Environmental Voices: The PennFuture Podcast

Episode 4 of “Environmental Voices: The PennFuture Podcast” celebrates the career and advocacy of Jacquelyn Bonomo, PennFuture's President and CEO who will retire in July after a brilliant 40-year career.

Bonomo, who first came to PennFuture as the organization’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in August 2016, has served as the organization’s President and Chief Executive Officer since October of 2017. Her work in environmental advocacy started as a volunteer with the Sierra Club, and concludes with her leading a period of sustained growth at one of Pennsylvania’s most influential environmental organizations, PennFuture. In between, Bonomo has had a front row seat to some of the most important conservation developments of the last four decades, working at the national level and in 24 states and U.S. territories.

In this episode, we tried to honor Bonomo's tremendous career by chatting with people who have worked closely with her over the last 40 years.

Our guests include:

· Charles Bier, who is the Senior Director for Conservation Science at the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Before coming to PennFuture, Bonomo spent nearly a decade at the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy as that organization’s vice president of conservation programs. From 1999 to 2008, Jacqui was responsible for budgeting, planning and administration of the largest natural resource conservation program in the region, with staff in eight locations. She also increased the organization’s operating budget from $1 million to $5.7 million and grew staff from eleven to over 80 through 2007.

· Cindy Adams Dunn, who has served as the Secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources since 2015. From 2013 to 2015, Dunn served as the president
and CEO of PennFuture. Like Bonomo, Dunn is one of the most noteworthy
environmental advocates in Pennsylvania over the last several decades.

· Tim Ference, with Friends of the Nescopeck, which is where Bonomo's environmental advocacy began.

For more information about PennFuture, visit pennfuture.org

Episode 2 of “Environmental Voices: The PennFuture Podcast” shines a light on the coordinated effort of fossil fuel trade groups and politicians in Pennsylvania to use the Ukrainian crisis to their advantage.
Our guests include:

• Bill McKibben, a renowned environmental advocate who is known for founding the global grassroots climate campaign known as 350.Org. McKibben has organized for climate action on every continent, including Antarctica. He played a leading role in launching the opposition to big oil pipeline projects and the fossil fuel divestment campaign, which has become the biggest anti-corporate campaign in history, with endowments worth more than $15 trillion stepping back from oil, gas and coal. His latest project is called Third Act, which works to organize Americans over the age of 60 to act on the climate crisis. Recently, he has been quoted and published in outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post.
  
• Ginny Kerslake, a Chester County resident who has been a passionate and outspoken advocate against the Mariner East pipeline for years. Ginny co-founded several grassroots organizations to raise public awareness about the project and has been a leading anti-pipeline voice in Pennsylvania.
  
• Rob Altenburg, who serves as PennFuture’s Senior Director for Energy and Climate. Rob is one of the foremost experts on clean energy in Pennsylvania, working with regulatory agencies and clean energy industry experts on climate and energy issues across the Commonwealth. Before the pandemic, Rob traveled extensively throughout Pennsylvania to talk to students, community groups, and other organizations on climate and energy issues, and of the benefits of transitioning to a clean energy economy.

For more information about PennFuture, visit pennfuture.org

Since we launched our Environmental Voices podcast in early 2022 we’ve produced 6 podcasts featuring interviews with 22 different people fighting to protect the environment in Pennsylvania and beyond. We’ve heard from artists and activists, authors and attorneys. We’ve been able to interview some pretty well-known voices including climate scientist Michael Mann, Secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Cindy Dunn, and acclaimed activist Bill McKibben, and we’ve brought some new voices to you that you may not have heard from otherwise.

For our last podcast of 2022, we bring you two influential voices, each a leader in advocating for environmental protections in the Commonwealth: PennFuture’s new CEO & President, Patrick McDonnell and author, activist, and Delaware River Keeper Maya van Rossum who will talk about her new book, The Green Amendment.

Maya van Rossum has served as the Delaware Riverkeeper and leader for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network since 1994. She was one of the original petitioners in the landmark Robinson Township v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania case decided by the PA Supreme Court in 2013 which strengthened environmental standing opportunities, declared unconstitutional key sections of the pro-drilling Act 13 legislation, and reinvigorated the strength of Pennsylvania Constitution’s Environmental Rights Amendment. Since then she has created the Green Amendments for the Generations organization. Most recently, Disruption Books has published the second edition of her book The Green Amendment – the people’s fight for a clean, safe, and healthy environment.
Patrick McDonnell, the new CEO & President of PennFuture. Based in Harrisburg, Patrick brings over 20 years of experience on climate, clean energy and environmental issues to PennFuture. Prior to joining the nonprofit, he spent six years as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, leading key initiatives like passage of the state’s first carbon trading regulation, acceleration of the Commonwealth’s cleanup of waterways and a new focus on environmental justice issues. He also served as President of the Environmental Council of the States, the voice of state environmental agencies nationally.

For more information about PennFuture, visit pennfuture.org

Last year we aired seven episodes of Environmental Voices – and they all ran roughly an hour long. Today, we’re doing something a bit different. A shorter episode, about 20 minutes, and just one guest.

For this episode we’re featuring a special interview with Jeanne Bonnie Van Alen. Bonnie recently stepped down from the position of Executive Director and President of Willistown Conservation Trust (WCT), a nonprofit land trust and conservation organization she founded over twenty-five years ago in Chester County, outside of Philadelphia.

Bonnie is also being honored this year as one of the women receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award in Conservation from PennFuture’s 2023 Celebrating Women in Conservation Awards presented by Ecosave.

Each year, PennFuture honors the accomplishments of outstanding women conservationists across Pennsylvania. The Ecosave presents 2023 Celebrating Women in Conservation Awards will tell the stories of 11 amazing women from Southeastern PA, and will take place live at the Fitler Club in Philly from 6-9pm on Tuesday, March 21st. Along with the awards, the evening will feature drinks & a dinner with an environmentally conscientious vegetarian menu.

You can visit pennfuture.org to purchase tickets and for more information about all the women being honored at the event.

Unfortunately, Jeanne Bonnie Van Alen will not be able to attend the live event, so we have instead asked her to join this special podcast to learn more about, and to celebrate, her life’s work.

For more information about PennFuture, visit pennfuture.org

Every year on April 22, Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. It was originally the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson and was inspired by the protests of the 1960s, and so Earth Day began as a “national teach-in on the environment” and was held on April 22 to maximize the number of students that could be reached on university campuses.

Earth Day now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EARTHDAY.ORG including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.

To talk about how PennFuture will be celebrating Earth Day, as well as how it connects to our work in Environmental Justice and Democracy work, we’ve invited two special guests to the show today.

Maria Ocasio serves as PennFuture’s Lehigh Valley Field Coordinator. She is responsible for identifying, engaging, and mobilizing a strong base of volunteers within the community to bring about change and awareness on environmental issues in the Lehigh Valley.

Through PennFuture’s Democracy for All program, Emily Gale is PennFuture's Director of Civic Engagement. In this role, Emily has created a new non-partisan voter registration program for PennFuture, which is currently active in active Monroe, Northampton, Lehigh, Dauphin, York, Lancaster, and Luzerne counties.
Links referred to in this episode:
https://www.pennfuture.org/join-the-ace-program

https://www.democracyforall-pennfuture.com/

For more information about PennFuture, visit pennfuture.org