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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Don Cheadle and Colette Pichone Battle | Climate [Watch (HLS stream): Don Cheadle and Colette Pichone Battle | Climate](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/hYwF7VVK.m3u8) (21:55)  _Published 2022-04-14. Don Cheadle and Colette Pichone Battle on combating climate injustice. Interviewed by Lola Ogunnaike, TIME100 Talks Host._ --- Jul 28, 2023 4:30 AM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [TIME100 2023 Climate Leaders on Technology](/video/3rijfnZz/) ### TIME100 2023 Climate Leaders on Technology [TIME100 2023 Climate Leaders on Staying Inspired](/video/XiGTQ47A/) ### TIME100 2023 Climate Leaders on Staying Inspired [TIME100 Talks | Climate \(Full Event\)](/video/DUsU1AJr/) ### TIME100 Talks | Climate (Full Event) --- ## Transcript I'm here with our first, guest actor and board member of the solutions project, Don, Cheadle, and founder of the Gulf Coast Center for Law and policy. Collect to Sean battle, Don and Colette. Welcome to try 100. Hawks in the world. Saw the devastating effects of Hurricane. Katrina in 2005. You're practicing attorney at that. I'm the Katrina change the course of your life and career. How did that event? Shake the work that you're doing today with your organization? Yeah, 2005 was really the most memorable year of my life. It's when I went home after Hurricane, Katrina, and saw the devastation. I wanted to help out, but I was going to be home for just a little while. But saw how broken our structures around Disaster Response, really were saw the breakdown on poor, and black, and Royal, folks. And said I've got to do something about these laws and policies. I'm going to have to tell you, it was really the BP oil, drilling disaster, that happened, 5 years later and connecting the dots. Go to the hurricane that happened in 2005 and the fossil fuel does a stir that happened in 2010. I got me to really understand that we were in a bigger situation. So I work move from legal services to organize and communities to policy advocacy to movement-building. And so it's been it's been quite a journey, but it's been a necessary one for us to really determined what Future will be in south, Louisiana, Ambassador, for the environment programme, and a board member of the solutions project and you've consistently use your platform to raise awareness about the climate crisis. Why is this work of the utmost importance to you? And make the case for why people of color should be centered in this battle will? I don't want to start with saying that time is running out, in some sort of, you know, nihilistic. It's the end of the world thing, but time is running out, you know, we don't have a lot of time to walk toward these Solutions in the people, as we mentioned, who are suffering from it. The greatest have the least amount of time Colette and I spoke briefly yesterday, and the forecast for what's going to be happening in the area that she comes from is grim and marching ever forward, ever faster, every day, every day. So, these are not issues that we can The table and incrementally move toward, especially for the people who released represented among Among Us, who have the, the least impact on it. So, I believe personally, you can come in for people like myself, who have a platform to get involved. I know they wouldn't some of the stuff started before and I leave work with a lot of famous people who can't get out of the light, and people faces Collette. And in those, that she's representing, can't get into the light off in and don't get the spotlight shown on on on their causes and what's happening. It affects all of us. I know it seems so often that it's just them over there and over with, so so bad for them over there, but I hope that people are becoming more and more aware that we are all connected and the things that affect those at the edges of the situations are Quickly, we are the result of them often or the cause of them often and the result of that is going to be on us. What happens when we see this, an incredible climate Refugee situation that we've already seen in other countries are seeing today in the news everywhere. These situations that exacerbate conflicts around the world because of a lack of of abilities to to get resources. Those things are going to visit us before we know it. And if we don't open our hearts and minds and figure out ways to be a part of those Solutions, those Solutions are going to visit us and no other reason than your unselfish self-interest people need to get involved for white. People of color should be centered in this battle because people of color are censored on the Battlefront and they are the ones who more often than that, which is why. I'm glad that I work with the solutions project because it's about climate Justice and it's about speaking with those who are dealing with The most, but not just speaking with them and trying to create Solutions with them. It's letting them lead the people who are dealing with this on the front lines. No better than a lot of the people coming in here, pontificating who don't have the experience about how to deal with these problems and how to address it and what the community need and those voices that you said and those people are not often