“There’s a long history of young people challenging systems, dismantling systems, and manifesting a vision that has put us on a course to be a different kind of nation,” says Yeampierre, an attorney who co-chairs the national Climate Justice Alliance and is executive director of UPROSE, a Latino community organization based in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

It’s a message of hope and empowerment she brought to her alma mater on April 19 as the keynote speaker at “Fordham in Community: A Summit on Community Power and Just Climate Actions.”

Born in New York City, Yeampierre moved with her family from Manhattan’s Upper West Side to Harlem, Washington Heights, and the Bronx before enrolling at Fordham, where she majored in political science. After graduation, she earned a law degree at Northeastern and embarked on a trailblazing career as an educational and environmental justice advocate—at the grassroots level and on a grand scale.

As executive director of UPROSE since the mid-1990s, she has helped to double the amount of open space in Sunset Park, facilitate participatory community planning, and organize young people of color for climate justice. She spoke at the White House’s Forum on Environmental Justice in 2010, helped lead the People’s Climate March in 2014, and served as the first Latina chair of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

Across all her work, Yeampierre has pushed for community-led climate adaptation strategies and sustainable development—and underscored the links between racial injustice and climate change. She spoke with Fordham Magazine about her career journey and what she tells people who want to take action for environmental justice.

Why did you decide to attend Fordham?
I had visited a bunch of colleges—Barnard, Harvard. Fordham just felt like home. I remember walking into the Higher Education Opportunity Program office and seeing people who looked like me, who came from a working-class background. And I thought, “This is a place where I can do what I need to do.”

What was your introduction to climate justice work? Was it an area that you always felt drawn to and knew about?
Absolutely not. I thought that environmentalists were tree huggers who dressed poorly. I didn’t see the connection between the environment and my lived experience. My goal was to become a civil rights litigator. But I grew up in an environmental justice community. My family has all the health disparities that one would have living in the midst of toxic exposure, and so do I.

When I came to UPROSE, I was trying to figure out what we can do that complements what other people are doing and serves unmet needs. I realized that if you couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t fight for justice. So that was my entry into environmental justice work.

Prior to that, you worked for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, at the American Indian Law Alliance, and as a dean of student affairs at Yale. People might not necessarily think of these as environmental justice or climate justice jobs. But can you talk about the through lines between them and the work that you do now?
The environmental justice and climate justice movement is intersectional. Everything that you do—it doesn’t matter what you study, it doesn’t matter what field, what gives you joy—it’s going to be impacted by climate change. The environment is everything: where we live, where we pray, where we work. It’s everything for us.

At the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, I was working to get students of color into law school, and I was trying to encourage them to use their education as descendants of the Civil Rights Movement to advance our civil and human rights.

Then at the American Indian Law Alliance, we were based in New York, and we were working with tribes and nations from all over. It was a space where all the traditions and all the practices were consistent with the tradition of honoring Mother Earth.

Then I go to Yale to be dean of Puerto Rican student affairs. It was a great opportunity to bring in community and to take the resources that Yale had to honor its host community.

I see that each of these were part of a path that was making it possible for me to understand how different institutions operate, what some of the challenges are for different groupings of people, all of whom come from struggle.

What kind of advice do you give young people about how to make a difference when it comes to environmental justice and climate issues? And how do you encourage them to avoid despair?
If you’re Black, Indigenous, or a person of color, you exist because the generations that came before us, who went through things that we can’t even imagine—who were in shackles, who were tormented, who were tortured, who were raped, who went through unimaginable violations of human rights—imagined us. They stood up and they fought. They built community, and they made it possible for us to be here. They went through existential threats.

Existential threats are not new to us, and we’re literally the descendants of people who walked in their power and transformed the experiences that they had and opened doors so that we could walk through them. To feel despair or to feel like we don’t have power is to dishonor our ancestors, because they went through things that we can only imagine.

