MUSIC

Change is coming, oh yeah

Ain’t no holding it back

Ain't no running 

Change is coming, oh yeah!

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

This is Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers from Environmental Defense Fund. I’m your host, Yesh Pavlik Slenk. For the better part of the last decade, it’s been my job to help students use their talent and passion to get experience and jobs that serve the planet.

I am thrilled to have Heather McTeer Toney with me today. Her life as a leader and advocate for people and the environment is a true inspiration. If we could just duplicate Heather many times over, climate change wouldn’t stand a chance.

But here’s the thing: for many years, Heather didn’t even consider herself an environmentalist. 

Heather McTeer Toney:

Climate has always been really siloed. It's been this super secret club that you had to have a special degree to be in. At least that's how it felt.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

To understand where Heather is coming from, we need to back up.

It’s the early 2000s. Heather has followed her dad’s footsteps to work as a young lawyer in her hometown of Greenville, Mississippi. It’s a small city of around 30,000 people, in the heart of the Mississippi Delta. Greenville is also a home to one of Mars food’s biggest facilities –  producing 100,000 tons of rice a year for Ben’s Original rice.

Heather loved her city but she wanted more for Greenville. She wanted to get the city out of debt, boost the economy and solve infrastructure problems.

So, as I said, at 27, she ran for mayor…and she won! She became the youngest mayor ever elected in Greenville, as well as the first woman and the first Black mayor -- even though the city is more than 80 percent Black. 

During her 8 years as Mayor McTeer, the big issue she wanted to solve was… water. 

Heather McTeer Toney:

So the water in Greenville, Mississippi is the color of light tea. Now, if you were to go to someone in Greenville and tell them that you were going to shift or change the color of their water, they would throw you out by your feet. Because old folks believe that it has medicinal qualities, like the water is soft. That's the reason that our skin stays so smooth and so beautiful. And somebody who's 85 can look like they are 32, but it's not exactly the best thing when you are going to a restaurant and you ask the waiter or waitress to bring you a glass of water and they bring you that out.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

You might jump to the conclusion that I did: that the water was polluted. But through research, Heather learned that the color was actually due to local ecology.

Heather McTeer Toney:

Our situation was understanding how and where our water came from. It comes up through cypress preserves that are historic in nature but also tint the color of the water as it comes from its source and then is processed. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

Though the water was safe, Heather knew it was bad for the city’s economy. It was expensive for Mars Food, one of the biggest employers in town, to filter the water to make sure it didn’t tint the rice. What if Mars were to leave because of the cost? 

Though some older folks still didn’t want to change the water, Heather kept her community’s vitality top of mind… and forged ahead. In 2009, her work made national headlines. 

Heather McTeer Toney:

And we had this article that was in the front page of the Washington Post, Brown Water in Greenville 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

Yep, the headline was Brown Water in Greenville with a photo of a child in a bathtub…bathing in brown water. 

Below the headline is a picture of Heather. She couldn’t look more determined. 

Heather McTeer Toney:

We begin to see the impacts of what people would accept and felt was okay versus where there are clear barriers for economic development that would allow the community to expand and really grow. If you have a business that's relying on clean water, you wanna locate somewhere where you have solid infrastructure to be able to ensure that business grows. 

But just really talking about infrastructure, like jobs, infrastructure, water, we gotta have this. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

The article caught the attention of Lisa Jackson. She was the EPA Administrator in the Obama Administration. Jackson went to Greenville to see what this young mayor was all about. Her first stop? She visited the Greenville wastewater treatment plant with her official guide: Mayor McTeer. 

Heather McTeer Toney:

She sort of pulls me to the side and says, “Uh, you know, this is environmental justice work, right?” And I said, “No, no, it's not.” And she's like,” No, no, no, really, actually that's what this is. This is environmental justice community.” And we began to talk after that. And, and two things happened: One, I began to see ourselves in this work. I thought that environmentalists were all vegan, white people who hugged trees and wore Birkenstocks and, you know, bird hats and, 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

You're, you're describing my parents

Heather McTeer Toney: 

I'm sure your parents are absolutely fabulous. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

They are, they are.

