By Dina Morrone
Laura Turner Seydel is an activist for the environment and works with a number of organizations that address the many urgent challenges that affect all of us. She inherited her passion for taking care of the planet from her father, long-time legendary environmentalist Ted Turner. Turner-Seydel is also very passionate about health, quality of life for all, and the future of children. She wants to make sure that when all is said and done, we will want our children to know that we did everything in our power to pass down a healthy, livable planet.
Please share with us a special moment from your childhood that brings a smile to your face when you think about it.
My family discovered me missing one afternoon when I was quite young. And where did they find me? I was meandering toward a local zoo to see the animals. I recall loving animals then as much as I do now. There was definitely a current of “all creatures great and small” during my childhood and a natural curiosity and wonder toward fellow species. Growing up, I was lucky to experience the gift of having pets and to learn the important lessons of the responsibility of caring for them.
When did you first become passionate about the environment, and what were your first steps in turning that passion into action?
From a young age, my siblings and I were fortunate to live in places where we could spend a lot of time outdoors. We learned to appreciate the woods and wild fields and all the animals and wonderful creatures that lived there. We played in streams, turned over rocks, and caught frogs and crawdads. Our experiences in nature helped us grow spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally. There are more than 1,000 peer-reviewed studies that show the benefits of health and wellness with children (and adults) who spend time in nature. And it makes sense that people want to protect what they know, appreciate and love. It’s no wonder doctors are now writing nature prescriptions for their patients who are suffering from a number of maladies — diabetes, stress, anxiety, depression, to name a few. You can learn more in the research hub on the Children & Nature Network website.
Our grandparents, who survived the Great Depression, were superheroes for Earth who taught us that wasting is a sin — and that went for food, energy, and water. Our dad also led by example and reminded us to conserve by turning off the television and lights when not in use. He taught us to take short showers like he learned to do when he served in the coast guard and lived on a boat. He taught us to clean up trash even if it wasn’t ours, which we did, in our neighborhood regularly.
We were particularly happy when we came across discarded bottles and cans. It meant instant cash from the local store for a whopping nickel per container. At that time, my state of Georgia had a bottle deposit law, but the industry lobbied, and it ended. Now, many discarded bottles aren’t getting returned and are ending up along the roadside and in waterways, incinerators and landfills.
I’m enormously proud of how my father used his media platform for good. He funded and aired programming that educated and entertained millions of people around the globe on his satellite superstation. We were fortunate to be ‘edutained’ by The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau and National Geographic Explorer, and countless other environmental and social-minded documentaries. Learning about our world’s systems really helped shape me as a person; it set the stage for me to now devote my time, energy, and resources to protecting Earth. In this Anthropocene Epoch (the era of man), we are experiencing many formidable challenges, such as the sixth great extinction of biodiversity and the climate crisis. In his latest book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Bill Gates has confirmed that we have to work hard, smart and fast to ensure humans as a species don’t become a casualty of apathy and inaction when it comes to protecting and restoring our life support system. We can all make a difference, and we must. No action is too small. We must vote with our dollars when making purchases and let our voices be heard by our elected officials and hold them accountable. If we take actions on a regular basis and work collectively, we can ensure not only a livable planet but one that is safer, healthier, and more peaceful. One we’d be proud to hand over to our children.
Was there an episode in your life that affected you so profoundly, you knew animals and their well-being were going to be a part of your life forever?
While I had many important experiences, two eye-opening shifts in my worldview happened in the 1980s and really helped catalyze my passion for protecting animals and the environment.
A documentary called The End of Eden by South African filmmaker Rick Lomba documented how cattle ranching contributed to Africa’s grasslands’ desertification and severed an age-old migration route for millions of wildebeest and other species. The World Bank made loans to grow cattle production, an invasive species, with disastrous outcomes. In a very short time, thousands of miles of barbed-wire fencing were erected and carved the land into pastures. The images of an overgrazed dust bowl and wire-entangled animals still haunt me to this day. This documentary was used in the D.C. courts to stop the World Bank from making additional ill-conceived loans. But it was too late, as cattle had devastating effects on the fragile systems and permanently altered the great migration route. It’s a story that should serve as a warning call about the cascading effects and unintended consequences of projects that value short-term profits above everything else.