The environmental justice movement is intergenerational. We believe that leadership is a continuum and that this country pits generations against each other. There is strength in that intergenerational power, and it doesn’t threaten anyone. There’s room for everyone to exercise leadership.

Across ages, when people say, “I care about this. I want to be, if not directly involved, an ally to the environmental justice and climate justice movements, but I don’t know what concrete steps to take,” what kind of advice do you offer?
A few things. One, I would say, read the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing so that you know how to come into the space to do the work necessary to be an ally. Do some mapping to find organizations that are doing this work and have a long history of doing it, and then call them and say, “How can I help? Do you need us to help you raise funds? Do you need us to help you with direct actions? Maybe it’s an art build. I have time. I’m available. How can I help support—not supplant, but support—the work that you are doing?”

If you go to the Climate Justice Alliance website, we have frameworks and guidelines for just about everything. They’re not coming out of one person’s head. They’re coming out of the collective, across the country, because this is an all-hands-on-deck moment. If you have passion, and if you really want to engage in this work, you have to then be part of building relationships and engaging in self-transformation.

As Earth Day comes up, you see a lot of organizations making pledges and starting sustainability initiatives. Sometimes we come to find out that it was “greenwashing,” and that those initiatives are offset by the negative impacts of the company’s actions. What can organizations do to truly make a positive impact and become allies in the climate justice movement?
That’s a hard question, but there are businesses that have been working hard to build those relationships. You’ve got Patagonia. Patagonia is an example of a business where, how they treat their workers, their products, the frameworks, the materials that they produce—they literally contact environmental justice organizations all over the country and they ask, “What do you think of this? How should this be shaped?” They have people who volunteer to support our events, our community gatherings, our direct actions.

We’re going to have to create different economies of scale, and we’re going to have to support small businesses that exist in our community. It’s really a matter of how much is enough for a corporation. At what point are you trying so hard to have more than you need—or doing so much that you’re harming the planet—that you are no longer a company that we want to support?

Right now, we’re experiencing what I call a green gold rush. People are seeing the green economy as an opportunity, and they’re coming at it as opportunists. It’s not going to look any different from the economy that got us to where we are, except that it’s going to have this green patina on it. We’re seeing that with offshore wind at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, where it can be a model of a just transition, but it is dangerously close to becoming an ecosystem that really models the bad behavior of some of the companies that are involved, like BP. So we have to monitor that really closely.

How can the public gain the literacy to know which organizations and initiatives truly support the climate justice movement?
It’s hard because you only have so much information, and people want to do the right thing. But I wouldn’t put the blame on the individual.

The truth is that in our community, particularly among Black and brown people, we live within our carbon footprint. I want to say that, because people are so desperate to engage and to participate and are so worried that they are not doing something that helps the planet. And media has given people the impression that they’re the problem. Those corporations, those fossil fuel companies, are the ones responsible.

I really want to make sure that even while people are making informed choices, they’re thinking about what fossil fuel companies are doing to destroy the planet.

We also have to hold the government accountable for giving some money to environmental justice but then funding offshore oil, supporting the Willow Project and other initiatives that harm our community. Or we have to blame big green organizations that say that they’re about the environment but are supporting green hydrogen, carbon sequestration, and other false solutions that turn our communities into sacrifice zones. Those are the folks that we really need to worry about.

It’s easy for our communities to think, “Okay, maybe I need to turn off the lights.” Turning off the lights is not enough. But you know what? Having a community on a solar array that creates community wealth—that’s a really cool thing. Getting off the grid, finding alternative options, and providing renewable energy, those are really cool things, and those are things that are on a different scale.

Interview conducted, condensed, and edited by Adam Kaufman, FCLC ’08.

Castaldo, who resides in New York’s Hudson Valley, has been interested in nature—and writing about it—since she was a child, but it wasn’t until she was a student at Marymount College that she homed in on ecology. During her senior year, her interests converged: All at once, she served as president of the science club, editor of the literary magazine, and an intern at Audubon Magazine. Since then, she’s published more than two dozen books, written countless articles, worked as an environmental educator, and won some awards, to boot. She’s also a certified National Geographic Educator.

