Featuring William R. Fry Jr.
and Rob Weidenfeld
members of Braver Angels

Moderated by John Rash, Star Tribune

The Minneapolis Climate Action and Racial Equity Fund, a partnership between the City of Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Foundation and the McKnight Foundation, was created to connect corporate and philanthropic giving with place-based, community-driven initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within Minneapolis. Leaders from these funding partners discuss the first round of grants awarded in the summer of 2019, as well as their work with communities for future grant cycles and their dreams for the program.

How can the legal concepts of copyright and common property be brought to bear on environmental justice issues? Aviva Rahmani created Blued Trees Symphony as copyrighted art with nature installations in the path of fossil-fuel pipelines.

Artists in all art forms facilitate important cultural work within communities, especially those affected by climate change or environmental issues that intersect with identity and economics. Often artists are uniquely qualified to see unexpected solutions to problems and to create perspectives to help people understand challenging ideas.

“Environmental justice” and “intersectionality” arguably have been two of the most popular buzzwords in social science research in recent years. Both concepts are rooted in radical Black traditions, environmental justice in anti-racist community organizing in the U.S.’s South, and intersectionality in Black feminist legal scholarship. Both concepts have traveled significantly from their original respective homes and have been used to examine issues ranging from fatphobia to climate change.