Sitting atop the conference table at the headquarters of the West Michigan Environmental Action Council, Ineke Petroelje is a living, breathing example of what can motivate the environmental movement locally.
"We've redoubled our efforts since becoming parents," explains Dave Petroelje, father of the 5-month old girl and the Sierra Club's new Clean Energy Campaign Coordinator. "It's easier to see the future…"
"It's much more tangible," adds his wife and Ineke's mother, Rachel Hood, executive director of Grand Rapids-based WMEAC. "Before we were doing it for ourselves…"
"And our hypothetical children," Dave chimes in.
"…And now that she's here, we think more about what the world is going to be like in 2030," Rachel adds.
A Change in Climate
Between a new daughter, a new career and an invitation to the White House, it's been an exciting few months for the couple. Formerly an environmental consultant, Dave began his new role as a grassroots organizer and lobbyist for the Sierra Club in November. A week later, Rachel was representing West Michigan at a White House Stakeholder Briefing examining the public health benefits of Clean Energy Reform.
The family is hoping that 2010 is going to be just as exciting. They expect climate change legislation to move to the forefront of debate in the U.S. Senate in the next few months, if that chamber can get though work it has carved for itself in Wall Street reform.
Dave, 33, is point person for the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter's Clean Energy Solutions campaign and is one of two full-time organizers in West Michigan for the Clean Energy Works coalition. In Michigan, a state that Dave and Rachel say has historically opposed federal climate legislation on behalf of its manufacturing stakeholders, the climate campaign can be refined to one clear and immediate goal: Convince Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow to vote for the American Clean Energy Leadership Act, the bill recently introduced to the Senate following the passage of similar global warming legislation in the House.
National and Local Issues
While Dave is working on behalf of national change, Rachel is one of the most influential environmental activists working on local issues. The 33-year-old Detroit native has played a pivotal role in the development of the local green scene through management of WMEAC's various initiatives and its continued expansion into new service areas through entrepreneurial programs such as Save Your Ash!, Teach for the Watershed, Project Light Change, Green Drinks and the Greater Grand Rapids Children's Environmental Health Initiative. Under her guidance, the organization has increasingly worked to make environmental issues relevant to new audiences such as children and families with little interest in sustainability.
"Even if someone doesn't care much about saving the planet, there is a good chance they care about their electric bills," Rachel explains. "If climate change or energy independence doesn't get them, they should at least be interested in jobs and public health."
As validation for WMEAC's efforts, Rachel was invited to participate in the Clean Energy Economy Forum at the White House, a joint program of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services designed to identify possible synergies between environmental, economic and public health goals in climate change initiatives.
"People still like to debate the science of climate change," Dave says. "But what there is no doubt about is that if we're getting our electricity from burning coal, we're breathing in those emissions, and that doesn't say anything of transportation emissions. It becomes an issue of preventative health. There aren't many things that Rachel is working on that aren't essentially family issues. With clean energy and public health, you can see how quickly a global issue becomes a household concern."
A Family of Activists
The product of a small Christian school in the Bay Area community of Alameda, Calif., Dave was raised with an appreciation for the natural world. His father was a landscape designer and botanist, his oldest sister a ranger at nearby Yosemite National Park. As a student at Calvin College, he majored in biology and geology, working as an environmental consultant after graduation.
Working on the remediation of contaminated sites in the Bay Area — former gas stations and military facilities, for instance — was a formative experience for the future activist.
"It's a little jading to see how the regulations could allow things to be ignored even after we knew better to ignore them," Dave says. "Heavy metals, jet fuel, radiation. You would pull water from a well and have to turn into the wind because it smelled so bad. It would make you wonder if you could really make a difference."
During this time he often returned to West Michigan to visit classmates that had remained in the area. On one visit he was introduced to Rachel, a Michigan State University graduate and precocious environmentalist that had chosen to work in West Michigan over her native Detroit for its woods and water. Their first conversation was about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, one of the key environmental issues of the time. Rachel looked Dave up on a trip to San Francisco a few months later, and they began visiting each other regularly, soon making trips for the sole purpose of maintaining the romance.
"It was not a low-carbon relationship," Rachel recalls.
By the time the couple were ready to close the distance, Rachel had made a name for herself as a community organizer on the Turner Gateway Cool Cities project in Grand Rapids and the launch of Local First. Dave's skills were readily transferable, and Grand Rapids was no longer the city he had left in 1999.
"We can make change happen here," Rachel says. "There, we were just itty bitty fish in an ocean of progressive people. And it doesn't hurt that we can have twice as much house for half the money." They married in 2006.
Dave worked as an environmental and agricultural consultant in West Michigan before the local construction market collapsed in 2008. After a year of searching for work, they made the difficult decision to relocate to California. Dave was already working as a substitute teacher there when he learned that Rachel was pregnant, quickly reversing their decision.
"This has been a banner year for me personally and professionally," Dave says. "I have a new career and a new family. And together we're lucky to be involved in shaping history at what we believe is a pivotal time."
"We're a family of activists now," Rachel says. "It's beautiful. Our work feeds off each other. It's rewarding for both of us to see the other doing something we're so passionate about."
Daniel Schoonmaker is a freelance writer in Grand Rapids. Among other things, he formerly was managing editor for Rapid Growth Media.
Photos:
Dave Petroelje, Rachel Hood, and Ineke Petroelje (2)
Rachel Hood
Dave Petroelje and Ineke Petroelje (2)
Photographs by Brian Kelly -All Rights Reserved