and we do work around that. Aside from that,
I just am all anywhere where people need help with
getting it or keeping the organizations afloat and coming up
with ideas. I try to chime in. I'm on the
board for organization called Rethink Energy Florida UH here in Florida,

(45:23):
and we focus on just how do we get more
equitable distribution of clean energy across the state. Uh, And
you'd be surprised we get we get support on both
sides of the aisle for that, because it's not always
articulated as a struggle against them. It's more so like
how do we get more benefits for everyone? So there

(45:46):
there's some things we could still win. It's just you know,
we've been pushed into this ugly situation.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
And I think it's just gonna be a matter of
us continuing the fight as we move forward.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Okay, and with all those with all that work, how
is is supported? We just talked about how funding is scarce,
how it's hard to kind of get resources now with
these new initiatives, how are you able to fund and
sustain something's work during this time?

Speaker 2 (46:11):
So, man, the funding comes from diverse sources. We crowdsource funding.
We've gotten grants from different organizations from the move from
the Moving Forward Network Environmental Justice Fund are what we
call now the Solidarity Supported Solutions Fund. We got funding
from the Growth Research Program from the National Academies of

(46:33):
Science and Engineering and Math, and then from local agencies
as well, whether that was our Children's Services Council. So
it's just whenever we find funding that aligns, we will
go after it. I have good grant writers that I
work with. We also use collaborations between multiple organizations. That's
something that's been very useful so that we don't all
end up competing for the same funding. We'll all apply

(46:54):
for funding together and divvy it up. And so then
outside of that, it's just you know, I got fundraisers
running all the time on Facebook anywhere, like sponsor a
kid through this program, pay for restoration in this community.
So it's all like that, and you know, we don't
have a boatload of money. We often are working on

(47:15):
skeleton budgets. So there's also a lot of inkind services,
volunteer work. But it's just I think when people believe
in the mission, they're willing to make sacrifices if they
think that it's going to benefit the people. Now, I
would like to get to a point where I can
fully fund everything that we do, fully pay everybody involved,
but we have not got there yet, And I know
I have seen people who've made it a little bit

(47:37):
further on this path though, so I know it's possible.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
Nice nice, Well, you know, we're about running out of time.
But with every guest, I always ask if you got
any parting words, any words of encouragement, anything you want
to leave with the listeners, because they've learned a lot,
they've heard a lot, and so when they turned this off,
we were going to walk away with when you're done.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Solidarity is not charity, right, Our ability to stand together
will benefit us and the people we stand with, or
else that's not true solidarity. So I want everybody to
just to think about that as you go off into
whatever's coming tomorrow. We don't know, but one way we
will get through it is together. And outside of that,
please check out my new book by Any Dreams Necessary,

(48:23):
Anti Racist Strategies for Sustainability, Resilience and Environmental Justice, available
on all major platforms and at Bruce Strubel Junior dot com.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Perfect perfect, Hey, doctor Bruce, thank you so much for
joining us today on this episode. We appreciate your insight,
your knowledge, your historical perspective, and that activism. We love
the activism, So thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Appreciate you brother, keep doing your show man, I love
it all right.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
We appreciate you two coming on. And that is the
Environmental Justice Lab, where we are for the people and
for the planet.

Speaker 3 (48:58):
We will see you next

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Mo