Natalie Cook: Organizing and Title-Claiming within the Sierra Club

While I sat down with my coffee in the café where I was meeting Natalie Cook, an organizing representative for the Sierra Club, I noticed an email notification from none other than the interviewee herself. In the message, Natalie noted that our interview might have to be cut slightly short because she was headed to the state Capitol to do the very organizing work that I was so curious about in the first place. Throughout our conversation, I was struck by Natalie’s carefulness and candor when discussing the intricacies of her work, regardless of if the topics were easy to swallow. Even in the short amount of time I had the privilege of speaking to Natalie about her past and previous work in environmental activism, I came away from our conversation asking even bigger questions about the environmental justice movement as a whole; how one’s positionality matters when working within with organizing and activism; and the efficacy and limitations of large organizations like the Sierra Club. Ultimately, I learned that it behooves us to be careful around the labels that we claim, that we must acknowledge the broken system we are in yet still work within it unrelentingly, and that we need unimaginably big goals when we are dreaming about the future of environmental justice.

Work Before and At the Sierra Club

While Natalie now works at the Sierra Club with their North Star Chapter, the organizer has a varied history for someone still early in their career. Over coffee, Natalie discussed her evolution in organizing, stating that she first became interested in environmental work and organizing when she was just seventeen and still in high school, though much of the work she was involved in did not fall under environmental justice. Instead, much of her work was “comfortable” and mainstream environmental work that did not address the unequal distribution of environmental harms against marginalized communities. Nonetheless, it served as a jumping off point for Natalie’s work with the environmental movement before heading to school for her undergraduate degree at Hamline University. Pursuing her Bachelor’s degree, Natalie majored in Environmental Studies and Legal Studies, and was also involved with the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group, a student-directed organization that trains students to take collective action regarding public interest causes in the state of Minnesota.  After graduating from Hamline, Natalie used the skills she gained with MPIRG to start a career around political organizing, and her work was not limited to environmental issues. She worked on organizing for LGBTQ+ issues such as the fight for marriage equality in Minnesota with the “Vote NO” campaign through the organization Minnesotans United for All Families. Prior to the Sierra Club, Natalie worked most recently with the organization Climate Generation within their YEA! MN (Youth Environmental Activists Minnesota) program. There, she taught high school students how to organize to fight for climate justice through leading programming for those involved. From there, Natalie started working at the Sierra Club and has worked there for almost three years now in a variety of capacities.

At the Sierra Club, Natalie works for the North Star Chapter in a couple of different capacities alongside supporting leadership building and working as a registered lobbyist. One specific project Natalie works on is as an organizer on the Tar Sands campaign which is directly related to Line 3 resistance, as the tar sands movement advocates “for clean energy future that is free of oil pipelines, trains and fossil fuel transportation through the state of Minnesota.” Tar sands, also known as oil sands, are a mix of clay, sand, and water where a very low-grade petroleum deposit is found.  In order to extract the oil, companies completely clear up forests under which rests the deposits and bulldoze through the area with widespread environmental and environmental justice consequences. First, extracting tar sands emits immense levels of greenhouse gases from the extraction process alone, not considering the burning of the fuel extracted. In fact, “A single open pit mine and its associated upgrading facility release as much carbon pollution each day as 1.35 million cars.” As we know, climate change caused by excessive greenhouse gas emissions is an environmental justice issue, so tackling tar sands could be considered an implicit fight for environmental justice. However, the Sierra Club’s— and Natalie Cook’s— fight against tar sand extraction does have an explicitly environmental justice focus to a certain degree. Sierra Club’s North Star Chapter, where Natalie works, notes in a report that the extraction of oil from tar sands violates treaty rights of many indigenous communities. In the report, for example, the chapter notes that indigenous governments such as “Beaver Lake Cree have documented 20,000 treaty rights violations from the tar sands expansion” and that “eighty percent of the traditional territories of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Mikisew Cree First Nation in Canada are rendered inaccessible for periods of the year due to tar sands development.” Part of the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club’s fight against tar sands is motivated by environmental inequity and the fight for justice, albeit to a smaller extent than many movements.