I was greatly impressed by the audacious and risky action campaigns of Greenpeace International, where I worked after college. I was in awe of the fearless activists who risked their lives to bring the world’s attention to the illegal killing of whales by placing their boats and bodies directly in front of the harpoons. The activists were also committed to exposing and stopping the French government, which was secretly dumping nuclear waste into the ocean by positioning their boats directly under the dropping barrels. As retribution for bringing this (along with Greenpeace protesting France’s testing of nuclear bombs in French Polynesia) to light, a bomb was detonated on the flagship, Rainbow Warrior. My eyes were opened to the harsh reality of corruption and criminal activity by governments and corporations. Like the civil and human rights activists, the undaunted courage and commitment of these activists fill me with the deepest respect and hope for the future.
Many people in this country are still in denial about Global Warming. What needs to happen so that deniers will be convinced that it’s real?
The documentaries The Social Dilemma and The Great Hack explain the problems well. Over the past decade, social media companies’ platforms have fed disinformation to viewers, helping to create a deep divide in this nation and around the world — interfering even with election outcomes and democracy. We need laws that protect our children, people’s personal information and end the widespread dissemination of conspiracies, misinformation, and lies.
We need to move beyond the debate of climate science being real and take action as if our lives depend on it — because our lives do depend on it. Ninety-eight percent of the world’s most respected scientists have concluded that human activities have created the climate crisis, and it is up to us to stop it. Many solutions exist. They just have to be scaled. Solutions mean good and high-paying jobs and a more robust economy. Solutions will increase public-health outcomes due to cleaning the air, water and improving the health and productivity of soil in order to grow more nutrient-dense food. The organization Project Drawdown was the first to task 70 researchers from 22 countries to map, model, and measure the top 100 solutions to achieve drawdown by 2050. Drawdown is the point in the future where greenhouse gases in the atmosphere peak and start to decline. Check out the scalable solutions online in the newly updated Drawdown Review 2020. Solving for climate change means moving away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible to alternative, clean and affordable ways to generate power and provide electrified transportation. This means there will be a great demand for job training stemming from the expansion of renewable energy. This will include upgrading aging infrastructure, including the energy grid, transitioning the transportation sector away from fossil fuels to electricity, and weatherizing and retrofitting buildings and homes to be energy efficient. As people become displaced from the fossil fuel industry, retraining is paramount for new, good-paying jobs. The transition can also benefit frontline communities disproportionately affected by the climate crisis, whether from rising sea levels or air pollution stemming from the energies and transportation sectors.
You have been very active with the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to limit the toxic chemicals in food, air, water, and consumer products. What are some of the steps being taken to ensure our food supply stays safe?
From Erin Brockovich, EWG board member Michelle Pfeiffer, Jennifer Lopez to Kourtney Kardashian and Jessica Alba, women have become outspoken advocates in the fight to protect the health of people and communities from exposure to untested and unregulated chemicals. Cofounder of EWG, Ken Cook, took on the fight three decades ago to stop the unregulated industry from exposing babies to harmful industrial chemicals that are powerful neurotoxins, carcinogens, hormones, and endocrine disruptors. It is indeed one of the most important things we can advocate for as parents and consumers. EWG.org has a great consumer-facing platform that informs us on making the best consumption choices to protect ourselves, our families, and our communities including the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce and the Skin Deep Guide to Cosmetics. Because of EWG’s various targeted awareness campaigns, companies have reformulated their products to make them healthier and safer across the board, from personal care products, cosmetics, and sunscreens to cleaning products.
