Climate changemakers fighting for environmental justice: "This is what transformation is about"
CBSN
Scott Shoupe is a fourth-generation coal miner recently turned renewable energy technician from eastern Kentucky. Leo Woodberry is the reverend of a small, predominantly African American church in Florence, South Carolina. Their lives couldn't be much more dissimilar.
But recently their paths crossed when Shoupe's work took him on a 350-mile journey to Woodberry's church. And although they are two very different people from two very different places, they discovered they had something in common: they are both determined to use the challenges posed by environmental neglect and climate change and turn them into opportunities for their communities. In the first two installments of a new CBSN series, Climate Changemakers, CBS News meteorologist and climate specialist Jeff Berardelli traveled to Kentucky and South Carolina to tell the story of environmental heroes trying to make a difference in their communities by tackling two issues central to the climate challenge: environmental justice and a just transition.Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.