Jerome Ringo

Jerome C. Ringo ( born March 2, 1955), an American advocate for environmental justice, renewable energy and quality work. He is the current chairman of the National Wildlife Federation ( NWF ) and research lecturer and McCluskey Fellow for Environmental and Nature Conservation at Yale University.

When he took over the leadership of the NWF in 2005, he became the first African American in U.S. history, the executive board of a major conservation organization. Ringo is also president of the Apollo Alliance, an association of unionized workers, environmentalists, business and civil rights leaders who dedicate themselves to the task of freeing the U.S. from dependence on foreign oil.

Childhood and youth

Jerome Ringo, was born as the third of six children of his parents, Earl Ringo, a postal employee retired, and Nellie Ringo, a nurse. Ringo grew up in the bayou in southern Louisiana, when the American civil rights movement reached its peak. During this time, Earl worked with them to establish multiracial public schools in Louisiana.

His father often played from recordings of speeches of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.. When Jerome was thirteen years old, he and his brothers were ready to become the first black students enrolled in formerly segregated schools in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Middle of the night woke her father the boys and asked them to crawl to the front window. When the boys looked out, she saw with such a squad of men of the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross in their front yard.

He was the first African American, worked as a ranger at Philmont Scout Ranch of the world's largest scout terrain, in Cimarron, New Mexico.

Ringo attended college and was planning a degree in Education at the two bodies Louisiana Technical University and McNeese State University. Before he acquired a title, he decided, however, enticed by a high salary, a job in the petrochemical industry in 1975 to accept.

Career

After college, Ringo worked for 22 years in the petrochemical industry, more than half the time of it as a union leader. Many of his relatives live right next to the fence of this industry, so that he saw the effects of pollution of the oil refineries at first hand. He noted that the staff of the refinery masks and protective clothing contributed, but that the neighbors over the fence, who were poor and black in particular, such protection is not received and disproportionately suffered from cancer and respiratory diseases. In fact, Ringo decided to inform the people in the communities that were affected by petrochemical pollution, and taught them how they could prevent the release of chemicals in their neighborhood effectively, which led to the beginning of his environmental activism. Ringo began his environmental activism in 1991 by, was a member of the Calcasieu League for Environmental Action Now ( CLEAN ), a subsidiary of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation. He was among the 20,000 members of a statewide group, the first black man you ever joined.

Instead of trying to close the refineries and chemical plants, he advocated to operate in state legislators lobbying for environmental laws, and encouraged citizens to show up at public hearings, where they express as a community their fears and worries and the could give power of truth.

Ringo was transferred to Malaysia, and on one of his return trips to the United States, he was offered early retirement. After he had accepted the offer, he devoted his life with full commitment to the full-time job for the people who lived beyond the refinery fence. In 1998, he was the only African American delegate to the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in Kyoto, Japan was where he gave a speech. He has also spoken at the Central American Conference on Sustainable Development in Belize City. He gave speeches in many previous black colleges and other universities, including the School of Natural Resources and Environment of the University of Michigan and at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at the University of Oregon.

Apollo Alliance

As president of the Apollo Alliance Ringo works for the public and lobby in Washington, DC to convince them of the necessity of energy efficient technologies and jobs to invest in alternative clean energy sources by forming various coalitions. The Apollo Alliance seeks to strengthen the competitiveness of American industry, rebuild cities, to create good jobs and ensure good management of economic and natural environment. Ringo has said. " We are an organization that looks like the face of America " ( " We are an organization that looks like the face of America. " )

The name of the alliance was chosen as a tribute to John F. Kennedy's Apollo program, which in 1969 successfully brought man to the moon. The Apollo Alliance has been supported by the leaders of the AFL -CIO, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, the National Wildlife Federation, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the NAACP and other activist groups.

National Wildlife Federation

1996 Ringo was elected to the board of the National Wildlife Federation, a Seventy year old environmental organization, which consists of 4.5 million members and over 700 employees. Since he was appointed Chairman of the Board in 2005, Ringo has been trying to expand the partnerships of nwfs with other organizations, especially with such organizations that led the fight against environmental hazards in poor and minority communities. He pushed for programs that urban and minority communities reached, including schoolyard habitat programs such as Earth Tomorrow, which focuses on children of minorities in elementary school, middle school and high schools.

" The single most important issue for me as an environmentalist is climate change ," said Ringo 2005 the magazine Mother Jones. ("The single greatest issue for me as to environmentalist is climate change. ").

Ringo has a vision of a new movement in the environment, where everyone is involved in the common future planning. He believes that real success, energy security, public health care, environmental protection and social justice is achieved when environmentalists are united and empowered to meet as equal partners with economic stakeholders.