Building a Black community for green jobseekers
The good news: Climate action offers the biggest job opportunity of our lifetimes. The bad news: The environmental workforce remains overwhelmingly white. But not if Wes Gobar can help it. With Kiera Givens, Miles Braxton, and Sarah Nesbit, Wes co-founded BlackOak Collective, a career network growing green jobs for Black environmentalists. In doing so, he changed people’s lives, including his own. For his mission, Grist named him one of the top 50 people shaping the future of the planet. Yesh talks with him about his journey, about not feeling alone as a Black jobseeker, and about why the planet needs us to diversify the green workforce.
Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers · Yesh Pavlik Slenk, Wes Gobar, Jasmine Gil
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Show Notes
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Resources on diversifying the planet-saving workforce and environmental justice
- BlackOak Collective
- Congressional Black Caucus
- EPA announces new environmental justice division (September 24, 2022)
- Greenbiz State of the Profession Report 2022
Sources used in the making of this story
- Wes Gobar in Grist
- A timeline of the march on Charlottesville
- Compressor pollution compared to diesel fumes from buses
- Reconstruction: What went wrong?
- What are sacrifice zones and who lives there?
- What sank the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
Credits
Host: Yesh Pavlik Slenk
EDF Producer: Amy Morse
Production company: Podcast Allies, LLC
Supervising producer: Elaine Grant, CEO of Podcast Allies
Senior producer: Tressa Versteeg
Project manager: Tina Bassir
Audio engineer: Rye Taylor
Music: Shame, Shame, Shame from Yesh’s favorite band, Lake Street Dive.
Follow Yesh on Twitter at @yeshsays, and stay up to date with us on Instagram @environmental_defense_fund.
Visit the Degrees website: https://www.edf.org/degrees
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Degrees: Real talk about planet-saving careers
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