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Climate One

Protest and Beyond: Annie Leonard On What You Can Do

Climate One

Climate One

News, Social Sciences, News Commentary, Science, Earth Sciences

4.7583 Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Protest is the ultimate in equal-opportunity political action. As Annie Leonard, former executive director of Greenpeace USA says, "Making change is like laying a stone path across the garden. Peaceful protest may be every 4th or 8th or 200th stone; it helps us get where we want to go but also we need a lot of other stones too.”  Leonard explores the history of protests in her new book “Protest: Respect It. Defend It. Use It.”  And while protest is the loudest and most visible tool, it’s only one of many ways to take action. Through community building, through civic engagement, through elected office, through corporate boardrooms, through churches and nonprofit agencies, there are countless paths to exercising power and promoting positive change. In this episode we hear from three leaders working in three different arenas, all toward the same goal. Guests: Annie Leonard, Environmental Activist, Author of “Protest: Respect It, Defend It, Use It” Danielle Lee, Founder, Climate Action Club  James Coleman, City Councilor, South San Francisco For show notes, transcript, and related links, visit climateone.org/podcasts Highlights: 00:00 – Intro 04:00 – Annie Leonard shares the story of the Section 504 sit-ins protest in San Francisco 06:30 – Different ways protest can be effective 08:30 – Leonard on why she puts her body on the line (gets arrested) during protests 16:00 – Leonard on the lawsuit Energy Transfer brought against Greenpeace USA over Standing Rock protests 22:00 – Protecting, defending, and using the right to protest  26:00 – Danielle Lee on organizing younger people around climate and environment  30:30 – Systemic versus personal action 37:00 – James Coleman on the decision to run for office as a tool for effective change 41:00 – Impact of local government  46:30 – How change actually happens 50:00 – Climate One More Thing ********** Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on Patreon, you’ll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. Sign up today at patreon.com/ClimateOne.  Ad sales by Multitude. Contact them for ad inquiries at multitude.productions/ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Instagram teen accounts with automatic protections on who can contact teenagers and the content they can see.

0:06.0

Instagram teen accounts have contact limits on by default,

0:10.0

so teenagers get messages from people they know, not strangers,

0:14.0

and default content settings.

0:17.0

Plus, teenagers under 16 can't change these default settings without parental approval. So parents can help

0:24.1

teenagers connect safely. Learn more at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. Hey Kusha, I just finished reading

0:31.9

a really interesting and really good book called Babbel. Have you heard of this book? Oh, it's one of my favorite books I read in

0:38.7

2025. That's such a good book. Yeah. Oh, awesome. So you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:43.3

So, okay, so for listeners who haven't read it, the very basic premise is that it's set in a world of

0:48.9

like 19th century Great Britain, when the British Empire is ascendant, and they get a lot of their power

0:55.5

by creating magic through translation. So there's essentially these bars of silver, and by finding

1:04.5

differences in related words, in different languages, they kind of generate magic, and it has all these effects,

1:12.0

right? Am I capturing it right? Yeah, 100% because a word in one language even translated to

1:17.7

another language is not necessarily a one-for-one match. There's nuance, and within that nuance

1:23.5

dissonance, and then that creates attributes depending on what the dissonance is. It's a really

1:27.3

fascinating magic system for fantasy readers. It, it's really cool. But yeah, yeah, you got it. Go ahead. Yeah. And this author is, R.F. Kwong is amazing. I have loved all of her books. But anyway, it made me think about this week's episode because we're talking about protest. And it made me wonder about the etymology of the word protest. Do you know what it is, Cusha?

1:47.5

I don't know protest off the top of my head. Well, hang out. Let me, okay, I will.

1:52.3

Well, educate us then.

1:54.5

Okay. I'm reading this. So I'm not like, you know, I don't like to come off smarter than I actually am.

2:00.5

You're not a living dictionary. That's okay. Right, right. But according to this website,

2:07.9

protest originates from the Latin protestari combining pro, which is fourth before,

2:15.4

and testari, which is to testify and bear witness, which totally makes

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