"No One Is Coming to Save Us": Drs. Wilson and Ali on the Past, Present, and Future of EJ

What does environmental justice look like when you stop waiting for permission?

In this episode, I sit down with two titans of the movement — Dr. Sacoby Wilson (University of Maryland, founder of the Center for Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health) and Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali (Executive Vice President of the National Wildlife Federation, founding member of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice). Together they trace the full EJ arc: from the communities who stood outside the EPA and demanded environmental equity in the late '80s, to the long fight to embed the 17 Principles of Environmental Justice into the federal government, to the reversals of the present moment.

The conversation is unflinching. Dr. Ali lays it out with the line that anchors the whole episode: “No one is coming to save us.” Environmental justice, he insists, begins and ends in community — and if the voice of community isn’t framing the possibilities, you get “the crumbs from the table.” Dr. Wilson pushes further, calling for a plan that can’t be dismantled by whoever takes office next: a 50-year,  2076 vision of ecotopias, food, energy, and water sovereignty, and self-determination rooted in the fifth principle of environmental justice.

They also make space for grief and joy in the same breath — honoring the dead who cannot cry out for justice, and celebrating the beauty and treasures inside the communities that must be protected. And they name the stakes plainly: Mossville, Cancer Alley, Institute, West Virginia — places dealing with the same toxic chemical exposures as the 9/11 first responders.

It closes with a charge from Dr. Ali’s abuela: “You have power unless you give it away.”

This isn’t a conversation about waiting for Washington. It’s a conversation about building the government — and the world — that the people deserve.

Resources:

Center for Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health (CEEJH)

National Wildlife Federation - Mustafa Santiago Ali

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