that the table. So we have to do whatever we have to do. What we're doing Solutions project with our partners is making sure that those are the voices that are being heard from. And those experiences are what we are and learning how to address these crises into that. I mean, when you're not giving Teddy tok's better and standing ovations, your development programme, focus on everything from energy, democracy to Equitable disaster recovery. And as you pointed out over the years, the climate crisis is it's much bigger than science. Explain. This is a human rights and the Justice crisis as well. You know, one of the first things you learn after you graduate from law school and then you go into the world and you want to use your law degree to advance Justice. You learn a very sobering reality, which is that legal remedies are not Justice muscle. The most that we belong can do is give folks a remedy and it's not really that good at even doing that. If you're black or brown or poor. I live in a rural community, this conversation around Justice requires all of us to sort of used our sectors to the best of their ability. And then level up, I think the work he has really been around. How do we look at the laws and policies and systems of this country and really identify the deficiency and what was clear to me in the aftermath of Hurricane, Katrina, and in the aftermath of the BP oil, drilling disaster was that our laws are policies. And the way that we negotiate people's lives, have nothing to do with human rights. They're routed in property value, the rooted in money. The rooted in return and the routing and profit and know where are we entering an advancing and prioritizing the human right to water the human, right to land the human right to remain on your property and human rights to return. After you've been displaced by a disaster. No one is talking about this because our constitution, the only mention it makes the water is as a commodity. The only mention it makes a people is as property and this is how we have to begin the conversation around. What we must change. It's been an honor to do this work mostly because it feels like it's time we need to and we get to reshape our society are laws by institutional practices and everything we do. But as Don mentioned, we don't have a lot of time. How do we do this while we resist the white supremacy culture of urgency? And really lean into that indigenous time, right? Which is a lot slower, a lot longer a lot wiser. And how do we meet this climate time? Clock is ticking every day until the work becomes a massive bold, big change at the policy level. It becomes understanding. How US policy impact International policy. It becomes understanding how the word democracy requires organizing an engagement at the ground in order for us to really see change. So it's been, it's been a wonderful labor, a labor for sure, but a wonderful labor and really getting to rethink our country. The indigenous people of this planet have endured everything that has been thrown at them. We're in a moment of survival and we must talk to the people who have survived. So this is our indigenous leaders. This is our black needed. This is absolutely people wear. Thrown the worst and are still here and are still fighting. And is still fighting based on love, not hate and not fear, but love. And that's really who. I think, you know, I'm honored to get to work with these folks everyday. I'm honored to be a part of this movement because that is the answer to this. Climate question, has just delivered your lines and keep your opinions to yourself and stop sneaking all that climate change stuff into our superhero, franchises Warmachine. Rody. Like, what's your answer to that? I usually don't answer that but it's very curious that often that sort of criticism is just reserved for people that they don't want saying a specific thing. Then when people that are actors are celebrities or musicians or sports figures say something that they agree with. Can I see Herschel Walker's? Doing great. So, you know. I just thought I'd pull one off of the tree of the fruit is low hanging right there. But that's, that's what I think it is. Look, we are all citizens of this planet and were before I was not born Warmachine. I was not born Roadie. I was not born into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I was born of a psychologist, father, and educate her mother. Who more than anything stress to us? That it was our responsibility to speak up. Not just our right. When we saw something that wasn't correct. And that we, that would sort of guide us in more than anything that we took on is not your patient. The important thing was to be a just Incorrect and right person and I think you cannot look at what's happening in the world today especially around this issue. And think that the right thing to do is to just kind of sit back and get as much You know, make sure that you are insulated from anything and and move and keep it moving. You know, our job is to say, hey, look, we have a big, you know, platform. I have a speaker and when somebody asks me, the things that are important, I want to be able to say, oh, have you met Colette battle? You guys should check her out though. Him if you learned about what the music project is, you guys should look into that. I think