Annie Leonard, a veteran environmental campaigner, is taking over as the new head of Greenpeace USA. Photograph: Erin Lubin/Greenpeace

We have linked to her work more than once, and this time it is a story of her new commitment that pulls our attention in her direction (thanks to the Guardian for their coverage). Just as we have noted about Paul Watson, not everyone agrees with all the tactics of environmentalists and the organizations they lead, but it is still our interest to share moments of importance like this one:

One of the first things Annie Leonard was asked on being named the new leader of Greenpeace USA this month was: are you willing to get arrested?

“I said: ‘Absolutely! I just need to figure out who is going to drive the car pool’,” Leonard told The Guardian. “It’s going to be interesting being a single mum doing this,” she said.

The last time Leonard worked for Greenpeace, over 20 years ago, the campaign group was known – only half-jokingly – as “boys and their boats”, because of its reputation for dangerous, high-visibility actions.

She returns to lead the group after having made a name for herself by producing a series of web videos – Story of Stuff – that reached beyond the usual white, male and privileged supporters of environmental causes.

The first of her videos on throwaway culture went viral, making her one of the country’s most effective messengers on climate change.

Now, 40 million views later, her biggest job will be to transfer that broad outreach to Greenpeace, and turn climate change into a pressing, mainstream concern.

Environmental groups in America are still undergoing a painful post-mortem of their failure to pass climate change legislation during the early years of Obama presidency – when Democrats controlled the White House and both houses of Congress.

That crushing defeat has since seen the birth of new activist groups such as 350.org and Bold Nebraska which are trying to block the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project, and of movements to ban fracking in towns from Texas to Pennsylvania.

But in Washington environmental groups continue to soul-search about how to reach out to a broader audience – and how to overcome the well-funded climate misinformation campaign.

Leonard said her work would focus on climate change and exposing the influence of money in politics – furthering Greenpeace investigations into the Koch oil billionaires and other funders of the climate denial effort.

She will also work to activate the organisation’s base, including members who’ve left.

“That is the only way to mainstream these issues, if we had all the Greenpeace members around the country talking about these issues,” she said.

Read the whole story here.