Natalie also works on the Beyond Coal Campaign that the North Star chapter heads up, which deals with the need to reduce the state’s dependency on coal energy. This is an issue that the Sierra Club does not approach with an explicitly environmental justice lens, similar to other issues that they approach with a rather mainstream focus. In a document Natalie is cited on for the Beyond Coal Campaign, it notes that we have a long way to go in terms of the state’s coal use, stating that “Nearly half of Minnesota’s electricity, and 75% of MN Power’s production, still comes from burning coal.” “Nearly half of Minnesota’s electricity, and 75% of MN Power’s production, still comes from burning coal; which pollutes our air and water and is the largest source of harmful carbon pollution. Energy companies like MN Power must outline transition plans that continue down the path of replacing our old, coal-burning power plants with clean energy; especially, wind, solar and energy efficiency.” One of the issues with the simple call to end dependence on coal power is that the integration of renewable energy must be done with a certain level of care and planning, in order to ensure that the economic benefits do not go to a select few privileged communities as is true with non-renewable energy industry. The document that the North Star Chapter produced, which cites Natalie’s contact information, mentions how the benefits of renewable energy should be distributed equally if they are to be pursued. The report notes that we must make sure that “community solar benefits everyone who wants to take part;” and while this sentiment is a step in the right direction in terms of acknowledging that solar and other renewables should benefit more than a select few, it might fall short of how we need to be thinking about the future of energy. It is this very contradiction between the often watered-down politics of large organizations like the Sierra Club and more radical and inclusive forms of activism that we largely need. Now that it is clear some of the work that Natalie is concerned with is environmental justice, I attempt to unpack this dichotomy in terms of the discussion I had with her.

‘Big Environment’ vs. the Grassroots

One of the reasons that I was so interested in interviewing Natalie Cook was because she worked for the Sierra Club, a prolific, powerful, yet often problematic organization, and I was interested in further understanding these seemingly contradictory characteristics. When I asked Natalie about how more radical and inclusive goals can often be muddled in the large bureaucracy of national organizations, yet often succeed due to their unmatched resources in the field, she agreed that such a contradiction existed. However, Natalie also noted that there are a variety of reasons that one might be drawn to working for the Sierra Club while also influencing how the organizer interacts with the label of ‘environmental activist.’

In our interview, Natalie begins to unpack one reason why she took a job with the Sierra Club. She, like many young professionals in today’s economy stated that, at the time, she just “needed a job and they were hiring” and the Sierra Club’s North Star Chapter was a way to fulfill such a need. In other words, it’s easy to see why taking a job is a lot more ‘practical’ than working in other grassroots positions. Taking one look at the Sierra Club’s careers page makes clear all of the comforts that come with working for the Sierra Club over grassroots, low-salary jobs: “The Sierra Club offers a full array of benefits to our employees. Our health and welfare plans include medical, dental, vision, life insurance options, flexible spending accounts, an employee assistance program, free Sierra Club membership, discounts on Sierra Club outings and books and long-term disability insurance.” It sheds light on the issue of burnout within grassroots organizing, where hours are long, pay is low, and moral can be easily squashed by the power of corporations and government officials. Luckily, Natalie noted that even though she works for a large organization, she works to make equity and equality the center of her work, often working with community members directly. I find the balance that Natalie has struck with her work admirable, and certainly a lesson to take away as someone concerned about a forthcoming career.

However, the nature of the work Natalie does— work for a large, mainstream environmental organization— is one reason why Natalie doesn’t consider herself an ‘environmental justice activist,’ and is careful around the labels that she chooses to claim or not claim. Natalie said that she is “careful around claiming things that aren’t [hers] to claim” because of how different her work is from those down in the ‘nitty-gritty’ of it all. I found this an interesting and unexpected response from Natalie. It seems that surely working against Line 3 and tar sand extraction (which displaces native populations, for example) is environmental justice work, but perhaps it would benefit all of us to reassess where we lie in certain movements, and start to be as careful around the titles we claim as Natalie is.

Interview Reflections and Takeaways

One takeaway from my conversation with Natalie regards the manner in which we can all continue to learn and call people into the conversation about environmental justice— even if that means taking a passive, listening stance rather than a leadership role. Natalie’s evolution from a young person with little knowledge about environmental justice issues can serve as a lesson in the necessity of how much we should all continue to question and learn about injustices around us, even if we start from different places of learning. We should not condemn and fault (completely) and ‘cancel out’ those with limited understanding of environmental justice issues, but instead call people into the conversation. Natalie noted that even she has so much to learn, and that she continues to learn every day. It would behoove everyone to take a similar stance, especially those in privileged positions, and acknowledge that it takes an enormous amount of work to understand how deep and embedded many injustices are. Natalie’s work with YEA! MN is also indicative of this value, as the work that Climate Generation does with young people helps get students involved, regardless of their starting point of knowledge about environmental justice or even mainstream environmentalism.

