GEOG 4091 Group 8 Podcast

Dennis Uyat, an independent zero-waste consultant, discusses his work in the municipal solid waste industry and his efforts to implement legislation for composting and advocate against incineration. He believes that environmental leadership is about empowering individuals to stand up for what they believe in and work together towards a common cause. Environmental consciousness and thinking about our relationship with the environment are important for effective leadership. Dennis emphasizes the importance of showing up, learning, and getting involved in existing efforts in communities. He also discusses the role of academia in making sense of the world but acknowledges the need to challenge assumptions and make knowledge more accessible to the wider community. Welcome to Transforming Tomorrow, your award-winning podcast where we talk about a more hopeful future. You are listening to three inspiring environmental leaders, Andrea, Andre, and Cameron. Here at Episode 27, we bring you Dennis Uyat, who is sharing his thoughts on environmental leadership. Hey, Dennis. It's nice having you on today. We wanted to interview you because I think you move people to action and inspire people to get involved. And kind of knowing a little bit about you and your identity, you're not afraid to challenge spaces to make space for what you believe is right and working towards creating a vision where that vision becomes reality, kind of why we chose you. So can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are? Of course. So my name is Dennis Uyat. I use they, them pronouns and I am an independent zero-waste consultant. I'm Turkish-Columbian-American, originally from Southeast Los Angeles. I think what got me started in environmental work honestly was maybe starting with my parents. My dad was really into repairing stuff. I learned a lot of those sorts of values, I guess, at home. So what I work on currently is in the municipal solid waste industry, a lot of my clients are like municipalities trying to implement legislation here in California to be in compliance with that, specifically short-lived climate pollutants, which basically means we're trying to compost so that it doesn't create methane. And I've also been involved with anti-incineration work here. There were three incinerators, one closed, I think in 2015 in Commerce, and then another actually just stopped operations in Long Beach at the end of January of this year. And we're trying to close another one. Just highlighting the harms of burning trash and all the pollutants that are contained in all the materials that are in there, are in specific items. And the work I did with that was community visioning sessions. And from those visioning sessions, we developed zero-waste plans that included policy program and infrastructure initiatives that could be an alternative to both landfilling and incineration. So that's a little bit of an intro of what I'm up to. That's really interesting, Dennis, and also very inspiring as well. I was wondering, so what does environmental leadership mean for you? How would you define it? What do you think when you hear the term environmental leadership? I think generally when I think about leadership, I don't actually think you can lead anybody. Really leadership is about how to show people how they themselves can stand up for what they believe in. And I think really it's just been about finding people who care about the same sorts of issues specifically have what I would call an environmental consciousness, like awareness about the things that they interact with. Some people are very into trees, others are very into wildlife or different things. So there's so many different kinds of flavors of environmentalism. And for me, just learning about environmental justice and environmental racism in itself sort of was the beginning framework that led to try to do something about it. And I think environmental leadership is just sort of about showing up, trying to move together as a group towards a common cause and also learn from each other. So I didn't just like appear. I am the culmination of all of the different environmental spaces, but also social justice kind of spaces that I've come from starting in Los Angeles. And yeah, that's what environmental leadership kind of is for me. We've talked a little bit about the inner work that needs to be done as part of leadership. So would you say there is like consciousness that's necessary to be a leader? So one of my geography professors at UC Berkeley, Kurt Cuffee, he opened his first class by talking about how you don't really engage with the environment in any meaningful way other than I'm standing on the surface of the earth, let's say. What really makes a difference is how we think about what is around us, what is in our surroundings. So I think environmental consciousness means thinking about what our environment consists of, which includes like indoor environments to, you know, these sort of global perspectives like climate change or climate catastrophe. How we think about like our relationship to the environment kind of drives our behavior around it. And if you don't think about it, like it kind of leads to disasters. It sounds like you're extremely knowledgeable about the environment. I was wondering over career, what have you learned about how to be a more effective leader? I mean, I guess what are the key takeaways, would you say? Yeah, of course. So I'll illustrate using the example of Comida No Bombas, which is Food Not Bombs in Los Angeles. And first, wasn't really sure how to participate. The starting point was I just did participate and didn't really engage much, but I was listening and watching how things were done. And this was a group of community members and youth in the early to 2010s, organizing over Facebook. And when we got together and started, you know, assembling burritos to then distribute on bicycles to homeless folks, I learned about leadership starting there. So what they would do during the meetings is they would have a horizontal leadership structure. They were very intentional about making sure that everybody was heard and understood. And there was people who were from different kind of intersectional identities and experiences like Black trans women, and most of the people were people of color, which in Los Angeles refers to Black, Indigenous, Southeast Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latina peoples. So different sexualities, genders, and just learning about how a horizontal structure can operate by taking stock and people raising their hands and sort of making collective decisions. That was, I think, the beginning of understanding what leadership means, which isn't I am dictating how things are done here. It's more of here's our idea. What do you all think of that? And then hearing feedback and intentionally, like, incorporating that feedback. You know, it's an imperfect process, but I think what enabled the leadership of that space was that people really felt ownership in their participation and wanted to be involved and then having a willingness to work through conflicts when they come up. So I think that's sort of what leadership means to me. We've talked about trying to figure out how to move people to action, right? And like people who don't know what to do. And kind of what I hear is like, just do something. And there's like hope, because I think a lot of people feel like they can't do anything. And I think you're flipping that