Leah Thomas, also known as Green Girl Leah, is an American

environmental activist The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists adv ...

active on

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

whose work focuses on the application of

intersectionality Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of adva ...

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justice ...

. She has been recognized in the 2024

Forbes 30 Under 30 ''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 is a set of lists of people under 30 years old issued annually by ''Forbes'' magazine and some of its regional editions. The American lists recognize 600 business and industry figures, with 30 selected in twenty industries ...

list of notable young professionals. Thomas grew up in

Saint Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which ...

, 10 minutes from where the shooting of Michael Brown by police happened. She found no one was talking about the intersection of environmental and social injustices, such as the Flint, Michigan water crises where 57% of the population is Black. She gained notoriety after an Instagram post of hers that used the phrase "intersectional environmentalism" and called for environmental activists to support

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police brut ...

in the wake of the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's n ...

. She runs ''Intersectional Environmentalist'', a website targeted towards people interested in the relationship between the environment and

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

. She is the author of ''The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet'', which provides advice to environmental activists and describes theories of relationships between race, privilege, social justice, and the environment. Thomas advocates for

climate change activist Individual action on climate change can include personal choices in many areas, such as diet, travel, household energy use, consumption of goods and services, and family size. Individuals can also engage in local and political advocacy around issu ...

s to adopt

anti-racist Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate ...

approaches in order to facilitate an intersectional

environmental movement The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists a ...

Education

Thomas graduated

Chapman University Chapman University is a private research university in Orange, California. It encompasses ten schools and colleges, including Fowler School of Engineering, Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Fowler School of Law, and Schmid College of Scie ...

Orange, California Orange is a city located in North Orange County, California. It is approximately north of the county seat, Santa Ana. Orange is unusual in this region because many of the homes in its Old Town District were built before 1920. While many othe ...

in 2017 with a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy.

External links

Personal website

Instagram page

References

American environmentalists American social media influencers African-American activists African-American feminists American feminists Ecofeminists American women environmentalists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Environmental justice {{US-activist-stub