In addition to EWG providing resources, it also lobbies to ban harmful ingredients in products and keeps tabs on members of Congress who vote on key pieces in legisltion. Check out the EWG Action Funds 2020 Toxic Pollution scorecard. EWG also tracks and posts the results of required reporting from municipal water treatment plants on the number and levels of chemicals used in agriculture that end up in our drinking water because there are no laws to require their removal. I was mortified that nitrates and atrazine (which cause fish to have both female and male reproductive organs) are routine contaminants. The documentary The Devil We Know and the recent movie Dark Waters tell the true story of the courageous attorney, Rob Bilott, who took on the DuPont company in a lawsuit. He exposed a decades-long history of PFAS, known as the “forever” chemical, which is now in every American’s body and is linked to eight forms of cancer.
Recycling has made huge progress throughout the United States and many parts of the world, but some experts say recycling is broken. What will it take to get back on track? And what can our readers do to ensure they’re doing their part?
According to The National Geographic Society, only 9% of plastics get recycled. This grim statistic tells us there is a plastic pollution crisis going on, affecting our health and and well-being and that of our vulnerable children. Not to mention wildlife. Our waterways and oceans are being choked to death. Microplastics are working their way up the food chain and into our bodies. It’s quite alarming to know we consume, on average, a credit card worth of plastic a week. Recycling centers are closing in cities across the country. In the state of California alone, more than 1,000 centers have closed. China, the biggest market for American recycled materials, warned us repeatedly they would ban the processing of our highly contaminated recycling. Sales to China used to be about 30 percent of the market. Now, since the ban was enacted in 2018, materials are stockpiling in the U.S., and that goes to landfills, incinerators, or into our waterways. Plastic China, a film that documents the horrors of mountains of plastic, helped inform public sentiment and put pressure on the Chinese government to ban plastics from the U.S.
The companies whose shareholders are profiting the most are big oil and big waste. Another giant factor: The companies who own the recycling centers also own the landfills. And guess what? Over the past few years, the waste companies have been closing recycling facilities because they are making record profits due to the high tipping fees they are charging. A direct conflict of interest, wouldn’t you say?
There are solutions, and Mitch Hedlund and her important organization, Recycle Across America, have been working to standardize labels on recycling bins so people understand what can be recycled in a municipality, arena, school, airport, or business. Try to imagine a world without standardized stop signs.
So, what can we do? We can start by practicing the four R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle and refuse. The only way to alter the course we are on is to invest in real, sustainable solutions that address the root cause of plastic pollution. We can integrate plastic-free living as much as possible and make it a lifestyle and health choice. We can refuse one-use plastic items like plastic straws, bags, water bottles, plastic utensils, and products wrapped in a lot of plastic packaging. Buy food when possible that is not wrapped in plastic — and also buy in bulk.
We need to contact our legislators and tell them to support the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, which was introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (N.M.) and Rep. Alan Lowenthal (C.A.). Some of the bill’s proposed key solutions include: preventing plastic waste from being shipped to developing countries that do not have the infrastructure to manage and process it, phase out single-use products and require product producers to take responsibility for collecting and recycling materials. We have to make sure the companies who profit from using plastics are the same companies who share in the cost of recapturing these plastics.
When people think of animals, most think of their pets. Not many people think of all the wonderful species we share the planet with that risk endangerment or extinction. Please tell our readers about the Turner Endangered Species Fund? And how can they get involved?
As a Patron of Nature for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), I am determined to help shed light on one of the greatest threats to the planet: species decline and extinction. Journalist Elizabeth Kolbert won a Pulitzer Prize for her important book The Sixth Extinction, in which she argues the case that, globally, we are experiencing a man-made extinction. According to a 2015 report published in Science Advancement, the rate of extinction could be as much as 100 times faster than the normal rate of extinction. Currently, there are more than 128,500 species on the IUCN Red List, with more than 35,500 species threatened with extinction, including 40% of amphibians, 34% of conifers, 33% of reef-building corals, 26% of mammals, and 14% of birds. The causes of decline are varied. The rapid destruction of natural habitat is arguably the biggest cause for the loss of species. While protecting habitat through the conservation of public lands for plants and animals is crucial, it only makes up 30% of what needs to be protected. And it’s not enough to stem the tide of extinctions. Private landholders’ control 60% of what needs to be preserved, and they have to be brought to the table and convinced that conservation and commerce are not mutually exclusive.
