The School for Environment and Sustainability’s Office of Community Impact and Engagement hosted a panel titled “A Relay, Not a Sprint: Intergenerational Perspectives on Environmental Justice & Resilience” Thursday evening at the Rackham Amphitheatre in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The event, moderated by Rackham student Nayomi Cawthorne, focused on environmental justice and resilience. 

In the panel, Madeline Miller, founder of NexTiles, said young people’s climate burnout should be a call to action and institutions have a responsibility to engage them.

“Younger generations experience burnout,” Miller said. “They’re less inclined to get involved and to vote and to do things that, in the past, felt impactful but no longer do.”

As the panel progressed, Cawthorne asked panelists to discuss what someone should do if they feel overwhelmed or don’t know how to get involved in ongoing environmental issues. Donna Davidson, president and CEO of Eastside Community Network, argued that the way communities manage growth and resources directly shapes environmental outcomes.

“Development is the management of built, natural, human and manufactured resources and others for the inclusive, social well-being now and in future generations,” Davidson said. “If you look at all resources as being part of environmental justice — not just some of them— we’re all involved in some aspects of dealing with that. Really it’s about doing the homework, aligning yourself and learning from other people.” 

Miller said she quickly realized how interconnected environmental justice is to broader social and health issues after starting her business, which specializes in manufacturing eco-friendly textiles.

“I never dreamed that my work would lead me here, but I say that almost all of what we do now is fueled by, and much of the messaging is around, air, water and soil resources,” Miller said. “Many of the landfill sites are positioned near communities of Color and their health is suffering. Almost everything that we work on is connected to environmental justice, and you figure it out pretty quickly once you get started.”

When asked how to find joy and resilience in urgent work that spans lifetimes, Davidson said she focuses on the things within her power. 

“If I focused on national news, I would be paralyzed,” Davidson said. “I hyperfocus on the things that I can change, the things I really care about and the people who are right around me. The final thing I’m going to say is love, because there’s so much out there right now that is drawing us to hate other people — I intentionally try to love other people, because love brings joy.”

LSA senior Karina Yang, a Program in the Environment peer mentor, said she values intergenerational collaboration as a way to honor the work done by earlier generations and make progress in environmental justice. 

“Our older generations have this invaluable wisdom about the different challenges and strategies and progress that has really shaped our current environmental justice movement,” Yang said. “As part of a generation of emerging environmental leaders, I think that it’s really important to be part of intergenerational collaboration so that we can really honor the work that has come before us, and also push the movement forward.”

Daily Staff Reporters Hayley Weiss and Caroline Wroldsen can be reached at hayweiss@umich.edu and cwrold@umich.edu.