“That’s why I came to YSE,” says Reynolds, who admits that after her undergraduate studies in geology and biology at Brown, she wanted more space to “address issues of racial injustice” in environmental challenges.
For Reynolds, the next step will be returning to UPROSE as a policy planner addressing climate justice in New York City — with a bolstered passion for justice, a deep investment in the city that raised her, and a network of environmental professionals at her back.
“With this in mind, my fellowship with UPROSE was so fulfilling. The difference of working with a true grassroots organization that is intergenerational, multi-racial, and led by women of color was palpable. I spent my summer working on a solar project that will be built on the Brooklyn Army Terminal rooftop and will be New York’s first solar project owned and operated by the community for the benefit of local residents and businesses. It’s a great example of a paradigm shift in energy infrastructure on the local scale; we’re showing that we really can move away from these heavily polluting peaker plants that are so often located in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods, in favor of sustainable solar power and supporting community energy sovereignty."
Elizabeth Yeampierre: Climate change is the result of a legacy of extraction, of colonialism, of slavery. A lot of times when people talk about environmental justice they go back to the 1970s or ‘60s. But I think about the slave quarters. I think about people who got the worst food, the worst health care, the worst treatment, and then when freed, were given lands that were eventually surrounded by things like petrochemical industries. The idea of killing black people or indigenous people, all of that has a long, long history that is centered on capitalism and the extraction of our land and our labor in this country.