Once again, Dad has led by example in this sphere. He and his dedicated team of managers, biologists, and employees have demonstrated over the last few decades how a private landowner can manage land for conservation and commerce and that the two are not mutually exclusive. My dad’s conservation ethic was born when, as a young boy, he learned the plight of the American buffalo. An estimated 50 million once roamed and maintained the plains from coast to coast. To control the indigenous people and make more room for westward expansion, the American government instigated the outright slaughter of millions of bison. With the native people’s food and clothing source cut off, they were forced from their ancestral lands and hunting grounds onto smaller and smaller reservations to make room for settlers from the east. The bison population was reduced to just a few hundred. My dad always kept the native people and bison in his heart, and in the ’70s, he acquired his first three bison. Today, he has grown the bison herd to upwards of 50,000 strong, over 15 ranches totaling nearly 2 million acres, and along with it an abundance of wildlife, including elk, deer, bears, mountain lions, and wolves, for which Dad’s lands are a vital refuge.
As part of his land ethic and philanthropic focus, Dad created the Turner Endangered Species Fund (TESF) in 1997. TESF partners with federal and state agencies to help many different species on the U.S. endangered species list, including the Mexican gray wolf and the northern Rocky Mountain wolf, native species of cutthroat trout, black-footed ferret, black-tailed prairie dog, desert bighorn sheep, and the Bolson tortoise. Due to successful introduction at the Ladder Ranch in New Mexico, Bolson tortoises were born in the wild — for the first time since the Pleistocene era, which took place 10,000 years ago!
Your father’s television series Captain Planet and the Planeteers was created over 30 years ago, at a time when young people were not yet on board with saving the planet. Now we have Millennials and Gen Z activists like Greta Thunberg, who have opened a lot of eyes – both young and old. How do you feel about making the study/subject of the environment and our planet’s health mandatory along with Math and English?
In the 1990s, Dr. Gerald Lieberman started working hard to prove that environment is important as an integrative context for learning for youth. In other words, you could make the environment cross-cutting and teach it in all disciplines. Having youth experience and learn about the real world — for example, in a living, outdoor laboratory — is known as project-based learning. It’s the way teachers love to teach, and students love to learn. Improved test scores prove it. Environmental education should be a core subject. California was the first state to mandate environmental education, and it should be mandated across the country.
My father understood it would take too long to get the educational system to change and teach the youth. So, what did he do? He went a non-traditional route. He gave life to Captain Planet, the first eco superhero, who worked with a diverse set of young people from five continents; by combining their individual powers, they would amplify and create superpowers that could defeat dastardly eco-villains who valued ill-gotten gains over people, the environment and animals. The award-winning Captain Planet and the Planeteers cartoon series got the message directly to kids. My dad wanted to create a generation of environmental stewards, not just in the U.S. but around the world. Millions of kids viewed the series in more than 100 countries and 23 languages.
Everywhere I travel, young business, political, and community leaders tell me they are “Planeteers” and how much they were influenced by the T.V. series. Even the recently elected U.S. Senator from Georgia, Jon Ossoff, told me he watched Captain Planet and that it inspired him to want to fight corruption as a career and as a public servant. Many such personal stories prove that what youth watch matters so much — and can translate into real actions.
From the success of the T.V. series, the Captain Planet Foundation (CPF) was born. For 30 years, CPF has provided cash grants, support, and tools to schools, educators, and youth to promote students’ hands-on environmental education. This includes learning gardens in schools. Project Hero engages K-12 students in “quests” to research challenged, threatened, or local endangered species and to design and implement a plan to help those species live and thrive. CPF’s Ocean Heroes Bootcamp program helps support, connect, train and empower youth to become successful campaigners for environmental, social, and community impact issues. Over the course of three decades, we have directly funded 1.7 million youth and impacted more than 10.5 million youth.
The fashion industry, for all its glamour and necessity, has become one of the worst sectors for carbon emissions and for filling up landfill sites. Yet, most people don’t have any idea about this. How can we change the mindset of the consumer and the manufacturer?