that's our job. And if there is a risk involved and it means that somebody doesn't want to hire you to Chances, Are you don't want to work the next day. So, you know, I I just try to keep that as my due north of the type of sewing projects, you choose to take on. Well, its influences the way that I enter face with the jobs and I'm doing it influences, the practices that I try to make sure I'm in cocaine in the, you know, the environment around me down to, you know, why are we, why do we have scripts that are single side, and we should dump least. Let's get rid of sides on set. Let's do this all electronic Lee. That's what we don't need. Water bottle for my let's get, you know, dispensers and everyone, bring a canteen and you know what? Let's do that. These are small incremental things, but I think it influences, influences a culture and you start thinking about things in a different way and that starts to be hopefully something that you apply across the board. Now. These are small, individual changes that we know that the check just need to happen at corporate level. As we need to be talking about unchecked capitalism. We need to be talking about, you know, things that are much larger than people, deciding a hundred people, an asset you Canteen, although that's good, too. So it sits in a Soup To Nuts approach that we have to have and as far as the message you goes. And as far as the narrative about what's happening in the world goes, I personally believe in our projects that I want to smuggle in as much of that, as I can. I think sometimes when you hit it directly on the nose, people can either reject it or accept it and you can sort of bifurcated and it's, you know, you're preaching to the choir. I try to like I want that stuff to be something that just isn't part of the narrative that you're not necessarily focusing on. I like to sit as my partner says like you hide the keys in the mashed potatoes, but I'm always trying to hide the peas and mashed potatoes. That I love that dinner at your house to let in your incredible tedtalk. You stated quote. We must have the courage to admit. We've taken too much. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that the entire world is paying a price for the privilege and comfort of just a few people on the planet. It is arrogance to think that technology will save us. It is ego to think that we can continue this unjust and extractive approach to living on this planet and survive, fires, that we all do our part. How can other support and stand in solidarity with people on the frontlines? The question of how kin folks being solidarity is a real one, and it requires that individual change that Don was just speaking. About there is a group of principles called a hemorrhage and circles. And one of them says that you have to have a commitment to Transformation and a commitment to self transformation. Me, and you have to absolutely change. All of the individual things you do, because as Americans in particular, we are part of the largest consumer culture on the planet. We consume more energy than 370 people, in Ethiopia, one American and we have to, we have to Grapple with that. That's, that is the privilege of our American Miss and there's privileged that permeates through all of our identities that we really have to examine and was not helpful, is to release pain and guilt, right? You have to take the time to examine yourself to change, yourself to do, self-analysis, and be more aware. We all have to do that, but part of that change requires after you make all of your individual changes in your household and in your work, it requires you to step out of your comfort zone. We don't need more well-intended folks coming down. The black communities talking about. How can we help you? Do what you need to do. We need our white, our allies, in particular, to go to their white communities. Say we've got to be really honest about how we're helping to maintain an advance A system that is creating vulnerability. It's creating marginalization. It's targeting people. And then blaming them. This is courage because it's going to require folks, to really think about their own lives where they choose to be quiet when they choose to let things just happen, because it doesn't really impact them. At least not right now. As far as they are concerned, and you're going to have to see something much greater. I need to see those folks who care about this planet, really address our leadership, who still denies it? Both in this country and internationally, I need to see folks, step up and say, on all the other political issues. Let us have a discussion. Put on this one. We are all clear. It is, the people in the planet first and not profits for large corporations. This takes a lot of, a lot of guts to stand up and say, I'm going to challenge my government. I'm going to Challenged the industry. I live in south Louisiana. How much courage it takes for people in south, Louisiana to stand up. A toilet gas. That's been our bread-and-butter that we've been. We've been fed narratives about how much we need this industry, but it has destroyed us and have destroyed our land and have destroyed our culture. It's actually literally destroyed some of our people I say that as we come up on the BP oil, drilling disaster, April 20th, which will be 12 years