Introduction
The Greenpeace Data Activist Co-Op is a three day virtual collaboration bringing together social & environmental justice organizations, data & GIS professionals, activists, community leaders, scientists and climate leaders.
Attendees will discover how progressive groups are working to protect data, learn how individuals traditionally marginalized by the information age can reclaim power over their data, and discuss toolkits to advance data justice work within your communities.
2022 Dates: May 31-June 2, 2022, virtual
Themes
There are three major themes explored throughout the Data Activist Co-Op:
- Data Activism & Ethics
- Data for Social & Environmental Justice
- Mapping & Visual Storytelling
The live presentations and workshops – recorded and available below – explore these themes and allow presenters and attendees to share our efforts and experiences in tackling the various important aspects of data injustice.
2022 Presenters
We had some incredible presenters in 2022! You can find information on the presenters and their achievements and backgrounds in the document below!
Data Activist Co-Op 2022 Presenters2022 Presentations
Below are the recordings of the 2022 Presentations, listed in the order they took place during the Co-Op. For more information on the different presenters, please do check out the 2022 Data Activist Co-Op Presenter document located above!
Day 1: Tuesday, May 31st
Storytelling that Engages and Compels Action
Presenter: Shannon Germaine (Filmmaker)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynzt-oFJUno
Why is storytelling important to the environmental and data justice movements? How can we better convey messages and inspire change in our world? Join award-winning student filmmaker and activist, Shannon Germaine, as together we take a deep dive into the benefits of storytelling, especially in a world of dwindling attention spans. We’ll explore readily available tools and techniques that can convey information in a way that makes people emotionally connected to your organization and motivates action that will benefit your mission and our world.
Biodiversity in Cities: How Urban Pollinators Show the Importance of Robust Political Ecological Theory
Presenter: Austin Martin (Researcher, Temple University)
Moderator: Lindsey Harris (Data Analyst & GIS Lead, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bntWHswZ1B0
In an urbanizing world, cities can have outsized effects on ecological processes, including biodiversity patterns. Although cities have a relatively small land area footprint, these outsized effects extend well beyond a city’s jurisdictional boundaries. Additionally, cities can be important havens of bee diversity in the context of vast and growing stretches of industrialized agricultural production. Understanding the underlying processes driving these effects and patterns requires an interdisciplinary approach that combines both the natural sciences and the social sciences.
In this talk, Austin Martin will show his results from a study of wild bees in the city of Detroit, Michigan, USA, which reveal a strong negative correlation between neighborhood household income and bee diversity. These results run counter to urban ecology’s luxury effect hypothesis, which states that urban biodiversity tends to positively correlate with increasing household income. Martin uses this discrepancy to make the case for a more robust theory of urban biodiversity change which involves greater interdisciplinary cooperation between the fields of urban ecology and urban political ecology. Urban political ecology incorporates understandings of capital flows and uneven urban development which could aid urban ecology with more robust and interdisciplinary theory towards a greater understanding of urban biodiversity patterns.
Our Connective Tissue: Data Security of One Impacting Many
Presenter: Dr. Kelley Misata (Founder/Chief Trailblazer, Sightline Security)
Moderator: Doug Krehbel (Dir. of Business Intelligence & Data, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1QjIhloO08
When most people think of data security, they only consider their information or their behaviors. Join us to learn more about how our digital connections, the technology we use, and the data we share can be put at risk when we don’t pause to consider our connective tissue.
Cerulean: Stopping Oil Pollution at Sea Using Satellite Imagery and AI
Presenter: Mitchelle De Leon (Dir. of Impact and Strategic Partnerships, SkyTruth)
Moderator: Seth Laxman (Climate Campaigner, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSR_kTnbIYM
Mitchelle De Leon (he/him) will present on SkyTruth’s Cerulean platform—using artificial intelligence to analyze thousands of radar satellite images every day, scanning the world’s oceans for the tell-tale signs of oil slicks. As SkyTruth ramps up the automation process, Cerulean will detect oil slicks from vessels, offshore oil platforms, and other sources, creating a global map of oil pollution and identifying polluters around the world.
SkyTruth seeks to democratize innovations in automated satellite surveillance, so advocates, researchers, and resource-constrained government agencies can hold polluters accountable, improve ocean governance, and amplify action on the climate crisis.
Changing the Code, Not the Climate: Cleaning Up Bitcoin
Presenter: Rolf Skar (Program Special Projects Manager, Greenpeace USA)
Moderator: Lindsey Harris (Data Analyst & GIS Lead, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIAl7WnsYZc
To tackle the climate crisis, we need to rapidly transition off of fossil fuels. In the last year, it’s become clear that Bitcoin “mining” could be taking the US in the opposite direction by reviving fossil fuel power plants from New York to Montana to fuel Bitcoin’s growing use of electricity. What can be done? We will explore a new campaign to shift Bitcoin from a climate concern to a climate solution.