We must move from fast fashion to sustainable fashion. When I was working in the apparel industry, we had four main collections a year: winter, spring, summer, and fall. Today, with “fast fashion,” clothing production has increased to produce cheaper clothes 52 weeks a year. The apparel industry is now the second-most polluting industry after the oil industry. Essentially, the fashion industry and fossil fuel industry are joined at the hip. More than half of the fibers today are synthetic, meaning they are oil-based, like polyester, nylon, and elastin. The oil is also the base of a lot of the color dyes. Buying fast fashion also comes at a huge cost for labor conditions, especially concerning are the high numbers of child slave laborers who live and work in deplorable conditions. It is imperative that the industry becomes more transparent. We must know who makes our clothes. One of the most telling documentaries, The True Cost, outlines the true cost of fast fashion. We can all consume less, and we need to. And we can support companies and fashion houses that track their supply chain and do right by people and the environment — and who don’t damage lives and our air, water, soil, and climate.
I love Patagonia because they make it part of their business model to make high-quality clothing and products with sustainable manufacturing practices and sourcing that lasts. In their advertising, they show a picture of a cool jacket, and the headline is, “don’t buy this jacket.” When their garments become damaged or defective, they even repair them. And they offer and market secondhand clothes. I wish more companies would commit to focusing on quality over quantity and putting an end to planned obsolescence in fashion and beyond. That practice leads to the landfilling or incinerating of 70 pounds of fashion per person every year. In the generation of my grandparents, it was a sin to be wasteful. Their clothes were cared for, loved, repaired, and altered. They were not discarded and sent off to a landfill.
A great organization, the Apparel Impact Institute, is working to create a third-party verified and measurable certification for manufacturers and vendors in the apparel supply chain for water, energy, and chemicals. Being able to know what we are buying and how it affects the environment and people are important tools in providing transparency. They can help us and younger generations make informed decisions about what we consume and from what companies.
What is the one feature film or documentary about the environment and saving the planet that should be mandatory in the school curriculum?
One of the most important documentaries I think parents should watch with their children is The Social Dilemma. It should also be discussed in schools. It speaks to the taproot of the divide in our country across philosophical, political, and social realms.
Social media platforms are designed to collect an individual’s data and sell that information to companies, which then provide viewers with more of what interests them. It keeps the consumer coming back for more. It is best described as an information and news silo. This often-sensationalized and sometimes-false information is pushed out in order to manipulate outcomes. The designers of the platforms admit that things are totally out of control and are driven by artificial intelligence (A.I.) algorithms. The results are corrupting national elections, driving a greater divide among citizens, perpetuating a rejection of science both in health and climate, and increasing depression and suicide rates in teens, especially girls. The experts featured in the documentary say they restrict their kids from using social media and even recommend all people getting off social media, which in the time of COVID-19 isolation is a lot to ask of people.
What is your idea of the ideal relax and pamper?
Nature is a perfect elixir for both healing and relaxation. It makes me realize how grateful I am for the bounty and life-giving aspects of nature: the clean air, the beautiful bodies of water, the diverse flora and fauna. Over a thousand peer-reviewed studies make the connection between exposure to nature and the resulting physical, emotional and mental uplift. Two of my favorite nature experiences are looking up and seeing the stars and planets on a clear, dark night, and observing wolves in the wild, and listening to them howl.
As soon as we can all return back to our pre-pandemic life, where is the first place outside of the United States you’d like to visit?
I really want to plan a trip to Africa. Due to the pandemic, ecotourism came to a grinding halt. Those tourism dollars also fund species and habitat conservation and support many jobs. Some countries in Africa get 40% of their GDP from the travel and tourism industry. Many people in the industry have lost their jobs, resulting in devastating outcomes for families and the economy as a whole. Sadly, there’s been a remarkable increase in illegal poaching, fishing, and deforestation and an increase in the consumption of wild animals, called bushmeat. We have to bring support for regenerative travel, where people and nature can thrive and coexist. I would like to see more examples of what the best companies are doing to integrate the principles of sustainable tourism, focusing on the environment, people, local communities, and culture. We are in the travel and tourism business with our company Ted Turner Reserves, and we can always learn from others about how to do what we do better.
