Antonique Smith: Climate Activist, Earth Action Day 2025

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/04/07

Grammy-nominated singer and actress Antonique Smith is a dedicated climate activist, serving as CEO and co-founder of Climate Revival. She mobilizes communities, especially people of colour and faith groups, through storytelling, music, and art to address climate change. As the Earth Action Day 2025 Ambassador for EARTHDAY.ORG, she emphasizes urgent collective action to combat environmental crises. Smith highlights climate justice, pointing to disproportionate pollution in marginalized communities like Cancer Alley. She is passionate about change and urges involvement through ClimateRevival.org, social media, and advocacy. For her, activism is about love, action, and unity to protect future generations.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we are here with Antonique Smith. She is a Grammy-nominated singer, acclaimed actress, and dedicated climate activist. She is known for her roles on Broadway and screen, notably as Faith Evans in Notorious.

Smith blends her artistic talents with passionate environmental advocacy. As co-founder and CEO of Climate Revival, she mobilizes communities, particularly people of colour and faith-based groups, to tackle climate change through storytelling, art, and music. Appointed as the official ambassador for Earth Action Day 2025 by EARTHDAY.ORG, Smith leads collective action to protect the planet, empowering global communities to unite around environmental justice and sustainable solutions.

So, what inspired your involvement with EARTHDAY.ORG, and why did you accept the Earth Action Day Ambassador role for 2025?

Antonique Smith: It’s such an honour. First, it’s important, especially now, because we are in a climate crisis. Our rights to clean air, clean water, and even our right to exist are threatened.

If we don’t act fast and take bold action—which is what EARTHDAY.ORG is emphasizing this year with Earth Action Day—we will face devastating consequences. This year’s focus is on collective action, big or small, because all those actions create an impact. That’s why I’m excited to be a part of Earth Day this year—it’s not just about awareness but about action. We need love, and we need action. That has been my platform for a long time.

I’ve been in this movement for over a decade. I started as an artist, primarily focusing on singing and speaking. Still, over time, I realized I wanted to do more. Now, I can create opportunities instead of waiting for others to include me. Of course, I still receive invitations—like EARTHDAY.ORG asking me to be an ambassador—which is an incredible honour.

But as CEO and co-founder of Climate Revival, I have found a new way to be involved in this movement—one that allows me to drive real change. Honestly, my increased activism was fueled by the intensification of extreme weather events—hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, and deadly heat waves.

For example, last year, over 1,300 people died during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia due to extreme heat. Los Angeles, my home, has experienced record-breaking heat waves, wildfires, and flooding. The climate crisis is happening now, and I need to do more.

I am also focused on environmental justice because Black, Brown, and low-income communities are the ones who suffer the most—not only from climate change itself but from the pollution driving it. Many of the worst-polluted areas in the U.S. are in communities of colour.

I’m from East Orange, New Jersey—a predominantly Black and brown community—so I come from sacrifice zones. In these places, corporations dump pollution, harming residents’ health and well-being. That’s why I’m so passionate about fighting for climate justice—because it’s personal.

I felt that not enough was being done, so I wanted to go deeper. That decision led me into different spaces, and ultimately, that’s what brought me to EARTHDAY.ORG. At some point, they asked me to be an ambassador, which happened recently—an incredible honour. They saw me as someone who was already taking the massive action they aim to inspire in the world.

I already believe that love is the answer because if there were more love, then profits wouldn’t be more important than people. Love and greed cannot coexist. They are fundamentally opposed. Love has always been a foundational part of my platform, and I truly believe the world needs more of it. Love is the most powerful force in the world, yet it is the one we use the least.

For me, love is always the action I promote. Tarth Action Day is perfect—it aligns completely with my work. It feels almost meant to be this year. I even released a song called “Love Song to the Earth.”

Come on—how incredible is that? God aligned it beautifully. I released a song with both love and earth in the title, and then EARTHDAY.ORG asked me to be the Earth Action Day Ambassador. It feels destined.

This is meant to be, and I take it seriously. I am praying that we can make a massive impact because, honestly, we have no choice but to create massive change. Our lives are at stake, and the lives of future generations are at stake. But even before we think about the future, people right now are dying because of climate change.

I spend a lot of time in Cancer Alley, and what’s happening there is unbelievable. It’s horrifying that people in this country are allowed to live in such toxic pollution. Cancer Alley is in Louisiana—an 85-mile stretch of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, home to over 200 petrochemical plants. The cancer rate is as high as 95% in some areas.

This should not be legal. This should not be happening to human beings. But it’s not just there—there are cancer clusters all over the country. Even back home in New Jersey, where I’m from, we have a cancer cluster.

We need action and change, and it must come quickly. I don’t want to see more people die.

There is nothing more important than the value of human life. God created us beautifully, and I want people to be happy and healthy. I imagine a world where everyone is happy and healthy.