Heather McTeer Toney 

But that's that's what I thought. You lived in California or you know, upstate New York. And it was polar bears and sea turtles, and that's what you raised money for. Those were the environmentalists, right? It was not me. I did not see myself in that work anywhere. And so for Lisa to sort of show me this, it was eye opening.

But then it became frustrating and it made me angry because I realized I had been an environmentalist all my life. I grew up in the Mississippi Delta around agriculture, you know, blocks away from the Mississippi River. I could tell you how and when seasons change, not because we had a class on it, but because harvest season is the fall and that's football season, and that's when the stuff changes, right? That's -- everybody knows that in my area.

I remember as a kid my dad would have us look out on either side of the car window to see if we could identify which crop was in the field. And normally there would be cotton on one side and soybeans on the other. But when they're really young, it's hard to tell the difference as to what's, what. Usually when cotton starts growing up, you can see the little white buds on it. And, you know, we would play this game riding down the highway, which is, okay, what's that? What's that? Is it cotton on the right and soybean on the left? And so I remember seeing men standing in those fields with crop dusters coming over and there being slickers on them. 

And at the time as a kid, you're like, Wow, is it an airplane swooping over and whoa! It never dawned on me that that was this crazy intersection of nature, of life, of water, of humanity, of toxic chemicals all happening in the same space. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

I think I held my breath for that entire thing after you said that they were wearing slickers, just imagining what they were taking in their skin and breathing in and touching and drinking.

Heather McTeer Toney:

And those were never connected as being environmental and climate types of conversations. And I was frustrated because I said, Wow, so many minority communities, low income, small communities like my own, were very impacted by environmental injustice, but we're never talked about as a part of the conversation for climate solutions and climate justice. So in other words, people would come down, take the photos, and then after they take those pictures of how bad things are, they would turn around, put it on the back of their pamphlet and raise money for their organization off of those images. That I did not like.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Exploitation. That's exploitation.

Heather McTeer Toney: 

Exactly. And a lot of the environmental justice and frontline communities, these are communities that sit like right in the path to storms or floods or they are constantly hit by extreme weather events. They do not have the infrastructure that allows them to not only sustain that, but also build solid businesses, for their communities moving forward. So that's why the water infrastructure for my community was such a big thing. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

And it was a big thing for Lisa Jackson to see Heather working on it – big enough, in fact, that it inspired Lisa to offer Heather an opportunity. 

Heather McTeer Toney:

Lisa then said, I'd like for you to come and be a part of the local government action committee at the EPA, and I want you to chair it.” And I'm like, Oh my god, Lisa Jackson just asked me to do something. And she said, “Hold on. You don't know how much work you're signing up for, like, you don't know what you don't know.”

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

On April 10, 2010, a BP oil rig exploded. Eleven people died. More than 130 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. It was – and still is –  the largest oil spill in U.S. waters. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

I was immediately thrust into leading a national network of local leaders to try to advise the EPA on how to listen to local government. In the middle of a crisis.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

The catastrophe destroyed aquatic ecosystems for sea turtles, birds, fish, dolphins and other marine mammals. A full dozen years later, workers who helped clean up the spill still suffer from respiratory diseases – diseases scientists believe are connected to the oil fumes. Most wildlife populations in the Gulf and Mississippi Delta are still struggling to rebound. 

As the very new chair of the EPA local government action committee, Heather tried to get federal leaders to listen to local voices. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

It really helped me not only understand how important the voices of local people are to a response, but that all around the country, they're different local people and different local people have different responses. And all around the globe, people have how they respond and best practices. And if we just listen and incorporate this, we could have better and scalable responses and more inclusive responses to solving climate catastrophes.

That is the point that I always think back to and what I hope I'm able to share with other people when they come and say to me, well, I'm not a climate activist. I think about Lisa basically saying, nope, yes, you are.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Yes you are. 

   

Heather McTeer Toney:

Yes, you are. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

That epiphany – that so many economic, social justice issues are connected to climate – it was a turning point for Heather. 