In When the World Runs Dry, amid the heartbreaking anecdotes from Flint, Michigan, and the alarm bells about Earth’s rising sea levels, Castaldo offers readers ages 10 to 18 years old not only potential solutions but hope.

Your interest in nature and the planet began very early on, but when did you know that you wanted to pursue that interest professionally?
Before I entered Marymount, I really thought of becoming a veterinarian; I came in initially as a biology major with that in mind. I ended up finding out early on that that was not the path I wanted to pursue, but instead I wanted to pursue more of ecology and animal behavior—and my ecology class at Marymount was instrumental in solidifying that.

What’s your favorite part of the writing process?
I am definitely a research junkie. I love every aspect of it. It’s like a scavenger hunt. I’m able to just explore things that I’m fascinated in during the research phase. So, when I get the OK to do any of my books and I begin that phase of research, whether it’s spending time in a library, digging out old books in a science library, or traveling, that is the part that I really enjoy the most. And of course, research brings you down a path. It gives you offshoots of things to write about, and discoveries that you didn’t know when you set out to research a topic.

To date, which research destination has had the greatest impact on you?
There’ve been so many for many different reasons. When the World Runs Dry involved a lot of research to areas where folks were having serious water issues—a lot of crises. One of those was a visit to Flint, Michigan, and it was very, very difficult to see the environmental injustice that occurs and to experience in a very, very, very minor way what these people are going through. It’s eye-opening. It changed the way I look at communities and environmental justice, and I think that will stay with me forever.

I think that anytime we travel outside of our own experience, it opens us up to a deeper understanding for the world around us. When I was working on a book called The Story of Seeds, which is another young adult book that came out in 2016, I was able to travel to Russia and spend time in St. Petersburg. And of course, right now, facing the war news every day in Ukraine, I can’t get that out of my head. What I learned in that trip, which was very instrumental in my thinking going forward, was that scientists have a different sense of boundaries, of country borders, than I think the rest of us. Scientists don’t put up [the same] walls, and maybe we can learn from that.

So, there’ve been things like those experiences, those research stories, that have really opened my eyes to the world climate, so to speak.

Your books largely fall into the young adult and middle-grade ranges. Why kids? What drew you to this audience?
Writing for kids is a gift. Kids remember the books that they read. They’re impressionable at that age. They are a challenge to write to, as well. You have to be really, really careful about what you write for kids in that it must be accurate. You can’t put anything over them. They’re smart, and they deserve books that tell them what’s going on out there. And then, what I try to do in my books for kids is, I want to not only inform my readers, but I want to inspire them to action. I want to empower them. I want to write for kids to let them know that they have a voice, and I want them to be able to know that their voice matters. I think that’s a different goal than writing for adults.

We’re leaving the world to kids, and we need to give them the tools that they need to move forward—to be competent, well-versed citizens. I love the kids that are fighting for the planet right now. I feel like they’re our future, and they need books that are going to help them. I’m hoping that my books do that.

How do you go about conveying such complex, layered issues in a way that’s digestible for the kids? One of the things that struck me when I was reading When the World Runs Dry was that you didn’t “dumb down” the topic. How do you balance presenting the info in a way that this audience can understand, but also in a way that’s challenging?
Yeah, it is challenging to do that. And sometimes it takes me a few passes to get it right, and good editors to help me along with that, as well. I think that kids today are a little bit more versed than they were when I started writing. I remember writing a book in 2008 that was called Keeping Our Earth Green, and that book was about all the different issues that we face around the planet. At that time, I had to describe to kids what climate change was and put it in very understandable terms. But since then, there’s so much out there now that kids really understand.

