The CAELI community is saddened by the passing of Carl Anthony, a visionary leader, mentor, and friend whose influence helped shape environmental literacy and environmental justice efforts across California and beyond. In this tribute, former CAELI co-chair Craig Strang and current CAELI co-chair Nate Ivy reflect on Carl’s extraordinary ability to bring people together, challenge assumptions, and inspire a more just and connected future.
Craig’s reflections:
The first time I “met” Carl Anthony was in about 1988. I use quotes there because I felt like I met him, but he would never remember that he met me. I was in my twenties working at the Oceanic Society at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. The Office of Naval Research and NOAA hosted a meeting at Fort Mason about ocean environmental issues and marine education. Carl was on the board of Earth Island Institute at the time, and the founder of the Urban Habitat Program, one of its projects. He spoke at the meeting. I don’t remember what he spoke about specifically, but I remember clearly that I was transfixed and compelled to learn more about the issues he raised. I introduced myself to him at the end of the day, then read everything I could find that he had written or that had been written about him. People regularly referred to him as the father of the West Coast environmental justice movement. I cited him in several grant proposals and articles (and in nearly all the thoughts swimming in my head), but it was nearly 30 years before I would meet him again.
The Environmental Literacy Steering Committee (ELSC), charged by Superintendent of Public Instruction Torlakson with statewide implementation of the California Blueprint for Environmental Literacy, put on a workshop at the David Brower Center in Berkeley. It was probably 2016 or 2017. The room was packed. I gave a presentation about how us mostly White leaders could address equity and justice issues in environmental and outdoor education. I sat back down at our presenters’ table off to the side of the room. About ten minutes later, this older gentleman, holding onto someone else’s arm, came rustling a little noisily up to the table while the session was still going on. The person he was with found a chair and set it down next to mine. He sat down and said, “Hi, what’s your name again?” I answered, and he said, “OK, nice to meet you. My name is Carl Anthony, and…”
I interrupted and said something like, “Carl Anthony? You’re Carl Anthony? We met in 1988 at Fort Mason Center. I’ve admired your work ever since.” He said, “OK. Anyway, I like what you said up there. I think we should talk. I have breakfast a lot at Westside Café. Can we meet there?”
Ironically, and a little comically, he might have “liked what I said up there” because he had helped shape my thinking long before. I had breakfast with him and his work partner, Paloma Pavel, the next week. That turned into a standing meeting—and Karen Cowe, CEO of Ten Strands, joined us for them after the first one or two. Ultimately, Carl and Paloma joined the ELSC (and later CAELI) and served as high-level advisors and consultants to us about environmental justice issues, in particular during the racial reckoning that shook our foundations following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
Rarely have I observed someone who could command a breakfast table or a large meeting room the way that Carl could. He had lost his eyesight and had other physical limitations, but his insight, conviction, and razor-sharp mind were never diminished. He was one of those rare people whose every contribution to a conversation was profoundly and disarmingly meaningful. And he listened as carefully as he spoke. He always asked questions—personal and professional—to understand my character and the foundations of my ideas, and because he was insatiably curious. He delighted in hearing stories and laughed easily, especially at self-deprecating ones.
In a few encounters during one brief phase of his long and extraordinarily consequential life, Carl greatly influenced the future of environmental literacy in California. I will remember him as one of the great human beings I had the pleasure and honor to spend time with.
Nate’s reflections:
In 2012, I had the opportunity to moderate a keynote panel which included Carl Anthony as a speaker. Through a series of conference calls and in-person planning meetings to prepare for facilitating the keynote, I became more familiar with Carl’s work, but more importantly, I came to know his warmth, curiosity, and kindness of spirit.
Carl was deeply curious about the world and its people. He wanted to know why the world, particularly our cities, frequently developed in ways that exacerbated inequality; but more importantly, he wanted to know if we could intentionally design new and better ways of living together with each other and the planet.
Carl’s curiosity about people was warm and personal. While I was supposed to be interviewing him to learn more about his work, he frequently turned the tables, saying, “Nate, let me ask you a question…” Carl’s questions were rarely of the small-talk variety. At his famous Westside Café roundtable breakfast meet-ups, he would ask participants about their views on race, justice, history, and the fate of humanity.
There is nothing I can tell you about Carl Anthony’s legacy as a thought leader that his own immortal words cannot say more clearly. I encourage you to read The Earth, the City and the Hidden Narrative of Race (2017) for a comprehensive and informative recounting of his lifelong learning and leadership journey, or find copies of the environmental justice periodical Race, Poverty and the Environment Journal that he published and edited so you can trace the evolution of environmental justice from 1990–2017.
In the trailer to the documentary New Metropolis (2012), Carl described an opportunity to align a variety of social movements to reinvent the future, but recognized that it would take “major acts of imagination and political will.” Carl believed in the power of intergenerational, interracial, and intersectional coalitions, and was equally at ease leading urban design workshops with K–12 students as he was building local, regional, and national organizations and coalitions to imagine, design, and build systems that align economic, environmental, and equity-driven goals.
Carl’s kindness of spirit manifested through the exchange of ideas and in the belief that we can collectively imagine and create a better future together. He intuitively understood that building physical infrastructure like cities and social infrastructure like relationships were equally important aspects of his work. He joyfully shared his time with others as he worked to bridge artificial divides between the environmental movement and the quest for justice, creating community while asking tough but warm questions.
I was lucky to stay in touch with Carl after the 2012 keynote session. I carried what I learned from him into my role on California’s Environmental Literacy Task Force and the work of creating California’s Blueprint for Environmental Literacy (2015), which holds “Equity of Access” as its first guiding principle. Carl later joined the Environmental Literacy Steering Committee to help guide the implementation of the Blueprint and contributed to the foundations for what became CAELI. Our collective work in CAELI honors Carl’s legacy as we work to ensure that all of California’s students have the opportunity to learn about, protect, and benefit from the gifts of our natural and built environments.