In 2012, as her second term as mayor was ending, President Obama appointed Heather administrator of the Southeastern Region of the EPA. She would oversee eight states. It’s the largest EPA region in the country. Heather held that post through the rest of Obama’s second term.

Then…inauguration, 2017. A whole new administration meant the end of Heather’s job. Heather’s life held a lot of unknowns. She didn’t know where she’d work next, and she had a new baby, following a stressful pregnancy. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

You know, I was a pregnant woman in the South during Zika and if you were a pregnant woman and got bit by a mosquito, then all hell broke loose because there was concern as to what that meant for your unborn child.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Her baby was born healthy. But then, she was breastfeeding during the height of the Flint water crisis. She was feeling so much anxiety…

Heather McTeer Toney: 

All this stuff was going through my head at the end of the administration and I was beginning to see how I would find my space. I began doing some consulting work, and EDF became one of my clients, along with Mom's Clean Air Force, which I absolutely love and adore. 

Someone was like, Well, we don't quite know how and where you fit at EDF. So two things had to happen. Number one, I had to say I fit wherever I am. Like, I had to have that awareness, that self-awareness, and sometimes it's hard to be challenged and not know or see yourself in a place because I didn't see myself there. 

But I highly respected the work of the organization, both globally as well as the work of Moms Clean Air Force, and seeing it as a place where it would be a fit. There just had to be some collaborations among all of us to sort of understand how we're in this together.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

So Heather created her own job – in community engagement at EDF. They needed someone to throw the door open for folks to join the fight against climate change -- especially those, like Heather, who had never seen themselves as environmentalists.

Bringing new collaborations to life isn’t easy. But, the effort is so worth it. That’s why Heather often calls her work midwifing. 

Heather McTeer Toney:

It was midwifing in the way of helping an organization to give birth to what is now becoming a growing part of the climate movement. And that's climate implementation, adaptation strategies, and how communities are involved in the work. And that takes time. It's a lot of handholding, a lot of deep breathing. I feel like I've turned some babies in the womb at this point, But also of being that guide because it doesn't end when a child is born, just like our work and my work doesn't end once a program has started or people have an awareness around what it means to be involved in community. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

And, as Heather would find out, once the opportunity existed for everyone to create innovative projects with EDF, you never knew who would propose something…unexpected. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

I was walking through the airport and had gotten a call from someone who was trying to figure out how to get a hip hop artist who wanted to connect with us and was trying to figure out like their space.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

So Heather called a colleague to brainstorm. Dr. Margot Brown, the vice president of environmental justice and equity at EDF.

Heather McTeer Toney:

I call her my work wife, because I think work besties is way -- it doesn't even begin.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

It doesn't even get there. 

Heather McTeer Toney:

And so I called Margot, I said, “Margot, look, who is Lil Durk?” And Margo is like, “Heather, what, what are we talking about? And what are we doing?” I said, “Listen, listen, listen, listen. I'm running between planes, okay? I just got a call that Lil Durk wants to do something with us, like around HBCUs, but I cannot have him rolling up to the front of the Plaza Hotel in New York with like Lamborghini trucks and 3 million dollars worth of jewelry on. So what are we gonna do? And how are we figure this out?” And she's like, “There's space. We could figure this out.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

We could figure this out. 

Heather McTeer Toney:

We could figure this out. Like we could do this. So, long story short, no Lil Durk did not show up at our EDF events in New York. But it was having this moment of knowing somebody was okay with calling us at EDF, that somebody saw the fact that there was a connection between whatever it is that Lil Durk was working on at that moment and found value in the Environmental Defense Fund, found value in environmental justice and community engagement, and found trust enough to reach out to these 40 plus year old women to say, How do we do this? 

That was what brought me joy. That was the fact of seeing all of these different spaces that people would not imagine connecting to climate and climate action or the traditional ways that EDF works, and looking at it in a different light to say, There's connection here.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Heather’s energy for this work is magnetic. When she’s out at events, people sense it. 