What I tried to do with When the World Runs Dry was to give them real-life examples of different water issues that they could really dig into and understand; flesh out a little bit of what they were hearing on the news already. And knowing, of course, that my readers are going to represent a wide age group, so trying to balance that a little bit, and providing resource matter that helps them get more information if they need it.

The book does a really good job of humanizing the topic, as well. Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of people who have been negatively impacted by the water crisis, so how did you choose the subjects that you highlighted in the book?
I wanted to show the diversity of people involved, to show kids that it pretty much didn’t matter who or where you were, that there are water issues that could impact you wherever you lived. And to also get a variety of places. Unfortunately, there’s so much in the news that it was a matter of picking and choosing what were the best examples of those different aspects. I wanted them also to see that it wasn’t just happening in the United States. We may not be experiencing the same level of crisis here in the United States, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening in Australia or South Africa.

While I wasn’t able to travel to all of those areas, I did travel quite a bit for this book, and I wanted my reader to come along with me for that exploration and see the variety of climate, the variety of people, the variety of country, and how each area and each group of people were being impacted. I really do wish there were less places to choose from. It was a matter of which ones to leave out more than which ones to put in.

How did you remain hopeful as you worked on this book?
I believe that we all have to have hope about our planet. How else could we go on? You can’t strive to make a difference if you don’t have hope. If you don’t think that there can be change, there won’t be change. But, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t times in this book when I was writing it that it was just overwhelmingly sad to hear about people who were displaced, people having health issues; the young woman that I dedicated the book to passed away after I interviewed her. [Jassmine McBride died in February 2019. Then just 30 years old, McBride was the 13th official victim of Flint’s outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease, a respiratory condition caused by soil- and water-dwelling bacterium.]  She still stays with me, and I can’t help but be upset and saddened by so much of that.

It was a difficult book to write, but I think that it’s always better to have the knowledge. One of the things that I tried to do was include as many young people as possible in the book—there’s obviously always room for more—to let my young readers know that there are other teens out there that are doing amazing things by raising their voices or inventing things, [like Mari Copeny’s #WednesdaysForWater Twitter initiative or Gitanjali Rao’s handheld water-testing device].  Those are the aspects that bring me hope. Those are the points to the story that take it to that next level, that provide us with the action, the energy, we need to light that spark underneath us to do something.

Your next book hits shelves in August. What’s it about?
The Wolves and Moose of Isle Royale is a story of ecosystem restoration. When I was in college at Marymount, I had a fabulous ecology teacher who taught us about this wolf and moose predator-prey relationship on Isle Royale, a fascinating little island that’s in Lake Superior and [part of the National Parks System].  It’s the oldest predator-prey study that’s happened in the world. The wolf population has dwindled so much that the moose population has soared, creating this huge imbalance in the island ecosystem, so the scientists decided that they were going to reintroduce wolves. This book delves into the predator-prey study, why the wolves are being reintroduced, and how that reintroduction is going.

It was just wonderful to go there, to meet the people I had studied in college that have been working on this project for so many years. It was fascinating: It was like my college classes coming back, full speed.

Buildings That Breathe comes out at the beginning of November. And it’s a young adult book about green infrastructure, urban greening, greening parks, and it focuses primarily on the vertical forest called Bosco Verticale in Milan, Italy. My research for that involved spending a week at a United Nations conference in Italy on urban forestry. It’s fascinating to be able to build buildings that actually help the environment—that can alter what our cities will look like in the future. So, that comes out in the beginning of November.

Is there anything else you want readers to know?
One of the things that I hope for the book is that my readers will also discover ways to deal with adversity. I think that’s very important at any time, but particularly now. We can’t get through our lives without such experiences. It may not be a water issue, but it may be a different issue. I’m hoping that my books provide tools to strengthen my readers and help them become active citizens in our world.

I hope the book empowers them, instructs them, entertains them, but also provides them with a way to develop their empathy, as well.

The April 20 garden effort was part of a series of events held from April 13 to April 22 that was organized by the Students for Environmental Awareness and Justice (SEAJ) in honor of Earth Day. A global event that is observed annually on April 22, Earth Day is a call to action for communities around the work to protect the environment.