upside down by saying everyone can be a leader. You just have to step up. I was just wondering what advice you could give to future environmental leaders. Is it more just to just do something and lead by example and hope that other people realize? Yeah, that's a really good question. I would say I wouldn't advise immediately to just jump into something. What I would say first is to look around what is happening in your community. And if there are already efforts around an issue that you care about, just start by showing up to that. I guess for me, I got started by showing up, you know, in high school to the Oceanography Club and going to beach cleanups with them, picking up trash at the beach and just seeing how much styrofoam there was and making like those sorts of observations. And the second part is about like education and really trying to better understand the larger context of these systems. Those sort of larger systemic issues also informed my individual approach to these issues as well. And it also depends on the particular geography that you're in, you know, environmental issues that happen there. Or when I learned from a non-profit called East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, I went on a toxic tour. So this is another moment of like showing up and learning. And they described all the industrial pollution that was happening in Southeast and East Los Angeles and how this wasn't something that was in every community. And why is it that it was in particularly like communities of color? And sort of putting together all those pieces is what really led me to continue to like learn. And I think showing up learning on the streets was something that really drives a lot of my knowledge and approach. The course we're in is environmental leadership and management and going into academia to learn what the issues are. Where do you see that fitting in? Do you think there'll be a contention? So I think there's two things. I think there is a hugely important role in academia to make sense of the world. However, there's also where did academia like come from? You know, there's sort of like colonization, white supremacy, patriarchy, these sort of like systems that have been developed through history that we're sort of conditioned into being a part of. I think being on the streets and listening to movements like Dakota Access Pipeline, like, oh, there's an issue happening. I want to find out more about that. It wasn't until I like went to the streets that I really understood what people were saying. I'm still like learning and checking the assumptions that academia has, and particularly how they how knowledge is concentrated rather than distributed and shared. I think about how academia sort of accumulates and brands and copyrights particular forms of knowledge for itself. But then that knowledge isn't easily accessible unless you're part of that university. There's definitely an opportunity to try to like take that knowledge and distribute it back out to the community. I don't know how to do that, per se, but the way that I've seen it transfer is when PhDs or master's students are also involved in community groups and organizations and sharing that knowledge openly and transparently, questioning like why why knowledge isn't so accessible and how it can be made to be more accessible so that people can be more empowered to make informed decisions in their everyday lives. That was a great interview. Thank you so much, Dennis. Thank you so much for being here. Guys, what do you think about this interview? I think it was great. Yeah, that was absolutely fascinating. It's clear that based on theory, Dennis is discussing more of a modern style of leadership about creating a culture where people do their part in a very collaborative and supportive environment. I mean, plenty of literature I've looked at discusses how leadership is practiced rather than possessed, which is in contrast to the traditional view of a solitary authoritative leader with many followers. But it's increasingly clear that in academic studies, that giving these followers a voice is not only crucial for understanding leadership, but also creating leaders for the future. Yeah, I think Dennis's leadership goes against the traditional leadership as well and focuses kind of like on the group or collective form of leadership, something that's been called leadership as a process. And then there's also self-directed teams is also something that is in this form where each member practices self-management, which is kind of, I think, what Dennis was talking about when he referred to about the inner work. And then there's also super leadership where power is in the team rather than the persons. Yeah, I really appreciate Dennis's views today. I remember reading in a chapter of a handbook of climate change leadership in organization, it was about ecological leaders and how they can understand the planetary emergency and also understand the planetary complexity and the dynamics of change. And with all of this, it comes also like ethical commitment to sustainability and the ambition to transformation. And I think that's essential. I think the commitment to try to change our behaviors and our ways of doing certain activities, you need a lot of courage to do that, to go out there and try to change all the ways humanity has influenced the earth in a negative way. And I can totally see how Dennis, it's a good example of that and trying to change the policy. And I think he's a true leader for that. Yeah. There's a study that I came across looking specifically at environmental science leadership and how it follows sort of the traditional leadership style that Cam brought up. I feel like corporate or traditional leadership works because it's sort of in the same context with global norms, where addressing things like environmental change is outside of these norms because of the complexity and distinctness of natural systems like deserts or ice sheets. They all have their own sort of way that you have to deal about it. And I think this requires more of the community-centered leadership or local leadership that Dennis kind of alluded to. And so a question that I kind of thought of was, should we be championing individuals in the way that environmental science leadership is and the prescriptions that they put forward or something more like leadership for the environment? I do believe it's better to champion the environment and to have like a community, as you said, but also in that you need to champion individuals so they can feel encouraged. So I think it's one with the other, but definitely helping each other to champion each other to encourage each other. Yeah, I definitely agree with Andrea. I do think it's a mixture of both. I feel like it can be flexible. I don't really think there needs to be either one or the other, because the environment ultimately is the priority. And yet it is important that we have environmental leaders such as Greta Thunberg, who are attracting press attention and media attention, because this issue is here, it's imminent, it's incredibly important, and yet it is overlooked. And so I do think it's incredibly important that we do have these leaders to look up to who are really campaigning strongly for the protection of the environment. But most importantly, what do you guys think at home? Let us know. You've been listening to Transforming Tomorrow. Make sure to follow us on all our social media accounts, and we'll see you in the next one. Goodbye.