Heather McTeer Toney:

I find that people who have that same shared crazy energy tend to seek me out because we have the audacity to believe that we can actually change this. Right? And there's so many young people who need to know that it's okay, that we're in the midst of a crisis, but it's also okay to dream and be ambitious about how to solve it. And that when you come up with some ridiculous idea, somebody else will look at you and say, Oh my gosh, Yeah, I like that. That's possible. And I love being around that energy. It is enough despair to go around for all of us. What we need a bit more of is hope, innovation, and those triggers of creativity that will help us to solve and continue to grow as we adapt to climate change.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

And how does it feel to be seen that way when you're recognized by a fellow dreamer and someone who's thinking big in big audacious ways? How does that feel to be seen?

Heather McTeer Toney: 

I think it's really cool that we're putting out the same energy. I'm usually more in awe of them than they are of me. Because I don't see myself as someone who is so different than every other person on this planet, right? As my mama would say, we all put on our underwear one leg at a time. If we choose to wear them.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk:

Making these partnerships work can be challenging. The key to success, Heather says, is to celebrate different talents and experiences. To help me understand, she talked about gumbo. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

All too often we try to blend our values into a very homogenous way. And my advice is to think of it a little different. So I'm from the south, we like to eat. And if you've ever been down around Louisiana, you know, the best thing to get down there is gumbo. And you want somebody's gumbo who can cook. Not somebody that is just put it in a can or something. No, you want to go find somebody who knows how to make a roux, which is the base and is solid, and then they're adding all the stuff in. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

I'm hungry now, by the way. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

I know, and, and now I'm gonna have to figure out when I'm gonna go make some gumbo. But that's how we envision this work. And I think that's my advice for how people should envision their role in this. First of all, cooking fast does not taste good. I know we got microwaves and insta pots and all that kind of stuff, but if you want good food, it takes a moment. It takes a moment to cook. The same way it takes a minute to sort of blend in all of our flavors that we bring to the work from wherever we are. And people who are engaged in the community of practice sort of bringing their companies along should understand that you are an artist, you are a chef, you are a creative and helping to blend this together.

And we're making gumbo, which means all of the flavors are going to blend together, but you're still gonna havetheir individual nature. When you look at a pot of gumbo, you should be able to tell the difference between a kernel of rice and a crab leg or, you know… 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

I hope.

Heather McTeer Toney: 

You hope, right? You should be able to tell the difference between okra and shrimp. If you can't, then I have questions about what you're eating. It's the same way, right? You should be able to see and identify the science, and see and identify the faith, and see and identify the creatives and see and identify the economists, but know that they are blending together in a way that's bringing them along to create solutions that everyone can eat from in some way. We think about it like that versus trying to make everyone the same, I think it breathes more room for ideas, but also acceptance. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

It’s true. A resilient, vibrant green economy can only come froma big pot of gumbo. But the reality is, we’re not there yet. 

After the break, I talk with Heather about the state of climate jobs in the U.S – and their diversity. And how these jobs can transform the economy. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Yesh here, back with my guest, Heather McTeer Toney, vice president of community engagement at EDF. 

Heather travels all over…talks with everybody. So I wanted to get her take on the state of green jobs in the U.S. 

We are sort of in this moment where these jobs are emerging, but we don't necessarily see them quite yet. How are you feeling as we start to peak in this wave? Or maybe we're not. What's your opinion there? 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

Yeah, no, I think we're not even close to peaking at this point. Clean tech, innovation, EV solar installation. All of these are places where right now, yes, there is absolutely a ton of opportunity and we want people to go there quickly. But the reason I say we haven't even begun to peak yet is because there's a whole other scheme of jobs that are not only supporting that which we just outlined, but are also being created because of the fact that we need clean tech energy jobs. 

So, for example, think of the AI innovation that's necessary to help train people to do the electrification jobs. That kid that I remember that was the problem child in my friend's classroom 10 years ago because all they did was play video games. That person is now making mega dollars because they know and have the AI technology, hand eye skill coordination that I will never possess that allows them to help train people on how to do this technology in a virtual space in a virtual space and a virtual world. That didn't exist 10 years ago. And even as we're thinking through how we're going to train up people to do this work now, that is now a job opportunity.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Heather is specifically excited about electrifying transit. There’s a lot of support for it in the IRA, the bipartisan infrastructure plan and Justice 40 -- the initiative from the Biden administration that says at least 40% of whatever we do needs to support environmental justice communities, through jobs, tax incentives or climate resilient infrastructure.