“Although the earth seems like this big, indestructible place, it’s actually quite fragile and delicate,” said first-year student Gabby Perez, a member of St. Rose’s Gardening Club. “When you have 7 billion humans on the planet emitting tons of fossil fuel into the air, fishing, and cutting down trees, that disrupts a lot of the natural world.”

Through activities like composting, which recycles food scraps and decomposed organic material, Perez said Fordham students are also learning how to eliminate waste and promote plant growth in St. Rose’s Garden.

“When you throw food in a trash bin as opposed to putting it a compost bin, it gets sent to a landfill and it produces a potent greenhouse gas called methane, or it just gets mummified in a landfill,” said Perez, who explained that the process is harmful to the environment. “It’s important for Fordham students to be aware of the environmental issues happening around them.”

One of the reasons Michael McCarty, a junior studying finance at the Gabelli School of Business, decided to participate in the gardening event was because it allowed him to gain hands-on experience in the garden.

“We’re preparing [garden]beds that used to be in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

St. Rose’s Garden was established in 2012 by Jason Aloisio, GSAS ’16. Based on two back lots behind Faculty Memorial Hall, the garden serves as a living laboratory for the University community.

Since it was founded, student volunteers have harvested a variety of organic fruits and vegetables, including watermelon, tomatoes, and kale.

This spring, McCarty expects tremendous growth from the seeds that he is helping to plant in the garden. In three or four months, he said the garden will be ” transformed.”

“We have the greenhouse set up and we’re out here putting in the effort,” he said.

SEAJ organized the Earth Day programming to raise awareness about how human activities can harm the environment and what students can do to help. Events included a sustainable flea market on campus; a clean-up of Pelham Bay Park; an environmental fair on Edwards Parade; a sustainable art event; and a screening of the 2014 documentary, Mission Blue, by oceanographer Sylvia Earle.

In an April 19 lecture at Fordham’s McGinley Center Commons, Steven Cohen, Ph.D., executive director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, will discuss the nation’s evolution from preservation to sustainability. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will also cover topics related to renewable energy, the sharing economy, and technological advances.

Cohen’s lecture, “Building Sustainable Cities and Living Sustainable Lifestyles,” is part of a series of events for Earth Month, organized by the Bronx Science Consortium, a partnership between the University, the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), Bronx Zoo, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Montefiore Health System, and co-hosted by Fordham’s Office of Research.

Though Earth Day is officially on April 22, the consortium has dedicated the entire month of April to environmental literacy.

The consortium’s Earth Month began on April 5 with a presentation about securing funding for scientific research, led by Walter L. Goldschmidths, vice president of and executive director of the Office of Sponsored Programs at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. That same day, the University also held a research forum with guest chair Brian M. Broom of the NYBG. Fordham’s Bronx partner, the Bronx Zoo, hosted a Nature Club Family Event and Bronx Zoo Quest on April 8, which aimed to connect families to nature through activities in different locations around the zoo.

Some remaining events of Earth Month include:

• The NYBG’s dazzling garden exhibition of the artwork of American glass sculptor Dale Chihuly on April 22; On the same day, the garden will also host an Earth Day procession and behind-the-scenes tours of its Plant Research Laboratory, among other Earth Day-centric activities. On April 28, the NYBG will present a science-humanities seminar.

• The Bronx Zoo’s “Earth Fair” on April 22, which will feature products and services that are environmentally friendly; On April 29, the Bronx Zoo will host its annual 5k run/walk Run for the Wild.

Ron Jacobson, Ph.D., associate vice president in the Office of the Provost, said the series of Bronx Consortium events encourages the local community to work together for the good of the environment.

“It’s an opportunity for Fordham scientists and students to interact with other world class institutions in the Bronx,” he said.
(Earth photo by Bruce Irving, Creative Commons)