Rising Up For Justice: Seeking Justice for Planet Earth

FEATURING RANJANI PRABHAKAR - Our nation and our world is overrun with billionaires and bigots, but they are few and we are many. On this series, exclusive to subscribers of Rising Up With Sonali and viewers of Free Speech TV, we’ll hear from organizers in the movements for social justice, and dig into the nuts and bolts of values, strategies, tactics, narratives, and building power. 

This week, Ranjani Prabhakar, Legislative Director of Earthjustice's Healthy Communities program, joins us. She is an environmental policy leader, musician, and educator, based in Washington, DC. In her work with Earthjustice, Ranjani leads a team of lobbyists dedicated to advancing legislative and advocacy strategies at the nexus of public health and the environment, ensuring peoples' rights to clean air, clean water, and toxic-free communities. She is also the founder of the Mycelia Arts Lab, an incubator for climate storytelling and creative expression as a means to drive change. 

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: So first, tell us specifically what Earthjustice does. It is clearly a climate justice organization, and it has something to do with legal victories, legal battles, but for those among us who don't know much more than that, how do you explain it? 

Ranjani Prabhakar: So, Earthjustice is the country's largest nonprofit environmental law organization. We go to court on behalf of communities, tribes, organizations, at no cost to them, to fight for clean air, safe water, healthy ecosystems and a thriving climate. 

Many folks might hear our slogan become very popular, “The earth needs a good lawyer,” and that is sort of the bread and butter of what we do, sort of wielding the power of the law, on behalf of our clients pro bono.