Heather McTeer Toney: 

So that's our roads, bridges, charging stations. All of those different components run throughout each of those pieces of legislation. I like it because it has a huge opportunity to intersect other places. So you could talk about electrification of vehicles, as not only a job component, but also as a way that we plug into low income communities. So that like if a school bus is sitting somewhere and it has wireless, now kids can plug in and they can get, take advantage of that, that wifi, the electricity that is stored can be used to power up a school or a community center or a neighborhood of houses. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

One of Heather’s favorite companies leading in the EV transformation is ChargerHelp! Yep, that’s right! Kameale Terry and ChargerHelp from episode 8. Heather loves the way ChargerHelp identified an enormous obstacle to progress -- broken charger stations -- and is fixing it. And in doing that, creating a LOT of jobs. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

So here you have something that is so simple as being able to fix a charger station, which, who of us has not rode by something in our neighborhood at some point, regardless of whatever, I don't care if it's a street light, something's always off or out. You know, there's going to be a need because anything that exists at some point is going to get broken and somebody needs to fix it. So it's a very simple process of, okay, we've created a job to fix things when they get broken. Tremendous, because there's a lot of us that can do that.

And I don't know about you, but I can think of a whole lot of church members, uncles, cousins that are shadetree mechanics and electricians, but also young people who are becoming software engineers who are understanding the needs within a network. And all of this converges in one space. The beauty of intersecting climate with every issue is that you are never at a loss for something to do. It's just a matter of finding the hole and filling it.

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

And there’s no shortage of challenges, either. One of the toughest is creating trust with communities who have been left out of solutions for so long. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

I will also say, how we socialize and normalize this is really important. I can remember as a kid, um, you know, like all these songs that were coming out about cars, right? Saying Little Red Corvette by Prince, even though I know good and well, I had no business singing that song, orMercedes Boy by Pebbles, I'm really aging myself right now. Or like Lil Kim, the Jump Off. Like this is for my peeps, 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Yep.

Heather McTeer Toney: 

And the Bentleys, the Hummers, the Benz like that. So if you think about culture, we identify with vehicles. I don't know how sexy it is to say, Yo, I'm about to roll around in my Leaf. Because you didn't really hear that and there wasn't a lot of targeting towards, right, cultural communities. That's beginning to change

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Right

Heather McTeer Toney: 

And again, that's another place and space where we're seeing culture and people and presence show up. And it shows the necessity of having diverse voices there in the space of climate. So last Super Bowl, think about how many ads you saw for electric vehicles that came from players, artists, people of color. We didn't see that 10 years ago, let alone 20 years ago. And that is a result of having diverse perspectives both at that marketing table but also in the rooms that talk about the importance of climate and environment to communities that have been thought of as either under resourced or not really interested in that space. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Heather is so passionate about making sure that people of color have equal access to green careers that she’s writing a book about it. It’s called Before the Streetlights Come On: Black America’s Urgent Call on Climate Solutions. I can’t wait to read it – it comes out in April 2023. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

It came about as a series really of the stories that I'd experienced being a Black American who is a climate activist in all of these different spaces, but not seeing myself in the spaces, not seeing the leadership and really a lot of times being sort of glossed over like. Oh, okay, well that's Black folks over there. Black people don't care about climate. Or we got so many other things to be worried about. There's no way we gonna tackle climate action and voter suppression. Like we're trying to deal with police brutality. What do you mean work on climate action at the same time? 

And I found that stereotype was not only being exacerbated by the media and by people who didn't wanna work on climate action, but even internalized by the people who were working on climate action. And so I wrote the book as a series of not only my experiences and stories, but also the stories of people all around the country and the world that are doing this work and have always been doing this work and showing how black Americans have not only been very well suited, but have had the lived experience. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

I wrote about sort of this epiphany understanding that I had, that I come from people who were tragically and traumatically taken from one ecosystem of germs and trees and other humans. And then were transported in a very horrific way to an entirely different ecosystem. 