Deep Canvassing to Build More Support for Collective Climate Action
Presenter: Montana Burgess (Executive Director, Neighbors United)
Moderator: Doug Krehbel (Dir. of Business Intelligence & Data, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDUo434d8FU
This session will review a case study in deep canvassing in a small front-line heavy-industry company town, where data informed the program, and the campaign got a win for the 100% renewable energy transition.
Climate change and energy are polarizing topics, especially outside of progressive urban centers. About half of voters can be considered the “moveable” or “mushy middle” and could be more supportive of more government action on climate change, but aren’t yet convinced or engaged.
Neighbors United used the deep canvassing method, developed in California to win on marriage equality, to help more than 1 in 3 people in a heavy-industry company town in British Columbia resolve their internal conflict, and shift their beliefs and behaviors to support more government action on climate change. This complete volunteer-based deep canvassing program had 1181 conversations that resulted in 40.1% of people becoming more supportive of government climate action. The deep canvassing was paired with solutions-based storytelling to reinforce and amplify messages. The result of this program was the city council of the heavy-industry company town unanimously voted to transition to 100% renewable energy across all community energy uses no later than 2050. In other words, we won our campaign using deep canvassing!
How Maps Become Memes and Data Goes Viral: Workshop on Engaging Online Audiences With Maps, Infographics, Datasets and More
Presenter: Chris Eaton (Digital Campaigns Manager, Greenpeace USA)
Moderator: Lindsey Harris (Data Analyst & GIS Lead, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiZgTm9oVwk
This is a fun and collaborative workshop on using data to engage large audiences online. We’ll share maps, infographics, publicly available data and more that have been shared widely online or helped make a larger campaign a success. We’ll brainstorm best practices and guidelines to help future data activism reach more people.
Building Relationships to Build Power: A Framework for Maximizing Impact
Presenter: Dani Neuharth-Keusch, Nori Ogura and Neil Stenhouse (Empower Project)
Moderator: Julia Duarte (Documentation & Training Coordinator, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBiVsfzW9_k
Relational Organizing is about building real power and a movement that is sustainable beyond the next election, with organizers who will continue to work to ensure their communities thrive. The key lies in building strong relationships across every level of organizing, from the activist to the executive director. In this session, we will present key metrics and best practices that draw on our research, expertise, and experience supporting the largest coalition of groups engaged in relational organizing to give you a framework for building real power, one relationship at a time.
Day 2: Wednesday, June 1st
The Modern Data Stack of 2025
Presenter: Ibrahim Elawadi (Interim Head of Insights, Greenpeace International)
Moderator: Lindsey Harris (Data Analyst & GIS Lead, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njOLDBQpZbw
The pace of change in the analytics sector continues to increase with tons of new tools and technologies, paving the way to the birth of the Modern Data Stack. This rapid explosion of tools is met with a rapid explosion of restrictions and challenges. So how does that reflect on the Modern Data Stack and its future? Ibrahim explores the current landscape of the Modern Data Stack and anticipates its direction of travel in the near future, and how we should prepare for it.
Subak Data Cooperative: A New Initiative for Open Climate Data
Presenter: Jake Verma (Data Cooperative Manager, Subak)
Moderator: Lindsey Harris (Data Analyst & GIS Lead, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNTD8PzNf3Q
In this session, Jake Verma (he/him) will cover two topics, effective data management for climate activists and the Subak Data Cooperative.
In the first part of the session we’ll talk about what good data management looks like, why it’s important for data activists to practice good data management, and some principles for you to get started with.
The second part of the session will introduce Subak’s Data Cooperative. The Data Cooperative starts with a community of data users and producers, initially our Member organisations supported directly through our accelerator programme, but open to everyone. The next part of the Data Cooperative is knowledge, training and tools to effectively use, create and steward open data. The third part is the Data Catalogue.
The aim of the Data Catalogue is to make climate data more searchable, trusted and connected to tackle climate impact. and address some of the issues mentioned above. The Catalogue is an online web portal where anyone can search for, request, or add climate data. We’re looking for people to join our community both as users, providers and members of the knowledge community. We’ll demo the Data Catalogue and talk about our roadmap for future growth and how you can get involved.
High-Res for Tropical Forests: The NICFI Satellite Data Program
Presenter: Luisa Teixeira (Program Manager, Planet)
Moderator: Adrienne Lowry (Distributed Organizing Manager, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-r0VNZ2y8g
In September 2020, Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment awarded a consortium of commercial satellite imagery providers, Kongsberg Satellite Services with partners Planet and Airbus, a contract to open comprehensive access to high-resolution satellite monitoring of the tropics to help reduce and reverse tropical forest loss.
