Hi!  I'm Rafi Ahmad, a Senior at Walter Payton College Preparatory High School in Chicago, IL, and the founder of Operation Viridis.  As an Eagle Scout, I have long been interested in the intersection of community service and conservation – an interest which developed into a passion for climate justice, and led to the creation of Operation Viridis in 2022.  

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Operation Viridis exposes the correlation in my home-city of Chicago, between historical Redlining and the increased risk of environmental hazards (extreme heat, flash flooding, etc.) faced by historically marginalized communities.  The goals of Operation Viridis are to (i) reveal how climate change is massively exacerbating existing environmental prejudice; and (ii) implement a grassroots solution to harden impacted communities against increasing environmental threats, and thus achieve some measure of climate justice.

 

The need for climate justice extends far beyond Chicago, and my ultimate goal is to scale Operation Viridis to the national – and eventually – global arenas.  I welcome inquiries from all parties interested in partnering to grow Operation Viridis.