When societal challenges like climate change and environmental injustice feel overwhelming, Heather McTeer Toney feels energized.
“We don’t give up. That’s not what we do,” said the Executive Director of Beyond Petrochemicals and the former Mayor of Greenville, Mississippi, in a conversation with Rare CEO Brett Jenks on April 23. “It’s not even in our menu of options, because if any one of us had [given up] in the past, we would not be here.”
Together, Toney and Jenks discussed the unique and vital role local leaders play in our collective fight against climate change. Toney shared her unique insight into engaging constituents, building platforms to reach decision-makers, and mobilizing resources to build economic, social, and climate-resilient communities.
Toney was born and raised in Greenville, Mississippi, and after leaving for college she decided to return home to work with her father as an attorney. But when she returned, she saw her community’s struggles and hopes in a clearer light than she had before.
“They wanted leadership that looked like them,” explained Toney. “And I thought, ‘why not me?’” In 2003, she became the city’s first Black, first female, and youngest person to be elected as the city’s mayor. In this role, Toney discussed how climate was surprisingly not a core issue in her agenda.
“Living in the Mississippi Delta, I saw crop dusters flying over fields and schools and people, pouring out toxic chemicals,” she recalled, “and I didn’t realize then that that was an environmental injustice.” With time, it became clear to Toney how economic development, public health, and infrastructure all require solutions rooted in addressing climate change and systems of environmental injustice.
Today, Toney has expanded her service to communities outside Greenville as the Executive Director of Beyond Petrochemicals, which aims to block the expansion of petrochemical plants in three target populations—Louisiana, Texas, and the Ohio River Valley—all overburdened with environmental injustices.
“We’re getting the real information out to folks that are decision makers, and we’re standing alongside and supporting those who say, ‘Stop poisoning us. We are not your sacrificial lambs,’” she said.
But despite no longer being an elected official, she remains as plugged in to local issues as ever. “I never disconnect from local leadership,” said Toney, who believes that she still has a role to play in helping to bridge communities looking to be a part of innovative solutions to the table.
“I want to be what I wish I had,” she said, “which is not only a sounding board, but a way to translate and have conversations about climate, justice, environmental issues in diverse audiences, helping local leaders and communities understand what are the issues, and at the same time bringing hope, a sense of collaboration, and the idea of better tomorrow, because that’s what got me where I am.”
Toney ended the conversation on a note of hope and inspiration, and emphasized to those listening that it’s a privilege to feel like giving up in the face of climate change.
“The towel is not yours to throw in,” said Toney. “You don’t have that space to be able to give up because it’s not just your towel, and it’s not just my towel…We get up, we figure out how to move next, and then, whether we move quietly or we move loudly, we just move, because forward is a pace.”