This contract opens analysis-ready Planet Basemaps of the tropics under a CC-NC license in support of the Purpose of Norway’s International Climate and Forests Initiatives (NICFI). Key goals of this program include advancing scientific research and development in forests and climate; supporting international, national, and subnational policies for conservation and climate goals; empowering indigenous and local communities in the fight against deforestation; facilitating solutions to remove pressure on forests from global markets; and more.
This session will provide an introduction to the NICFI Data Program, including what datasets are available; an overview of where and how to access and use the high-resolution data; and example use cases and impacts to date.
Political Analysis of Fossil Fuel Projects
Presenter: Sam Lee (Bluebonnet Data)
Moderator: Doug Krehbel (Dir. of Business Intelligence & Data, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myacoy0q1a4
How can we use data on fossil fuel projects to identify which areas are vulnerable to local electoral organizing? Lead Locally is a nonprofit dedicated to supporting community leaders who pledge to fight for a just, green economy. In collaboration with Bluebonnet Data, the Lead Locally team has developed an interactive map for campaigns to learn more about the impact of fossil fuel projects, public opinion across demographics, and more.
Finding the Alarmed: How to Use Voter File Microtargeting Models for Strategic Communication
Presenter: Jennifer Marlon, Joshua Low (Yale Program on Climate Change Communication)
|Moderator: Doug Krehbel (Dir. of Business Intelligence & Data, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxxOaCUKscY
The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) uses social science to understand US resident’s climate beliefs, responses, and opinions. Based on large nationally representative surveys, statistical modeling, and experiments, this research has created a range of resources and tools that have wide applications for the climate movement. This presentation will focus on using a voter file model that identifies the people in all 50 states who are most alarmed about climate change. The purpose of the model and the methods behind its development will be explained. Several case studies will also be presented as examples of how the tool can be used in a variety of campaigns.
Crowdsourcing and Mapping Campaigns: Mapping Police Tech in the Atlas of Surveillance and Other Open Source Research
Presenter: Dave Maass (Dir. of Investigations, Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Moderator: Seth Laxman (Climate Campaigner, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTyE9HXTcqU
Utilizing the power of crowdsourcing and mapping, EFF and the University of Nevada, Reno have created the Atlas of Surveillance, the largest public dataset of known uses of police surveillance technology. Learn more about how volunteers, students, and open source resources have combined to create this powerful resource and the lessons that could help your own campaigns and data gathering work.
When Data Works: Creating High-Quality Green Jobs
Presenter: Anita Raman (Cornell University Labor Leading on Climate Program)
Moderator: Lindsey Harris (Data Analyst & GIS Lead, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3e9eQgApMQ
In this interactive session we will explore the big questions: How can we maximize emissions reductions to create the most green jobs? How do we make sure these are high-quality jobs? How can we use data to achieve these outcomes? We will also learn how the Labor Leading on Climate Program at Cornell University is using policy research, data analysis, and visualization tools to help labor unions develop worker-led Climate Jobs coalitions and advocate for a just transition.
The Clean Energy Transition for Health and Economic Prosperity
Presenter: Crystal Soo (Energy Specialist, Electrify America)
Moderator: Seth Laxman (Climate Campaigner, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7xxz6CWRW4
A successful just clean energy transition is one that diversifies clean energy adoption strategies beyond the low-hanging fruit of demand inelastic adopters and requires comprehensive policy analysis to target high-impact and high-value areas for DER adoption guided by the complete picture of community needs. In this session, we will walk through what this could look like with a solar net metering policy use case.
Dynamic Data & Diligent Diplomacy: Community Centered Campaigns for Promotion & Protection of Human Rights & Our Planet
Presenter: Joshua Cooper (Hawai’i Institute for Human Rights; The GOOD Group)
Moderator: Ranjani Sundaresan (Digital Performance Analyst, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-TaoMihPP0
Dynamic Data & Diligent Diplomacy: Community Centered Campaigns for Promotion & Protection of Human Rights & Our Planet; Setting The World Stage Voluntary National & Local Reviews for UN SDGs, Global Stocktake of Paris Agreement, the UPR & UN Committee on Racial Discrimination
There are opportunities to organize creative campaigns from the community to global civil society level generated by data for major multilateral reviews of human rights through the UN 2030 Agenda, the UN Global Stocktake for Paris Agreement, the UPR and CERD.
Collecting Toxic Patterns Through Storytelling
Presenter: Erika Jackson (FracTracker Alliance), Om Prakash Singh (Center for Financial Accountability), Thomas Goorden (Activist)
Moderator: Doug Krehbel (Dir. of Business Intelligence & Data, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAfuhhBMmiY
This presentation discusses case studies from Break Free From Plastic’s Toxic Tours, an international storytelling collaboration. We’ll discuss collecting patterns from stories, and how we can use this form of data to undermine the petrochemical industry’s playbook. We came out of this project with some surprising findings that point to (new) ways of working together internationally, and we’re excited to share them with you all!
