Then the movie An Inconvenient Truth inspired Banks to move into environmental work. In 2007, she founded Planet Rewards, an online platform designed to encourage eco-friendly behaviors.
Officially, Banks retired in 2012, but she is as busy as ever leading Quiet Communities. In 2020, she became chair of the Noise & Health Committee of the American Public Health Association, where she directs an educational campaign on noise as a public health hazard—work that is critical, she says, because the United States has no federal noise control program.
Reducing noise in land care can benefit health and the climate by reducing air pollution, she explains, and it can also promote social justice by reducing worker exposure to noise and air toxins. “It’s land care,” she says, “but it’s the world in a grain of sand, which makes this very rewarding.”