And then were forced to labor and teach people from another ecosystem, how to grow things, how to live. And that my survival, my existence today, is evident of their willingness to not only adapt, but also survive. So I am the epitome and I think Black Americans are sort of the epitome, of how you survive catastrophe and even a climate and environmental catastrophe because it is existent in the very blood that runs through us. 

And that is to not discount anyone else's experience because all of our lived experiences, no matter where we are from in this world, are going to be necessary in order to provide solutions for wherever we may be located on this planet to the climate crisis. But the uniqueness of the African American, Black American experience is that we've actually been taken, picked up, moved, taken again, picked up and moved and have adapted and survived. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Before the Streetlights Came On includes stories on everything from EVs to Lil Kim; from Beyonce to voter suppression. 

A Yale study found that Black and brown communities are more likely to vote for climate policy than white voters. But there’s an enormous problem…

Heather McTeer Toney: 

The very people who would vote for policies that help us to ensure that we have strong, local, state and federal actions are the exact same people that legislatures around this country are trying to keep from voting. So it's how voter suppression really goes to impact not only the types of policies we have, but also the enforcement of that policy.

And if we don't really acknowledge it, it shifts the way that people think about their participation. It creates that sense of there's nothing we can do. They're keeping us from voting. It's why we have to advocate for voting rights as much as possible. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

There was one chapter, in particular, that tore Heather up emotionally. It’s called Climate Change is an Accomplice to the Murder of George Floyd. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

It took forever because I had a hard time writing it. But it was really powerful because I was talking about the experiences of police brutality to Black Americans and how it seems like an overwhelming tragedy. But we don't account for how heat exacerbates violence and the history of that within the Black American community.

So the very fact that when George Floyd died, his face pressed against asphalt. The fact that the temperature where he was was greater than it was in the suburban white community that was right next door. And that if we were to go back and just look at the temperatures and the times when violence took place against black people throughout history, there's a pattern.

And I was driving to write and there were two Black men who were pulled over on the side of the road and there were white officers. And so I pulled over, called my husband, who of course was immediately concerned. And…

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Of course

Heather McTeer Toney: 

Absolutely. But even though I work in climate and environmental work as a Black American, I am never, never far away from any other social justice issue. So yes, I might be going to write, yes, I might have had a full day at the Environmental Defense Fund, but I cannot leave these two men on the side of the road, these two young college students because that's my lived experience. I have two sons, I am a Black American woman. And you can't ignore that. So I think that that was definitely the hardest chapter that I wrote. To me, it's my favorite chapter that I wrote and it's the one that I am constantly thinking of how we're going to use climate to solve some of the plaguing issues for Black America today. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

There is so much promise in a truly thriving green economy. But we’re not there. We need to create the jobs AND a re-skilled workforce. 

Heather says, there could be so many positive ripple effects, like lower rates of unemployment and incarceration. But as we’ve seen, what Heather wants…It’s a culture change, something even bigger than creating jobs.

Heather McTeer Toney: 

We are now filling holes and voids that solve social problems and communities as well as our climate problems. And that's where we need people to step in. We can use these as skills that we can train people who are coming out of the system. And these are groups that often are not included when we think about who needs to be employed and needs to have a job. For a lot of folks, these are people who are considered “unemployable” but are they really? No.

So this broad spectrum of people and ways that we can use climate and environmental innovations and green jobs to address historic problems. I think we're just beginning to see that. And with the innovation and engagement of young people, who are trying to figure out what is their space, this is the stuff that's bubbling up in their brains and I'm grateful to get an opportunity to be in that same space and help blend some of those ideas. 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

And we are so grateful that you are here doing that and being that connector and helping really inspire people to take a chance and to will it into being. 

Heather McTeer Toney: 

I'm telling you because we gonna figure out how to get Lil Durk and do something with EDF. Why not? 

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

We just need to keep that welcoming committee like, Hey, you can do this too. Like, come as you are.

Heather McTeer Toney: 

Absolutely. A lot of young people and people at my age - I'm a Generation Xer - are seeking that validation that what they're thinking about fits into climate. And what I hope I give back is that everything you think about fits into climate. 

