Beth Winegarner, The Examiner
2008-07-27 10:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

SAN FRANCISCO -

Though our planet is typically called Mother Earth, many of the environmental movement’s pioneers have been men: The Sierra Club was founded by John Muir, and Earth Day was created by legislation from Peter McCloskey and Gaylord Nelson.

But women have permeated the movement, making it their life’s work to protect the environment.

Although the women in the environmental movement are wildly divergent, they also have plenty in common. Trailblazers in San Francisco and the Peninsula say the traits that have propelled them are their passion, their tenacity — or both.

In fact, it was by following their passions that many of them found their niche in the green movement.

“It made a great deal of difference to be lobbying on something I personally cared about,” said Paula Carrell, who works for the Sierra Club. “I would find it hard to do just for the money. But it’s also critical to be able to function despite your passions.”

For these women, environmental work is not just a job, it’s a calling that spills over into every moment of their lives. How else can you explain the fact that fashionista Tierra Del Forte spent her beach time reading “50 Management Ideas You Really Need to Know,” while Literacy for Environmental Justice leader Nancy Abdul-Shakur pored over “The 48 Laws of Power”?

When it comes to role models, these women aim highest. They name pioneers, Nobel Prize winners and environmental-movement founders such as Rachel Carson, author of the groundbreaking “Silent Spring,” as examples worthy of imitation.

These, too, are women who never gave up: “Rita Levi-Montalcini was confined to her apartment in the second world war because she was Jewish, but she did experiments on eggs anyway,” researcher Zena Werb said. “It was the passion of wanting to do research even in the most inhospitable conditions — that was something that sustained her.”

bwinegarner@sfexaminer.com

The Chef

Name: Alice Waters

Age: 64

Occupation: Founder of Chez Panisse restaurant

Education: Bachelor’s in French cultural studies from UC Berkeley

Current home: Berkeley

Quote: “I never even thought about a career — I was passionate about what I was doing. I never thought of my work as anything other than pleasure. I don’t believe in doing things you don’t want to do.”

If it hadn’t been for that bite of lamb, there’s no telling what Alice Waters would be doing now.

Waters fell into cooking — and opened Chez Panisse — after teaching at a Berkeley Montessori School. But when the arguable founder of the organic, heirloom, local-food movement opened her own eatery, she wasn’t looking for those things. Not yet, anyway.

“I was looking for taste, and I ended up at the doors of the local organic growers,” Waters said. “We knew what it meant to think about where food comes from, but I didn’t want anything to do with those overgrown organic vegetables in the store.

“But then we started to get lamb from a friend in Amador County, and it didn’t taste like anything else I’d ever eaten.”

Since founding Chez Panisse 37 years ago, Waters has created a whole movement around eating local, sustainable food, including the idea of the edible schoolyard — on-campus gardens where students learn about fruits and vegetables by growing and eating them.

Despite the higher cost of such foods, Waters challenges the notion that it is a luxury.

“We don’t pay the real cost of food up-front,” she said. “We’re paying in terms of the environment, our health and our culture. And we’re not adding those costs in. If we did, it would be incredibly expensive to eat.”

The Lobbyist

Name: Paula Carrell

Age: 57

Occupation: Sierra Club lobbyists’ coordinator, former lobbyist

Education: Two years at College of St. Catherine; bachelor’s in social science from UC Berkeley; master’s in nonprofit administration from UCSF

Current home: Richmond

Quote: “You can know an infinite amount about an issue, but if you don’t know about the politics, you’re pretty much dead in the water.”

Paula Carrell could justifiably be called the accidental lobbyist.

A camper and nature enthusiast since childhood, she was working as a local organizer for the Sierra Club when she was tapped to testify in a California Supreme Court case about development in the Hayward Hills. Before she knew it, Sierra Club lobbyist John Zierold was roping her into a job.

“The Sierra Club is male-dominated, and the politics certainly are,” Carrell said. “I came to Sacramento at the beginning of the Deukmejian administration, which meant a lot of defense against the erosion of the California Environmental Quality Act, of vehicle regulations, of land-use development. It was a hard fight every year, again and again and again.”

Carrell spent eight years lobbying in Sacramento before returning to the Bay Area, where she now manages the Sierra Club’s national fleet of lobbyists.

Despite her work, she recognizes that there still are citizens and politicians who believe talk of an environmental crisis has been blown out of proportion. She says her personal motto, “onward,” keeps her from giving up in the face of such doubt.

“I believe everyone is educable,” Carrell said. “You just have to show them where the realities are.”

The Healer

Name: Zena Werb

Age: 63

Occupation: Professor and vice chair of the Department of Anatomy, UCSF; currently leading a seven-year study on environmental causes of breast cancer

Education: Bachelor’s from University of Toronto; doctorate from Rockefeller University

Home: Sunset district, San Francisco

Quote: “For a scientist, and even more for a woman scientist, the way to succeed is to do something you get excited by — not what is popular.”

