Luke Cole

Luke Cole was an environmental lawyer and the co-founder of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, in California. He was a pioneer in using legal work for the environmental justice movement.

Cole graduated with honors from Stanford University in 1984, and cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1989.

At the time of his death Cole served as counsel for the Native Village of Kivalina, Alaska, in its case seeking damages from greenhouse gas emitters from the damage to their town due to global warming.

He taught courses in environmental justice at UC Berkeley, UC Hastings and Stanford Law.

He died in 2009 in a car crash in Uganda.

• Cole, Luke, and Sheila Foster. 2001. From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement. New York: NYU Press.

• In 1997, Luke and awarded the Environmental Leadership Award from UC Berkeley’s Ecology Law Quarterly.
• In 2009, he was given the American Bar Association Award for Excellence in Environmental, Energy, and Resources Stewardship.

• "Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources | Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources". Abanet.org. Retrieved 2013-05-20.