Warren Morton Washington is an American atmospheric scientist, a former chair of the National Science Board, and currently senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Robert Doyle Bullard is former Dean of the Barbara Jordan – Mickey Leland School Of Public Affairs and currently Distinguished Professor at Texas Southern University. Previously Ware Professor of Sociology and Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, Bullard is known as the «father of environmental justice». He has been a leading campaigner against environmental racism, as well as the foremost scholar of the problem, and of the Environmental Justice Movement which sprung up in the United States in the 1980s.

Tom B.K. Goldtooth is a Native American environmental, climate, and economic justice activist, speaker, film producer, and Indigenous rights leader within the climate and environmental justice and indigenous movement. Tom is active in local, national and international levels as an advocate for building healthy and sustainable Indigenous communities based upon the foundation of Indigenous traditional knowledge. Tom has served as executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network since 1996 after serving as a member of the IEN National Council since 1992.

On January 17, 1971, two oil tankers owned by Standard Oil Company, the Arizona Standard and Oregon Standard, collided in San Francisco Bay, creating an enormous oil spill of 840,000 gallons. After seeing the damage caused, John Francis joked with a friend about never riding in a car again. The following year, a neighbor of Francis’ died suddenly. Faced with a new sense of the uncertainty of life, Francis decided to act immediately and for the next 22 years refused to ride in motorized vehicles. Francis describes himself as having had an over-inflated sense of self-importance at this time and says that he initially expected other people to follow his example of him and also forgo automobiles and other powered vehicles.

He was born on February 1, 1902, the son of James Nathaniel Hughes and Carrie Langston Hughes. His father abandoned his wife and went to Cuba and then to Mexico due to the prevailing racism in the United States. The legends that his grandmother told had a great impact on him. Through them he discovered the African American oral tradition that made him proud of his race. He spent most of his childhood in Lawrence, Kansas, and after his grandmother died he lived with family friends, James and Mary Reed, for two years. It can be seen that his childhood was not entirely happy, but this instability greatly influenced the creation of the poet he became.