Jacobsen: But how do you envision storytelling, music, and art—given your Grammy-nominated singing and acting background—as effective tools for mobilizing American communities to take action on both critical and long-term environmental issues?

Smith: That is literally what I’m doing. Storytelling, art, and music are my full toolkit—they are my most powerful tools for advocacy. Since we started Climate Revival alongside Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., that’s been our approach. Rev Yearwood is a highly respected climate activist. He was recently named one of Forbes’ 50 Top Sustainability Leaders and has received many other accolades. President Obama even called him a “climate champion.”

It is an honour to co-found an organization with him. At Climate Revival, when we hold an event—which could be described as a church service-style gathering—I often lead a gospel concert or sing. If we’re in a church, there’s more gospel music; if we’re in a different venue, I adjust accordingly.

But in every event, I sing, speak, and tell stories—and Rev closes it out with a powerful, rousing speech. Sometimes, we switch it up. Yesterday, for example, at an HBCU Climate Change Conference in New Orleans, Rev spoke first, then introduced me, and I closed the event with a speech and a song.

I call this our “one-two punch” because the way we both tell stories and inspire people has a profound impact. Rev’s telling stories and my singing open hearts, inspire, and energize people. They allow them to feel.

I remember people at the Sundance Film Festival who saw us do our one-two punch. One person told me that with everything happening in the world, people have been bottling up their emotions, and when they heard me sing “Love Song to the Earth,” it broke them open.

Everyone was crying—not from sadness, but from release. That is the power of art.

Art touches us in a way nothing else does. Music, film, television, and visual art move people in a way that nothing else can.

So, for me, it’s an honour to have these gifts. I’ve had a blessed journey—from a young age, I was gifted with a voice to sing, empathy, and the ability to channel other people’s experiences as an actor. That journey has been incredible in itself.

But to then use these same gifts to heal people, to inspire them to act, to help save lives and protect our planet—that is a responsibility I do not take for granted. It is so important that we all unify right now. It’s so important that people understand what we are going through.

Part of why I co-founded Climate Revival is because, in communities of colour and faith communities, we were going into churches, and people didn’t understand the issue. That is largely due to fossil fuel industry propaganda, which has worked hard to downplay the crisis.

But it’s also because, for a long time, the climate movement wasn’t focused on people. It talked about polar bears, ice glaciers, solar panels, and recycling—and those things didn’t resonate with everyday people. It didn’t feel urgent.

People didn’t feel like climate change was affecting them directly.

But when you start explaining to people that the cancer and asthma they or their loved ones are suffering from comes from power plants, petrochemical factories, and landfills—and when you connect that same pollution to climate change—they begin to see it.

When you tell them that Hurricane Idalia was strengthened by climate change, that the wildfires in California were made worse by climate change, and that heat waves are now so extreme that Arizona had over 100 days of 100+ degree heat, people realize these things are not normal.

Even the news talks about climate change more now, which is good. But what they fail to explain is the cause.

So, to many people, it just feels like Mother Nature is tripping—like there’s nothing we can do about it. It leaves people feeling helpless.

“What am I supposed to do?”

“It’s storming. I can’t stop a storm.”

While we can’t stop the storms that are already upon us, we can take action to prevent them from getting worse. We don’t have to accept this as our future.

Yes, we will have to adapt because we’ve let it get to the point where we are experiencing extreme weather and disasters. I am praying that we act fast enough to prevent it from getting worse.

There is even a way to reverse some of it. It doesn’t have to keep getting worse—it can get better.

But that takes everyone.

That’s why I am so excited about this international Earth Action Day—it’s a global movement where everyone can do something.

Even something as simple as making a video using my song “Love Song to the Earth”—showing what you love about this planet or the people you love—could inspire someone else to take action.

You can write letters to the people you voted for—because many of them are letting us down. There are so many ways to take action. EARTHDAY.ORG has an entire page of actions people can take. Big or small, it’s about everybody deciding to do something.

Let’s not feel like we’re just watching our house burn with nothing we can do about it. Let’s do something.

Jacobsen: How can people get involved with Climate Revival? How can they attend or take part? What about financial support, posting videos, or learning more?

Smith: That is wonderful. Thank you for asking.

You can go to ClimateRevival.org and join our community—there’s a “Join Our Community” button right on the site. We let our members know when we hold events.

You can also follow me on Instagram (@AntoniqueSmith) and Climate Revival on Instagram(@ClimateRevival). We always update people on our work. That’s how you can get involved.

You can also DM me if you have an idea or want to collaborate on a partnership—maybe even host an event with us. There’s also a contact form on ClimateRevival.org and our website, Antonique.com.

There are many ways to connect, and I do my best to respond. However, the website and Instagram are probably the best ways to stay engaged.

Jacobsen: Antonique, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it. It was so great to meet you.

Smith: Yes, you too! This was wonderful. Thank you so much! 

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