Public Forum: Building a Green New Deal: Community, Coalition, and Organizing for Environmental Justice

In communities, classrooms, and protest sites across the country, people have embraced the call for a Green New Deal as a way of recognizing that climate change presents us with an unprecedented historic challenge—and the need for comprehensive and transformational reform. California’s Central Coast has a powerful tradition of grassroots activism to draw on in rising to the challenge, from the wide-ranging environmental movement sparked by the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill to the multi-racial labor, immigrant, and indigenous people’s rights organizations leading the struggle for economic justice region-wide. Together, these and allied organizations have formed the Central Coast Climate Justice Network, a regional coalition dedicated to developing a collective vision and coalitional strategy for achieving holistic and intersectional environmental justice in our region. Featuring presentations from Network member organizations, the aim of the forum is to launch a broad, publicly engaged conversation about the need for transformational thought and action in response to the challenges of climate change, and in the interest of a more equitable and resilient environmental future. Dinner will be available beginning at 5:45 PM.

Welcome:

SUSAN DERWIN, Director, UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center

MARCOS VARGAS, Executive Director, Fund for Santa Barbara

Opening remarks:

ALICE O’CONNOR, Professor of History and Director, UCSB Blum Center

DAVID PELLOW, Chair and Dehlsen Professor, UCSB Environmental Studies Program

Panelists: 

CAMERON GRAY, Transportation and Climate Manager, Community Environmental Council

ANA ROSA RIZO-CENTINO, Senior Central Coast Organizer, Food and Water Action

VANESSA TERAN, Policy and Communications Associate, Mixteco/Indígena Community Organizing Project (MICOP)

Concluding Remarks:

MARICELA MORALES, Executive Director, Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE); Co-convener, C3JN

SIGRID WRIGHT, Executive Director, Community Environmental Council; Co-convener, C3JN

Discussion and Q & A

Cosponsored by the IHC’s Critical Mass series, Blum Center for Global Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development, Environmental Studies Program, the Fund for Santa Barbara, and the Central Coast Climate Justice Network