Clean Energy on Screen: Documentary and Data
Presenter: Melanie La Rosa (Filmmaker, Professor)
Moderator: Lindsey Harris (Data Analyst & GIS Lead, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfYwY3aRepQ
“How To Power A City,: a new feature documentary to be released in the summer of 2022. It follows people in six locations around the U.S. and territories, each leading a solar- or wind-power project to transition their home, business, or community to clean energy. Energy fields are rife with data, and too much can seem like a stonewall for the general public. How does a film effectively portray data? What data points work best to engage people in their own clean energy transformations? How can data become a productive part of media conversations? The filmmaker presents some of her storytelling choices for using data, while seeking to engage with session participants to learn how others tackled this question.
Climate Health Emergency: Employing a Health Equity Lens for Climate Action to Promote the Health of People and Planet
Presenter: Laalitha Surapaneni, MD, MPH (University of Minnesota)
|Moderator: Ranjani Sundaresan (Digital Performance Analyst, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCfbig8jZm0
Climate change is the biggest health crisis of the 21st century that is deepening existing inequities and cutting into public health gains made over the past several decades around clean water, sanitation, nutrition, and infection control.
But, acting on climate is also the greatest opportunity we have to redesign social and environmental determinants of health.
In this session, I will share how the damage we are doing to our climate is impacting our health (in the United States), public health benefits we seek to gain when we take climate action, and discuss why health equity should be a guiding principle for climate action. I will also share how health professionals are responding to this crisis and advocating for clean climate policies that also yield immediate and long term health benefits.
Data Mapping to Confront Impacts and Injustices of the Fossil Fuel Industry
Presenter: Kyle Ferrar, Matt Kelso, Ted Auch (FracTracker Alliance)
Moderator: Julia Duarte (Documentation & Training Coordinator, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WqBl7SSeUs
We here at the FracTracker Alliance have spent many years combing through sources of data speaking to the myriad impacts of fracking from the traditional sources like state and federal agencies to the anecdotal photo, email thread, or local newspaper article. Data is our coin of the realm but it is clear that we are experiencing a major shift in how data is compiled and defined with the advent of Big Data, powerful data scrapping and mapping tools, and the unfortunate need for citizen scientists to fill in the data gaps regulatory agencies don’t have the will, money, or person power to address. We will present some of what we have found in the last 10+ years of quantifying the impacts of the “shale revolution” by way of frontline community empowerment, searching company financial filings, and our actual first hand experience living in communities that have been impacted by fracking. In order to map the environmental, community, and economic impacts of the fossil fuel industrial complex broadly defined it is necessary to account for known externalities and try whenever possible to anticipate those externalities that lie around the corner that the industry will attempt to dismiss, hide, or more recently greenwash away. This can be accomplished by merging disparate and on their face seemingly incompatible quantitative data and qualitative anecdotes in keeping with the famous quote that “the plural of anecdote is data.”
Underreporting the Climate Crisis: Replacing Mass Media with People-Powered Social Media
Presenter: Hamza Salem (Executive Director, Collective Impact)
Moderator: Lindsey Harris (Data Analyst & GIS Lead, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGenx8k-BOY
Using publicly available data, we demonstrate how mass media in the US has been underreporting the climate crisis for years. We discuss how mass media self-censors to downplay the existential threat we face, while also misrepresenting the role that the biggest polluters play in the climate crisis. Finally, we present a people-powered solution that centers around organizing and mobilizing influential supporters.
Wetlands Data: Overlooked in Environmental Justice
Presenter: Scott Eustis (Healthy Gulf)
Moderator: Doug Krehbel (Dir. of Business Intelligence & Data, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adkl9WEdTUw
Wetlands perform critical functions for clean water and flood protection. Wetlands are regulated under the Clean Water Act. But, by accident of geography, the United States has located its petrochemical infrastructure on its wetland coast, so enforcement of the Clean Water Act is a low priority of the United States. As a result, indigenous Louisianans and other environmental justice communities have long faced forced displacement by both the neglect of wetlands, as well as lack of action on Climate Change. Please join healthy Gulf in demanding that EPA include wetlands data in EJ Screen, and that CEQ include wetlands data as part of Justice 40.
Environmental Justice in Tech Jam
Presenter: Camille Minns, Chelsea Vargas, Sanjana Paul (Earth Hacks)
Moderator: Ranjani Sundaresan (Digital Performance Analyst, Greenpeace USA)
Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TvZrZ10cnE
Through an interactive jamboard session, we hope to start to answer the question “What does environmental justice in tech look like?” We will facilitate a community investigation of questions around environmental harm, climate tech development, social issues, and the intersection of environmental and social impact of new technologies while envisioning and proposing more equitable and environmentally resilient futures.