Abigail Dillen is an environmental lawyer and executive at the environmental justice organization Earthjustice. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Her work has been called "precedent setting" by multiple climate organizations. [6] [7] [8] This includes, for example, defending the roadless rule. [9] She was profiled as a 2020 changemaker by Marie Claire. [10]
Dillen has a Juris Doctor degree from UC Berkeley School of Law, BA from Yale University [11] and joined in Earthjustice in 2000. [12] She led both the clean energy and coal programs at Earthjustice. [7] [13] [14] She became the chief executive in 2018 replacing Trip Van Noppen. [15] [13]
Dillen was a contributor in the All We Can Save anthology. [16] [17] She has also published opinion pieces for USA Today, [18] Huffington Post, The Hill, EcoWatch and other news sources. [19]
Dillen grew up in New Mexico. [12] She is married to architect Jasmit Rangr, [15] [20] and has a son. [8]
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States–based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bozeman, India, and Beijing. The group was founded in 1970 in opposition to a hydroelectric power plant in New York.
The Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska is the largest U.S. National Forest at 16.7 million acres. Most of its area is temperate rain forest and is remote enough to be home to many species of endangered and rare flora and fauna. The Tongass, which is managed by the United States Forest Service, encompasses islands of the Alexander Archipelago, fjords and glaciers, and peaks of the Coast Mountains. An international border with Canada runs along the crest of the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains. The forest is administered from Forest Service offices in Ketchikan. There are local ranger district offices located in Craig, Hoonah, Juneau, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Sitka, Thorne Bay, Wrangell, and Yakutat.
Earthjustice is a nonprofit public interest organization based in the United States dedicated to litigating environmental issues. Headquartered in San Francisco, they have an international program, a communications team, and a policy and legislation team in Washington, D.C., along with 14 regional offices across the United States.
Jones Day is an American multinational law firm based in Washington, D.C. As of 2023, it is one of the largest law firms in the United States, with 2,302 attorneys, and among the highest-grossing in the world with revenues of $2.5 billion. Founded in 1893, the firm was originally headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. It has represented over half of the companies in the Fortune 500, including Goldman Sachs, General Motors, McDonald's, and Bridgestone. Jones Day has also represented the campaign of former president Donald Trump.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) is a public nonprofit environmental law organization based in Washington, DC, with an office in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1989. CIEL's team aims to use "the power of law to protect the environment, promote human rights, and ensure a just and sustainable society. CIEL seeks a world where the law reflects the interconnection between humans and the environment, respects the limits of the planet, protects the dignity and equality of each person, and encourages all of earth’s inhabitants to live in balance with each other." They help educate organizations, corporations, and the public on environmental issues and conduct their own research. Carroll Muffett has been the president and CEO of CIEL since September 2010. CIEL also offer legal internship programs.
Roadless area conservation is a conservation policy limiting road construction and the resulting environmental impact on designated areas of public land. In the United States, roadless area conservation has centered on U.S. Forest Service areas known as inventoried roadless areas. The most significant effort to support the conservation of these efforts was the Forest Service 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.
Leilani Maaja Münter is an American former professional stock car racing driver and environmental activist. She last competed in the ARCA Menards Series, and previously drove in the Firestone Indy Lights, the development league of IndyCar.
Law360 is a subscription-based, legal news service based in New York City. It is operated by Portfolio Media, Inc., a subsidiary of LexisNexis and delivers breaking news and analysis to more than 2 million U.S. legal professionals across 60 practice areas, industries and topics, including a free section dedicated to Access to Justice, which reports on "access of individuals and disadvantaged populations to adequate, equitable, and essential criminal and civil justice systems as well as the noteworthy initiatives and individuals who promote such a cause."
Peter Lehner is an American lawyer and environmentalist. He leads a sustainable food and farming program at Earthjustice, developing strategies to reduce harmful effects of food production on climate, human health and the environment, and to promote a more ecologically sound agricultural system. He coauthored the book In Deep Water, about the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, with Bob Deans.
Danielle J. Nierenberg is an American activist, author and journalist.
Eric Holthaus is an American meteorologist and climate journalist. He is the founder of a weather service called Currently and started a publication called The Phoenix on Ghost. He was formerly a writer for The Correspondent, Grist, Slate and The Wall Street Journal and is known for his mentions of global climate change.
The environmental policy of the first Donald Trump administration represented a shift from the policy priorities and goals of the preceding Barack Obama administration. Where President Obama's environmental agenda prioritized the reduction of carbon emissions through the use of renewable energy with the goal of conserving the environment for future generations, the Trump administration policy was for the US to attain energy independence based on fossil fuel use and to rescind many environmental regulations. By the end of Trump's term, his administration had rolled back 98 environmental rules and regulations, leaving an additional 14 rollbacks still in progress. As of early 2021, the Biden administration was making a public accounting of regulatory decisions under the Trump administration that had been influenced by politics rather than science.
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, and conservation strategist. She is the co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for ocean-climate policy in coastal cities, and the Roux Distinguished Scholar at Bowdoin College. She is the author of What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures (2024).
Our Children's Trust is an American nonprofit public interest law firm based in Oregon that has filed several lawsuits on behalf of youth plaintiffs against state and federal governments, arguing that they are infringing on the youths' rights to a safe climate system.
Monica P. Medina is an American attorney and government official who previously served as the Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the Department of State. Medina served as Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, deputy associate attorney general, and general counsel of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She was also the U.S. Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission. She is currently President and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Catarina Lorenzo is a Brazilian climate activist from Salvador, Bahia.
Varshini Prakash is an American climate activist and the founding executive director of the Sunrise Movement, a 501(c)(4) organization which she co-founded in 2017. She was named on the 2019 Time 100 Next list, and was a co-recipient of the Sierra Club John Muir Award in 2019.
Tamara Toles O'Laughlin is an environmental activist, climate strategist, CEO and president of the Environmental Grant makers Association (EGA).
Kendra Pierre-Louis is an American climate reporter and journalist. She most recently worked at Gimlet Media as a reporter and producer on the podcast How to Save a Planet, featuring Alex Blumberg and Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.
The Alaska Roadless Rule is an environmental conservation policy that placed significant restrictions on timber removal and road construction or reconstruction in Inventoried roadless areas, which protects about half of the Tongass National Forest and Chugach National Forest's 17 million acres. The Alaska Roadless Rule stems directly from the Roadless Area Conservation Rule in which the United States Forest Service identified areas of natural importance as Inventoried roadless areas and announced the Forest Service 2001 Roadless Rule.