Eco Review | Three Roads: Labor, Music, Ecology
Review by Ben Lockwood
Cover of Three Roads
Joe Uehlein is a labor organizer, musician, and climate activist. In his recent memoir, Three Roads: Labor, Music, Ecology, he tells the story about how he chose these three roads for his life, viewing them as complimentary rather than contradictory.
Uehlein forged his identity in the rust belt labor movements of the 1950s and 60s. Born into a union family, he tells childhood stories of joining his dad on the picket line during the 1959 steel strike, where he was introduced to both the sounds and sights of solidarity. The experience clearly left its mark, because Uehlein's life is a testament to how the community-building of picket lines represents the best of the human spirit.
But while the labor movement of the era expanded, so too did environmental pollution from the industries behind it. Uehlein witnessed the ecological catastrophes of the Cuyahoga River Fire, the Three Mile Island disaster, and the prolonged harm of acid rain during the 1960s and 70s. These, too, had a profound impact on Uehlein, who spent years reconciling the effects of industry with the labor movement's long anti-environmentalist outlook. Eventually, he could no longer keep the issues separate. Joe Uehlein left his position within the AFL-CIO to found the Labor Network for Sustainability.
This move represented a major shift in Uehlein's life; one in which he made uniting the labor and environmental movements his sole focus. Participating in the IPCC, the Green New Deal, congressional hearings, climate protests, and more picket lines, Uehlein continues to fight on the front lines of two of the most important movements of our time. In Three Roads, he charts this path with numerous and invaluable insights from his experiences, and his philosophy of using art to inspire change. There's much to be learned in the pages of this memoir.
Ben Lockwood is an ecologist and geographer in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at The Pennsylvania State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Indiana University, and a M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Biology from Ball State University. Ben’s writing has been published in Nature, Clarkesworld Magazine, Area, Literary Geographies, and elsewhere. He is also the founder and editor of Brief Ecology.