Is there a place, city, or country where you would like to spend more time and why?
Big Sur, California. It’s located in a biodiversity hotspot with so many animal and plant species. My favorites are the ancient redwoods and the California condors, which made a comeback due to a successful captive breeding and release program. And the sea otters are so fun to watch. They are happy, fun-loving creatures.
What project are you currently working on? And would you like to share some of the details with our readers?
The more I’ve learned about regeneration, the more passionate I’ve become about the topic. I’ve learned that some of the principles like regenerative farming and managed adaptive grazing have many, many wins. We need to completely rethink the outdated farming and ranching methods that have degraded the soil, made people sick, and polluted the environment. Switching to regenerative agriculture is one of the most important things that can be done to increase profits for the farmers and rranchers. It helps build topsoil, increase wildlife, increase drought tolerance and resistance, and sequester carbon from the atmosphere to help rebuild life in the soil. We are proving it can be done on Turner ranches. We are dedicated to transitioning to practices that will regenerate the soil — in hopes that our ranches will become sustainable best-practice models to help build upon my father’s conservation legacy. Once again, we can show that profits and conservation are not mutually exclusive.
April 22 is earth day – how are you going to celebrate this special day?
Gratefully, Earth Day has evolved into a month-long celebration known as Earth Month. And each and every day, we have an opportunity to honor our Mother Earth. Truth be told, we have ten years to solve the biggest issue of all: climate change. So, with every day, let us take concerted action to make a difference and give back to Mother Earth, to protect and restore. Our children will hold us responsible if we fail to act while we have the time and opportunity. On the actual Earth Day this year, my family is participating in a Riverkeeper cleanup on the Chattahoochee River, which supplies 70% of the city of Atlanta’s drinking water — and a ton of recreation because the river runs straight through it. There are 150 Waterkeeper groups across the country, with several in California, including L.A., so you too can likely participate in a local cleanup or stream bank restoration. I also plan to attend the Environmental Working Group (EWG) ‘s virtual Earth Day dinner and board meeting and Earth Day Network’s virtual event. (Earth Day Network is the organization that created the first-ever Earth Day event in 1970.)
I encourage everyone to take some type of action every day. You can plant gardens and trees. You can turn your homes, schools, offices, houses of worship into zero-waste zones. Shop with intention, support transparent companies, and participate with organizations or companies to help with cleanup or other outdoor projects. This year, think about something your family can do in your community, like planting a pollinator or edible garden. Picking up trash always helps to cut down on waste polluting our waterways, and a family outing in nature provides therapeutic benefits. Also, consider making a donation to a community food bank or environmental organization.
Is there anything you want to add?
A Native American proverb drives my passion for the environment: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”
We must all work together to create a healthy and sustainable future for our children. One of the most powerful ways we can protect our children is to vote and elect leaders who prioritize the environment. The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is my go-to source for voting green. We have seen firsthand what happens when we don’t elect people who believe in and prioritize science. The last administration rolled back more than 100 environmental rules. In addition to the rollbacks affecting the health of our planet, there has been a rollback on the health of our democracy. There are urgent and present threats as legislation is being proposed, considered, and passed to make it harder to vote instead of easier.
My hero, friend, mentor, and congressman, the late civil and human rights activist and icon John Lewis, spoke to the vote as the most powerful and sacred tool in a democracy, along with citizen action. He said it takes “good trouble, necessary trouble” to stand up to wrongs and threats against democracy. Passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would be an important step to restore and strengthen the protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and help protect voters from racial discrimination and voter suppression.
In order to secure the health of our planet and our future, we must have voting rights secured and solidified. Let’s build bridges instead of moats. Let’s keep our voices loud, our feeds filled with facts, and cause some good trouble!
Special Thanks to:
Laura Turner Seydel
Photography:
Ben Rollins
Make-up:
Becca Bussert
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