Rev. Vernon K. Walker, Jr. (’16) speaks to the Intersectionality of Environmental Issues at Framingham State University
The following is an excerpt from The Gatepost article by Ryan O’Connell, “Reverend Vernon Walker shares climate advocacy experience: Seasoned director of grassroots social justice organizations speaks on current administration, paths forward,” published on April 11, 2025. Click here to read the full article.
“Walker is currently the director of content and external strategy at the Progress & Poverty Institute (PPI) in Princeton, New Jersey, and was formerly a program director of both Clean Water Action Massachusetts and the Communities Responding to Extreme Weather program in Cambridge, Mayer said.
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Walker said climate change is not a 
single special interest issue, and is instead a layered and complex problem which affects public health, foreign policy, agriculture, the economy, civil rights, immigration, and much more. He added to many people, the effects of climate change start and stop with the polar bears. This is not true, he said. Climate change does melt the poles, but it also causes heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods in other parts of the world, killing and disrupting lives, he added. Walker said climate change is connected to issues of racial justice as well. ‘Those who are disproportionately harmed by the climate crisis are those who are also disproportionately harmed by educational injustice, so these issues are inextricably linked,’ he said.”