Even though Natalie described herself as a “pessimist” at one point in our conversation, her words about the need for “unimaginably” big goals stuck with me as a call for optimism and dedication rather than cynicism. First, Natalie talked about how broken the system we work within really is— so much so that it may be hard for us to comprehend. When asked to elaborate, the organizer said that “the system is designed to divide and conquer us,” that it is bureaucratic, oppressive, and slow-moving. She mentioned the ‘guilt by association’ bill surrounding Enbridge’s fight to install Line 3, which would incriminate anyone who “‘aids, advises, hires, counsels, or conspires’ with someone who damaged — or trespassed with the goal of damaging — a pipeline, facility or utility may be held criminally liable” as an example of truly how broken our legal and legislative systems are. Our systems are so deeply flawed and plagued not only by slow-moving bureaucracy, but by the remnants of centuries of white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism, and the valuing of profit over people. But just as the goal of women gaining the right to vote in the United States was once ‘unimaginably big,’ we need to shoot high when it comes to goals of environmental justice. One sign of hope is that the Sierra Club and large organizations that have historically overlooked marginalized communities are growing and changing their missions to become more environmentally justice oriented.  Margaret Levin, the State Director of the North Star Chapter of the Sierra Club and Scott Cooper, the Chair of the Executive Committee published a recognition of the Sierra Club’s troubled past and dedication to equity moving forward:

“Throughout our 122-year history, the Sierra Club has played an important leadership role in our nation’s environmental movement, and the North Star Chapter has mirrored this leadership since our founding over 45 years ago. However, despite our many accomplishments, we have so far failed to build a diverse, multicultural movement that is inclusive of people from all backgrounds. There is growing clarity within the Sierra Club that we must make significant improvements in this area if we are to achieve our ambitious environmental goals. Further, we know that we must address this challenge not just to be more effective, but because it is the right thing to do. In recognition of this, the North Star Chapter has committed to transforming ourselves into a multicultural, anti-racist organization that is working to eradicate all forms of oppression.”

The two go on to discuss the concrete ways in which the organization will approach a goal of eradicating ‘all forms of oppression,’ including “continually evaluating the Chapter’s issue priorities and campaign plans through the lenses of equity and Environmental Justice.” At one point, the notion that the Sierra Club might publicly publish goals related to anti-racist ends was unimaginable, especially at the organization’s inception. Of course, this should not and cannot be where our so-called ‘big’ goal ends. The point is that it may not be tomorrow, or the next day, or even next year that we reach this goal. We must try our hardest to imagine a world where there is environmental justice and equity, no matter how unrealistic it seems today. We must not take the privilege of looking away or settling for a lesser goal.

A final take away from my conversation with Natalie regards the piece of advice she gave anyone who is looking to work within organizing or activism. She told me that if you “do good work, you’ll meet good people,” and then find good work from them;A few good people can become a movement by means of inclusion, education, and hard work. it’s a cycle. I like the idea of a cycle of this kind, as it implies that ultimately circles of ‘good’ work (although we must be careful around deeming things simply ‘good’ or ‘bad’ as they are more than likely more nuanced than that) can grow to include more and more people. There are good-hearted people in the world looking to make a positive change, and Natalie’s words make me reflect on how a few good people can become a movement by means of inclusion, education, and hard work. Even if Natalie calls herself a pessimist, her words invoke a much more positive outlook on the state of environmental justice.

Conclusion

My interview with Natalie Cook was a highlight of my semester for a variety of reasons. Although brief, it was wonderful to get to speak with someone who approaches their work with unyielding care, candor, and nuanced understanding of the field they work in. Natalie was anything but brash, always taking the utmost attention, respect, and forethought before answering a question, providing an example of how I would like to approach my future work. I truly appreciated all of the small lessons I was able to take away from our conversation, including how pertinent it is to deeply consider what titles one claims in activism work, the need for ‘unimaginably’ big goals in relation to environmentalism and environmental justice, and the nuance and contradiction that comes with working at a national organization like the Sierra Club. We could all benefit from taking the same level of care as Natalie in our work, wherever that takes us in the future. I believe we would have a much more kind, compassionate, and equitable world if we did.

References

Jessie van Berkel, “House Approves Increased Penalties For Freeway Protests And Pipeline Damage”, Star Tribune, 2018, http://www.startribune.com/house-members-consider-increased-penalties-for-freeway-protests-and-pipeline-damage/481444331/.

Margaret Levin and C. Scott Cooper, “North Star Chapter Commits To Anti-Racism”, Minnesota North Star Chapter Journal 35, no. 1 (2018): 1 – 7.

“MPIRG.Org”. 2018. Mpirg.Org. http://mpirg.org/

Sierra Club. 2018. “All Risk, No Reward: The Alberta Clipper Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion”.

Sierra Club. Move Minnesota Power Beyond Coal To Clean Energy. Sierra Club, 2018. https://content.sierraclub.org/creative-archive/sites/content.sierraclub.org.creative-archive/files/pdfs/1160-Minnesota-Power-Factsheet_04_low.pdf.

“Sierra Club Careers”. Sierra Club, 2018. https://www.sierraclub.org/careers.