After college, Ringo worked in the petrochemical industry for 22 years, over half of that time as a union leader. Many of his relatives lived just beyond the fence from these industries, so he saw the impacts of pollution from refineries first hand. He noted that employees at the refinery wore masks and protective clothing, but that the neighbors across the fence, who were predominantly poor and black, received no such protection, and suffered disproportionately high levels of cancers and respiratory diseases.
Eventually, Ringo decided to help educate the people in communities affected by petrochemical pollution, teaching them how to effectively stop the discharge of chemicals into neighborhoods around refineries, leading to the beginning of his environmental activism. Ringo began his environmental activism in 1991, by becoming member of the Calcasieu League for Environmental Action Now (CLEAN), an affiliate of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation. Among the 20,000 members of the statewide group, he was the first African American ever to join.
Rather than trying to shut refineries and chemical plants down, he advocated the lobbying of state legislators on environmental laws, and encouraged citizens to show up at public hearings, where, as a community, they could express their fears and concerns and speak truth to power.
Ringo was transferred to Malaysia, and during one of his return trips to the United States in 1994, he was offered early retirement. After accepting the offer, he committed his life to full-time work on behalf of people beyond the refinery fences lines.
In 1998, he was the sole African-American delegate at the Global Warming Treaty negotiations in Kyoto, Japan, where he delivered an address. He also spoke at the Central American conference on sustainable development in Belize City, Belize. He addressed many historically-Black colleges and other universities, including the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment and at the University of Oregon's Public Interest Environmental Law Conference.
As president of the Apollo Alliance, Ringo was working to educate the public and lobby in Washington, D.C. about the need to invest in alternative clean-energy sources, energy-efficient technology and jobs by building diverse coalitions. The Apollo Alliance seeks to reinvest in the competitiveness of American industry, rebuild cities, create good jobs, and ensure good stewardship of the economy and natural environment. "We are an organization that looks like the face of America," Ringo said.
The name of the alliance was chosen to pay homage to John F. Kennedy's Apollo program, which successfully put a man on the moon in 1969. The Apollo Alliance has been endorsed by leaders of the AFL–CIO, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, the National Wildlife Federation, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the NAACP and other activist groups.
In 1996, Ringo was elected to serve on the board of directors of the National Wildlife Federation, a seventy-year-old conservation organization comprising 4.5 million members and over 700 employees. Since becoming chairman of the board in 2005, Ringo sought to further the NWF's partnerships with other organizations, particularly those involved with combating ecological dangers in poor and minority neighborhoods. He spearheaded programs that reach into urban and minority communities, including schoolyard habitat programs such as Earth Tomorrow, which focuses on minority kids in elementary, middle, and high schools.
"The single greatest issue for me as an environmentalist is climate change," Ringo told Mother Jones in 2005.[6]
Ringo envisioned a new movement in environmentalism, where everyone becomes involved in planning for the future together. He believed that real success, in energy security, public health, environmental protection and social justice, will come when environmentalists are united and empowered to meet as equals with corporate interests.
Ringo founded Zoetic Global to address issues such as energy security in the developing world.
Zoetic secured a power purchase agreement with Ghana in January 2016. He promoted hydrokinetic technology to ministers and leaders of countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America.[7]
