Jeff Shaw, Deputy Director of Communications, jeff.shaw@sierraclub.org, 503.551.3615
Durham, NC - An ambitious new audio series released today by Sierra Club covers the real consequences of fossil fuels and climate change in the American South -- with a hopeful vision for the region’s future.
Collected by award-winning audio documentarians, the “The Land I Trust” project collected first-person stories told by community members, capturing the unique environmental movement in the South that is moving us beyond coal straight to clean energy.
The result: 10 powerful, short first-person stories, and a special five-episode podcast series that will transport listeners to the places across the South where energy choices are having a profound impact on our land, our water and our communities. Stories were collected from Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama and Florida.
From climate refugees to farming families to those building the clean energy economy, Southerners spoke openly about the coal that is fouling their air and water, the dirty energy projects they’re fighting in their backyards, and the vision for a clean energy economy that allows communities to thrive.
Stories and podcast episodes will be available on the Beyond Coal website at beyondcoal.org/stories and on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. Listeners can subscribe for future stories -- from the South and from the regions the project will cover next.
Producing this series: the award-winning team of Isaac Kestenbaum and Josephine Holtzman. Their climate change audio project Frontiers of Change, a series documenting climate change in Alaska, recently won the 2017 Online Journalism Award for Audio Digital Storytelling. Kestenbaum and Holtzman explore connections between climate and culture through immersive audio, experiential storytelling and live events.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters. In addition to helping people from all backgrounds explore nature and our outdoor heritage, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.