Luke Cole was an environmental lawyer and the co-founder of the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. He was a pioneer in using legal work for the environmental justice movement. He died in 2009 in a car crash in Uganda[1].
Cole graduated with honors from Stanford 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. Cole co-authored the book From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement (NYU Press 2001) with Sheila Foster. He taught courses in Environmental Justice at UC Berkeley, UC Hastings and Stanford Law and was awarded the Environmental Leadership Award from UC Berkeley’s Ecology Law Quarterly honored Luke in 1997. In 2009 Luke was given the American Bar Association Award for Excellence in Environmental, Energy, and Resources Stewardship[2].