Jeff Gearhart
Jeff Gearhart has spent his career working in environmentalism and has worked for the Ecology Center since 1996. He has primarily focused on advocating for lessening pollution from auto manufacturing facilities as well as conducting toxics testing on various products for HealthyStuff. He is the current Research Director of the Ecology Center where his work on toxics testing continues.
Interview with Jeff Gearhart
July 22, 2019
Conducted by Naomi Fergusson
Clips
8:19 - 10:00
Jeff talks about his involvement in the Ecology Center's auto manufacturing projects and how they not only worked with local communities, but also brought in technical skills and data from global surveys to help with advocacy work. #EcologyCenter #CleanCars #manufacturing #manufacturing #toxins #community #grassroots #environmentaljustice #autoproject
10:38 - 11:33
Jeff discusses how he and the Ecology Center worked with unions and auto workers in addition to community members and were able to form community-labor coalitions because of their mutual interest in seeing less emissions. #EcologyCenter #autoproject #cleancars #manufacturing #toxins #community #labor #unions #coalition
15:25 - 19:20
Jeff goes through the whole story of the EC's battle with GM in Lansing over pollution caused by their car manufacturing and how it was an especially difficult case because the Lansing community has heavily invested in GM. #EcologyCenter #cleancars #autoproject #manufacturing #toxins #pollution #community #labor #GM #politics
21:57 - 23:42
Jeff talks about the River Rogue plant and how he, along with local community leaders, successfully advocated for Ford to update the facility with green technology and global best practice. #cleancars #manufacturing #autoproject #toxins #pollution #community #Ford
25:33 - 27:12
Jeff discusses how their work on auto manufacturing transitioned into work concerning the greater life cycle of those products, including how they impact users. This turn towards user impact birthed HealthyCars, which later evolved into HealthyStuff. #toxics #HealthyCars #HealthyStuff
29:19 - 32:21
Jeff talks about how HealthyCars spurred the idea for HealthyToys, how that campaign gained great popularity, and how it eventually all got consolidated in HealthyStuff. #healthycars #healthytoys #healthystuff #toxics #testing
35:40 - 37:32
Jeff discusses citizen science, like that in the HealthyStuff campaign, and how it's helped alter the power dynamic of who controls information about products. #HealthyStuff #citizenscience #science
40:57 - 41:47
Jeff talks about how good science is the basis for all his work at the Ecology Center and that the peer reviewed articles they produce help build their credibility. #science #EcologyCenter #citizenscience