I'm sitting here today contributing work on several things with the environmental justice folks in Evanston: A grant application, comments on a draft report from the Evanston Environmental Equity Investigation, and communications plans with a subcommittee team of a new coalition. It's a long way from when I started writing weekly on Jan 18, not … Continue reading The story of 2025

My eyes are now tuned to see power in the ways in which we organize to do work. Sometimes power is visibly obvious to everyone involved. Sometimes it is more nuanced. Often, it exists in ways that seem reasonable and rational. Until we start to question underlying assumptions; why is it that way, exactly? What … Continue reading Seeing power in citizen “education” efforts

I don't remember exactly when I first read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. But it must have been in high school (1972 or '73), probably during my days as a budding young journalist and editor of my high school newspaper. That was when I first started working on the craft of writing-to-explain. It's really what you … Continue reading My journey to revisit Rachel Carson

This is my updated effort to craft an overview of environmental justice - what it is, what it means in Evanston, and potential paths for the future. What do we mean by environmental justice? Environmental justice recognizes that our history of racial discrimination leads to current and on-going environmental, health and quality-of-life harms. We must … Continue reading Update: Evanston environmental justice

I recently attended two half-day working sessions of the Evanston Environmental Justice (EJ) Coalition. The sessions were designed to inform a strategy for this new organization as it moves into 2026. I was geeked for a number of reasons. This was front-row observation of community coalition building with folks who (unlike me) have deep experience … Continue reading Three ways of framing the environmental justice problem, by the folks who know.