The Builder

Name: Jackie Barbe

Age: 27

Occupation: Job captain at organicARCHITECT

Education: Bachelor of architecture, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

Home: San Jose

Quote: “The Bay Area has great salvage shops. I’d rather have 100-year-old wood than wood from Home Depot.”

After college, Jackie Barbe began work as an architect but was discouraged by her California clients.

“I was tired of working on McMansions for clients who just didn’t care,” she said.

But when she heard a talk by organicARCHITECT principal Eric Corey Freed, she instantly knew where she wanted to work.

The Philanthropist

Name: Ann Iverson

Age: 52

Occupation: Leader of green grants for Social Venture 2

Education: Bachelor of fine arts, Northern Arizona University

Home: San Carlos

Quote: “My mottoes are honesty and integrity and frankness. I don’t have a lot of patience for smoke and mirrors.”

The Fashionista

Name: Tierra Del Forte

Age: 33

Occupation: Founder and designer, Del Forte Denim

Education: Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, San Francisco

Home: Berkeley

Quote: “What I try to do is have a triple-bottom-line business: environmentally responsible, socially responsible and economically sustainable, so that there’s no argument against it.”

It took Tierra Del Forte months of research to find a company producing organic cotton that was right for her jeans.

Now, she has a portfolio of them, which is important, considering that it takes two-thirds of a pound of pesticides to produce a pair of non-organic jeans, she said.

“Our designs are very clean, very feminine, very modern,” she said. “We’re not a trend-based company, though we do have timely styles.”

The Scientist

Name: Lynne Trulio

Age: 51

Occupation: Environmental studies professor at San Jose State University, lead scientist on South Bay Salt Pond restoration

Education: Bachelor’s from Goucher College in Maryland; Ph.D. in ecology from UC Davis

Home: Redwood City

Quote: “Even the most jaded student, at some time, will say, ‘I can’t believe that’s happening.’ Every semester I get that, and it’s so rewarding.”

The Author: For Susan Griffin, the way humans treat the environment is tied up with how women are seen. She first tackled the topic in the challenging and critically acclaimed book “Woman and Nature,” published in 1978. She has since published six books — including “Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy,” published earlier this year — all of which are flavored with what critics have termed “eco-feminism.” “The thing I love the best about writing is having my thought be reshaped by the process,” the 65-year-old said. “You get on fire when you see something that hasn’t been seen before.”

The Teacher

Name: Nancy Abdul-Shakur

Age: 25

Occupation: Environmental Health and Justice manager for Literacy for Environmental Justice

Education: Two years at Sacramento City College

Home: Richmond

Quote: “Most of the youths I work with don’t know about environmental issues, but they know we have violence, a lack of healthy food and housing issues, so in that context, [environmental problems] make sense to them.”

For Nancy Abdul-Shakur and the team at Literacy for Environmental Justice, stationed in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, environmentalism is about more than just “going green.”

“We define environmental justice as the basic right for humans to have access to clean air, clean water, affordable housing, healthy food, open space and equitable jobs,” Abdul-Shakur said.

Abdul-Shakur was a sophomore at Burton High School when she was tapped as one of LEJ’s first youth leaders. She returned to the organization three years ago after a stint at Sacramento City College.

“At 14, I didn’t really understand what environmental justice was,” she said. “By the time I was 15 or 16, it was like my personal crusade.”

Now, she helps foster several community programs, including one in which neighborhood liquor stores are encouraged to devote 20 percent of their shelf space to organic produce. So far, about 10 have signed on.

Abdul-Shakur recently completed the yearlong Women’s Policy Institute, a training program for women leaders, and also traveled to Africa with LEJ co-founder Dana Lanza, her mentor.

“It opened my eyes to how mistreating our environment affects everyone — not just in Bayview, not just in San Francisco, but across the world.”

The Attorney

Name: Renee Louise Robin

Age: 54

Occupation: Environmental attorney, currently with Fitzgerald Abbott & Beardsley

Education: Bachelor’s from Brandeis University; UC Hastings College of Law

Home: Berkeley

Quote: “When someone hears you’re an environmental lawyer, they want to know if you work for the good guys or the bad guys, and it’s not about that at all.”

The Author

For Susan Griffin, the way humans treat the environment is tied up with how women are seen. She first tackled the topic in the challenging and critically acclaimed book “Woman and Nature,” published in 1978. She has since published six books — including “Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy,” published earlier this year — all of which are flavored with what critics have termed “eco-feminism.” “The thing I love the best about writing is having my thought be reshaped by the process,” the 65-year-old said. “You get on fire when you see something that hasn’t been seen before.”