(Washington D.C.) Today, 350.org announced Tamara Toles O’Laughlin as the organization’s new North America Director. Toles O’Laughlin will drive the team’s strategic vision to build a just and equitable world by supporting the development of generative strategy to stop the fossil fuel industry from continuing to accelerate the climate crisis. Under her leadership the North America team will focus on strengthening an emerging multiracial movement to confront and isolate fossil fuel billionaires, and open up the political dialogue for transformative climate action.
Prior to joining 350.org, Tamara led the Maryland Environmental Health Network (MdEHN), based in Baltimore, Maryland, as its executive director, where she promoted the elimination of environmental threats to human health, facilitated the development of coalitions led by impacted community members, and supported the radicalization of health practitioners into environmental advocacy space. She brings significant relationships to the work as she sits on the Board of Directors for the Women’s Voices for the Earth, is the Chair of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Air and Climate Public Advisory Committee and is one of the co-chairs of the Green Leadership Trust among other roles.
350.org North America Director Tamara Toles O’Laughlin said, “We’re at a crossroads in the movement to disrupt the trajectory of climate crisis. With increasingly extreme devastation to communities made vulnerable by poor planning, practices of exclusion and underinvestment, we are losing ground to fossil fuel billionaires’ whose appetite for destruction is fueled by misinformation and government inaction. We must confront the crisis of courage that got us here and the well worn linkage to systemic racism, sexism and all other forms of oppression. To have any chance at success, we need to take on this fight at the scale of liberation, with a keen eye toward inclusivity in our actions to support the realization of a Green New Deal that rapidly and justly transitions us off of fossil fuels and towards 100% renewables for all. Now is the time to build power at the local, state, and regional level. We intend to be in the vanguard in this fight to take on and take down the fossil fuel industry.”
Welcoming O’Laughlin, 350.org’s Executive Director May Boeve said, “We are thrilled to have Tamara Toles O’Laughlin join the 350 family. Her remarkable work to build a multiracial, grassroots climate movement that is equitable and accessible and that can hold leaders accountable to science and justice, is exactly the kind of vision required to move 350’s work into its next phase. As we work in the U.S. to combat Trump’s Big Oil agenda, fight to oppose dirty projects nationwide like Keystone XL, and push forward the boldest possible Green New Deal, this is exactly the kind of leadership and vision in this critical time in our urgent demands for climate justice.”
This strategic work of 350.org in the US comes in coordination with the global organization’s vision of a Fossil Free world where our communities and our climate are prioritized.
MEDIA AVAILABILITY: Tamara Toles O’Laughlin is available for media interviews upon request.
Press Contact: Thanu Yakupitiyage, U.S. Communications Manager, 350.org, [email protected]