since that occurred. I mean, this is a dangerous game. We're playing for our people. And for the planet, it's going to take all of us to shift. Not just our individual individual cells, but how we engage in this idea, called democracy, and how we speak up for the planet and her people. Colette, you mentioned the word guilty with everything going on in the world. It's hard not to feel guilty, overwhelmed and exhausted cynical. How do you remain optimistic during these dark times? You know, I come from a culture in south Louisiana, that actually allows you not to be optimistic all the time. We have, we have rituals of grief. We have called a culture that acknowledges lost. This is important, right? It's important to be tied to culture, and and let's take a look at what America has become. A lot of people who are detached from their culture, detached from an identity, other than this, sort of like, made up individual American, you know, Supreme, competitor identity. But if we have the ability to go back and reconnect to our people, our culture and our tradition, I don't care what culture and what traditions are people, our culture and tradition will find that grief and and morning, or actually part of a process so that you don't move your whole life with guilt so that you don't move your whole life with Shane. These are things that have to be addressed. Lord knows we are in a moment and Time where we need culture, most of all to help us get through and keep going because we can't stop. But the guilt is it turned into a weapon. It turns into either a passive-aggressive weapon or really dangerous, direct weapon. And we're seeing that all over our society right now, guilt and shame, and fear. These are dangerous things to have moving in our bodies, and in our minds and in our strategy over and over again, we have to have the ability to reconnect two cultures and processes that allow us to acknowledge what is happening and knowledge, what's happening in our society and our own bodies, with our people, with our nation and then move forward together. And there's one big thing that has to happen. We have to move past the fact that we have never been taught to follow black and Indigenous and local leadership. We've been taught that the experts look very different for me, look, very different from my community, but the experts on how to live on this planet. They look just like me. They look just like my community. And this is a new level of learning that folks are going to have to accept and it's hard. If you've gone all your life, never thinking that a leader, should look a certain way, then you'll be, you'll be hard-pressed to follow. But now is the time for us to move past all of that. And if I mentioned earlier, we don't really have time for the incremental change. We need the Bold Swift Chainz, jump, leave. Take a chance on black women, in particular, in the south in particular. Let's see how the folks who have been surviving all of this stuff that people just realizing recently. How they've been surviving it all along. I think it's time. Don, how do you remain optimistic? I don't know that I do. I just remain active. I don't know. I don't, I don't, I think it's some people around me would tell you that. I'm the opposite of optimistic. I think it is hard. When you look at everything soberly, I started to send you Colette. I'll send it to you after this, just a screen. Grab of the pull-down news that just came in my feed where it was. It was about. There was a climate stories about storms coming. There was a story right under it about a drilling somewhere. And then there was a story right under it about Justice and all of it was connected. And in my mind about poverty, you know, in an NLEA, we're going through a lot of stuff right now. There's been a big spike in crime, and everyone is wanting to point to the progressive, a DA and say it's his fault. He's not being hard enough without even pulling in what we've come out of in the past 2 years. What has happened to People's employment opportunities? What has happened to people, psychically, what has happened to people emotionally. We want to put things in bins and draw hard lines between all of them. When the truth is they all affected other. In these things all come into play. As Colette was saying, we don't really, we've never really been trained or taught and how to deal with things holistically. We want to pick one thing and attack it and deal with it. And then we want to move on while s pick this thing. These things are all connected. We are all connected. All of these issues, spray tan one another. So, I don't look at it as being optimistic or say, I just look at it as you have to keep pushing that rock up the hill and that's just what it is. There's no other work to do. And if it do you, take two steps forward and one step back, didn't you? At least took one step forward? So I just, I just think you just did you just have to stay after the new stuff to keep pushing Donald Collett speaking with you today, has made me more optimistic. So thank you both for being here for me. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Don Cheadle and Colette Pichone Battle | Climate","description":"Don Cheadle and Colette Pichone Battle on combating climate injustice. 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