Colette Pichon Battle: Lessons from the Bayou on Climate Change and Community Power

Step foot into Louisiana's bayous and you’ll smell the strong scent of azaleas even before you smell the cooking. Amidst the sweet fragrance of flowers and mouth-watering cuisine, an odious history of racial division sits in the foreground of these communities on the frontlines of climate change. For lawyer and activist Colette Pichon Battle, growing up in this cocktail of complexity and beauty has greatly informed her work to dismantle structural racism exacerbated by climate change. As founder and executive director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, Colette supports and activates local communities affected by climate change through regional, multi-racial alliances using everything from legal services to sacred pilgrimages down the Mississippi River. She’s harnessing the power of community, spirituality, and indigenous knowledge to tackle the issues threatening our very humanity—racial injustice, climate change, and economic exclusion. Colette joins Nguhi for a spiritual, yet grounded, conversation on what we can learn from not only the land, but those who have lived on it longest. For show notes and transcripts go to https://skoll.org/2021/06/10/solvers-episode-eight-colette-pichon-battle/ On social media: @skollfoundation #solverspod Send us an email: solvers@skoll.org

Om Podcasten

Rethinking Possible features interviews with people who are dealing with big, global problems that are entrenched, complex, messy, and always urgent. But none of that stops them. They’ve rolled up their sleeves and gotten straight to work. How do they remain resilient in the face of immensely complex problems that have spanned generations? How do they keep going when the issues they work on are bigger than their own lifetimes? Hosted by Courtney E. Martin and Nguhi Mwaura, and brought to you by the Skoll Foundation in partnership with Aspen Ideas.