So if you come and say I really am trying to figure out where do I fit, my response is going to be, What do you do? What do you like doing? What brings you joy? Because whatever that is, I can guarantee you there's a space in there for climate. 

ASK YESH

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Now it’s time for Ask Yesh, where I help you with your biggest green career challenges. If you have a question, write to me on Twitter, at Yesh Says with the hashtag Ask Yesh. 

Q: How do I get work experience to boost my sustainability resume?

A: Great question listener, thank you for asking! I’m biased but after 8 years of working on the Climate Corps program, I know firsthand how even a 10 week fellowship experience can set resumes apart in a stack. Fellowship or internship experiences will expose you to the inner workings of an organization’s decision making. They also give you an opportunity to contribute your fresh thoughts and ideas, and expand your network. They will help you make critical career decisions like, “I prefer public to private sector work” or “I like consulting and working on a variety of projects vs. on the brand side”.

I caught up with an alum of the Climate Corps program recently who shared their story. Tom wrote,

“When I was finishing my Masters of Public Affairs in the Spring of 2019, I was having some second thoughts about continuing my career in sustainability. Despite the growth of the industry, the broadness of the field, MY understanding of what skills were needed to pursue professional roles continued to be opaque.  I didn't feel like I had enough technical experience or credibility to make a living working in sustainability.

Climate Corps was the first program that showed me that I could be fairly compensated for professional sustainability work. It provided an in-depth perspective of the specific tools and skills needed to work in the industry and getting accepted into the program was a huge confidence boost that made me realize that not only had my past experiences positioned me to continue professional development in the field, but that those skills were needed and valuable.

My fellowship was with a city Office of Environment and Sustainability, primarily supporting their efforts to benchmark their building performance. After my experience, I found a role with a local non-profit to advance the City’s sustainability goals within the built environment. The professional credibility, and the network Climate Corps afforded, were invaluable to supporting the efforts of a local government famous for fiscal restraint.”

I love that story and it is one of hundreds (I’m not joking) that I’ve heard over the years. Experience is THE spring board for getting the job.

Are you interested in a climate focused fellowship? My friend Trish Kenlon, founder of Sustainable Career Pathways recently published an article called, 18 sustainability fellowships for students AND working professionals. Trish outlines these opportunities AND debunks fellowship myths that might be keeping you from applying. I’ll put a link to the article in the show notes. You should also visit our Green Jobs Hub, where you'll find a lot of resources to get your green career started, including internships and fellowships at EDF

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

That's it for this episode! And Season 4 of Degrees! This has been quite a journey, and I’m so honored that you’ve been on it with me. If you missed any episodes, be sure to go back and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you're listening now. Share this podcast with a friend so you can both learn how you can help fight climate change. And learn where the jobs are and how you can make a difference. 

Don’t forget, check out our Green Jobs Hub to find all the resources to jumpstart your green job career search.

Degrees is presented by Environmental Defense Fund. Amy Morse is our producer. Podcast Allies is our production company. Tressa Versteeg, Elaine Grant, Andrew Parrella and Rye Taylor worked on this episode. Special thanks to Tina Bassir, Alyse Rooks, Alexandra Cohl, Matthew Simonson, and Elizabeth Miller for all their help this season!

Our music is Shame, Shame, Shame from my favorite band, Lake Street Dive. And I’m your host, Yesh Pavlik Slenk. But the foundation of the show, dear listener, is you. Stay fired up y’all.

[THEME MUSIC IN]

Change is coming, oh yeah

Ain’t no holding it back

Ain't no running 

Change is coming, oh yeah!

[THEME MUSIC OUT]

___________________

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

Do you say Greenville or Greenville, Mississippi?

Heather McTeer Toney: 

Well, I say Greenville…[laughter]

Yesh Pavlik Slenk: 

What am I allowed to say? I'm from Milwaukee, so

Heather McTeer Toney:

You get a lot of brownie points if you can say Greenville 

Degrees is produced with Podcast Allies. The artwork is by illustrator Bee Johnson. Degrees theme music is by the amazing band Lake Street Dive. We love their powerful video and song Making Do, all about climate change.