Luke Winthrop Cole (July 15, 1962 - June 6, 2009) was an

environmental law Environmental law is a collective term encompassing aspects of the law that provide protection to the environment. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental legal principles, focus on the managem ...

yer and the co-founder of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, in California. He was a pioneer in using legal work for the

environmental justice movement 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 ...

Education and career

Luke Winthrop Cole was born on July 15, 1962 in North Adams, Massachusetts to Herbert Cole and Alexandra Chappell Cole. Cole graduated with honors from Stanford University in 1984, and ''

cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some So ...

'' from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

in 1989. Cole served as counsel for the Native Village of

Kivalina, Alaska Kivalina ( ik, Kivalliñiq) is a city and village in Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska, United States. The population was 377 at the 2000 census and 374 as of the 2010 census. The island on which the village lies is threatened by rising ...

, in its case seeking damages from greenhouse gas emitters from the damage to their town due to

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes ...

. He taught courses in

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 ...

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

UC Hastings The University of California, Hastings College of the Law (UC Hastings) is a public law school in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1878 by Serranus Clinton Hastings, UC Hastings was the first law school of the University of California as ...

and

Stanford Law Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. Stanford L ...

Death

Cole died on June 6, 2009 in a car crash in

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa. The country is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania. The south ...

Publications

* Cole, Luke, and Sheila Foster. 2001. ''From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement''. New York:

NYU Press New York University Press (or NYU Press) is a university press that is part of New York University. History NYU Press was founded in 1916 by the then chancellor of NYU, Elmer Ellsworth Brown. Directors * Arthur Huntington Nason, 1916–19 ...

. .

Awards

* Environmental Leadership Award (1997) –

's ''

Ecology Law Quarterly ''Ecology Law Quarterly'' is an environmental law review published quarterly by students at the UC Berkeley School of Law. The journal also produces ''Ecology Law Currents'', an "online companion journal designed to publish pieces on a more freq ...

''. * Award for Excellence in Environmental, Energy, and Resources Stewardship (2009) –

American Bar Association The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. Founded in 1878, the ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of acad ...

References

1962 births 2009 deaths Harvard Law School alumni Road incident deaths in Uganda Stanford Law School faculty Stanford University alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty University of California, Hastings faculty {{Law-bio-stub