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mental activists. But very few of them lage. It had no hot water or electricity. come to the cause the way Rosario Daw-son did. WWher parents moved into an abandoned tenement in New York City’s East Vil-lot of famous people become environ-They were squatters—scrapping and salvaging and building a home out of found materials from around the city. curb, her family would stop to see if it hen someone put a chair out on the hen she was six, Dawson and
“I knew about Sheetrock and reusing nails,” she says. “It was her own. “Moften about necessity, but even then, it made sense—if it’s not broken, we can use it, and if it is, we can fix it.” For example, Dawson just bought a new property on the East for progressive issues. Soon Dawson was taking up causes of could be rehabbed or repurposed in some way. As a little girl, I wasn’t thinking about it so clearly.” was 10 years old,” she says. “I made a bunch of posters because Coast, and some of the surrounding trees need to be removed She never left that thrifty, eco-conscious mentality behind. Her mother was an activist, attending rallies and marches y very first campaign was to save trees when I
mate crisis. “Wowns (“I don’t need a fancy big car to get from here to there,” she says. (Her dream home would be something totally off the grid, with geothermal heating, where she could grow her own food.) She eats a mostly plant-based diet these days, but she’s tried raw and vegan diets as well. She didn’t buy a car until she was 26—a 2006 Prius that she swears she still due to weather damage. “Wshe says). “I probably could get rid of more things,” Dawson admits, but “I tend to hold on to things because it stresses me out to imagine them ending up in a landfill.” She also knows personal choices, on their own, aren’t going to solve our cli-e have to put pressure on companies and the e’re turning them into furniture,”
movie also outlines solutions to deal with the problem). Her government, because sweeping change is necessary.” almost every project she takes on. In 2018, she executive- produced and narrated African fashion line, Studio 189, uses recycled fabrics and other sustainable materials, like pineapple leather. Voto Latino, the based on the terrifying premise that we have only 60 years’ worth of farmable topsoil left on earth (don’t panic: The Her activism isn’t a side interest—it’s a central part of The Need to Grow, a documentaryamong Latinx voters, makes clear the ways in which our and other activists distributed at stores in Los Angeles ahead changing climate impacts such communities directly. She’s also worked on campaigns to encourage people to start their own gardens, and volunteered with an organization that trains the formerly incarcerated and gang-affiliated to install solar panels and to silkscreen reusable grocery bags, which Dawson organization she cofounded to encourage civic engagement of the statewide ban on single-use plastics.season of that deals explicitly with issues like climate change and gentri-Last year, Dawson produced and appeared in the second The North Pole, a web series set in Oakland, California,
in popular culture—and that’s the point. Too often, “we don’t fication. It’s unlike other narratives we’ve seen on this subject include a lot of communities in the conversation that we could,” she says. “It tends to be very white and affluent.” time. So it’s no surprise she has said running for office is on mate change—she recently told the tial candidate at a debate who’s just been told she’s out of her bucket list. was considering going back to college to learn “regenerative farming and soil practices to capture carbon”—and speaks about such topics with the force and urgency of a presiden-Dawson is fluent in the politics and practicalities of cli-Washington Post that she
me,” she says. But Booker, who’s been vegan for many years, getting arrested. “I am always down to get arrested for a good duction on a new, yet-unnamed project, but was hoping to get a free weekend so she could make it to W“is fighting the good fight on the inside.” Dawson adds, “He’s for Fire Drill Fridays, the weekly climate change protests on Capitol Hill where Jane Fonda and her famous friends keep very, very concerned and scared that there isn’t more urgency cause,” she says. Her boyfriend, you may have heard, is New Jersey senator (and former presidential candidate) Cory Book-er. “I know very well he’d like to be out there [protesting] with When we spoke in late January, Dawson was deep in pro-ashington, DC,
OGREEN^ Gyou’ll join her. —around [climate change].” “The reality is, the people who have been making a lot of decisions that are corrupting our planet are able to do so because more of us aren’t involved,” she says. “It’s beautiful to me how humans acclimate, but there’s a danger in that, too, because we can’t just adjust—we have to do something to stop this!” Dawson’s out there doing all she can, hoping And that is exactly what Dawson brings to the fight. marin cogan
DDESSROSARIO DAWA childhood spent squatting in an abandoned building primed unique history into environmental action.SON to live a sustainable life. Now she’s channeling her
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