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Jerome Ringo's bio

He was worth waiting for. Jerome Ringo, immediate past president of the Apollo Alliance, delivered a powerful call to action on March 24 in the Great Hall of Shepard Hall at CCNY. Ringo, keynote speaker for the 2010 New York Life Symposium, "Our World 2030: Preparing a New Generation for a Sustainable Future," presented by the Colin Powell Center, virtually rocked the house as he tied together themes of climate change, green jobs, oil independence, and environmental justice. The event, initially scheduled for February 10, had been postponed due to a blizzard.

An environmental pioneer who rose from the ranks of Louisiana oil refinery workers to lead the National Wildlife Federation and then the Apollo Alliance, Ringo stressed that perilous climate change effects now under way demand the rethinking of "Category Five Denial." He also outlined opportunities in the crisis, including the chance to turn aro und the American economy, to diversify the conservation movement, and to curb the impacts of global warming. He recounted how civil rights battles turned into the Civil Rights Movement, and he established climate change as a similarly galvanizing issue. Climate change, he said, "screams to the involvement of each and everyone of us, regardless of background or what side of the tracks you come from."

To his listeners, Ringo issued a challenge: "In the next decade or two, when a grandchild looks you in the eye and asks, 'Why did you let this happen?' if you don’t have a reasonable response today, "let this conference be your start to developing a real answer—by virtue of your actions not your thoughts—to change this world for the next generation." More