 writer for this evening. Kelsey Johnson is an organizational strategist, interdisciplinary curator, artist, and writer. Kelsey currently serves as the executive director of space in Portland and is a member of our executive committee here at Sierra Club. And I just was here as part of the main chapter. We've had some really exciting additions this year like Marina who put together this beautiful series and Anya for organizing the speakers. So we're in a really great position. Happy Earth Day, everybody. Welcome. I was briefly gardening today and trying to celebrate Earth Day by actually having my hands on the earth, which felt pretty good. I hope you've all celebrated or thought about a project or picked up some trash or done something that in a small way is kind of tending to and loving the earth in your community. A couple things while I make a little error on my own and please keep your microphone on mute and turn off your turn on your video if you feel comfortable. You can use the chat to ask questions ahead of time. I'll be looking through them. There'll be each speaker is going to give a small presentation and then we are going to discuss at the end. I'll ask a few questions, but if you have a burning question you don't want to forget about that somebody brings up a point of please stick it in the chat and we'll prioritize those questions that arise and can hopefully answer a bunch more at the end of the panel. We want to make a landing acknowledgement as we begin this process and I've been thinking a lot especially as we move towards new frontiers about intersectional environmentalism as a white woman how we do these and we want to recognize the people of the Don land, the Wabanaki Confederacy who lived on this land and stewarded it in past tense present tense and future tense and in that spirit I've got a few resources that are helping me. I recently picked up the book or was given the book by Nick Estes our history is the future standing rock versus the Dakota access pipeline and the long tradition of indigenous resistance and just as we bring up this topic of intersectionality and environmentalism we have to acknowledge the water protectors and land protectors who have worked all over our country to do this for generations and we're keeping this place far before many of us many of our families arrived here in this on this land this afternoon. Oops somebody needs to be muted on this afternoon I was planting things and I suggest there's a new group that formed there's about 400 people in this Facebook group and they have another website and portal called the Wabanaki community herbal apothecary mutual aid and the idea is that you allocate part of your garden for growing herbs or specific traditional medicines that are asked for through this program with a series of Wabanaki leaders so think about what you can do with the resources you have to give land back or land of fruits of the land back we hope that you've been tuning into oops how do I go back we hope that you've been tuning into other conversations community conversations that the executive committee and marina have been putting together including reading about closing the juniper hill dumping loophole and I suggest everybody check out our springy e-news as well as reading and writing your representative or council people about Wabanaki and indigenous sovereignty issues and figuring out how you can learn about who are the activists and how you can support them on that front that are in our community so that's a piece from 2017 but exploring what who indigenous activists are and what their platform is here in the greater portland area and the last thing I want to say is that we also want to make a technology acknowledgement for those of you that haven't heard one before it's new to me too but thinking about the fact that during this pandemic it's been such a bomb to have a technology that brings us together for these virtual events but that there are rare earth minerals that are in these computers that are mainly getting mined and extracted in conflict zones that cause human rights violations worldwide and also can be bad for the environment in their extraction practices so we are grateful for the conversation it facilitates but we're very much looking forward to all eventually getting back together in person where there isn't such a footprint for us gathering and talking so thank you so much for joining us I am really excited to welcome my colleague and friend and co-Sierra Club member on your right who is a youth organizer here in Maine based mid-coast and has joined the Sierra Club on staff last year has been doing an incredible job both connecting youth climate action with the main chapters vision goals and awareness and how we can build more intergenerational coalitions as well as a lot of the specific regional issues that are impacting her backyard so without further ado I'm going to pass it off to Anya who I believe has a video to share thank you Kelsey um yeah I won't share my the video that I'm going to share until like halfway through um but you can look forward to it um yeah hi everyone my name is Anya are you share pronouns I am based in Bar Harbor and I am the Grassroots Summit Action Organizer for the chapter really excited to be here tonight to talk to you here I can get on I think someone needs to mute oh sorry all right we're all good um so uh yeah really excited to be here with you all tonight to talk about um climate justice um and so what do we mean when we say climate justice I'm going to share my screen quickly share a slide um so I want to start with this definition um by a group called main climate action now which is a coalition that Sierra Club main is a part of um and the definition that uh main climate action now has come up with is that climate justice requires the recognition that the climate crisis was caused by failures of our political social and economic systems and that it demands intersectional solutions that will transform these systems and hold those responsible for the climate crisis accountable resulting in a livable future where we all can thrive um and this is like a definition with a lot to unpack and many different organizations have different definitions of what climate justice is so feel free to do some research on your own to you know come up with a definition that fits fits um your mentality the the most and I know Davis and and Josh um my co-presenter tonight are going to talk a little bit about um you know uh our economic systems and um social systems respectively uh and how they relate to climate justice so I'm not going to touch a ton on those tonight um but stop sharing my screen for a second um so um but yeah I I just want to unpack um climate justice generally and and um yeah kind of start going over what it means to me um so when we look at the climate crisis over time um the United States is the country that's most responsible for the climate crisis based on greenhouse gas emissions and currently we're also the the um second highest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions the only country that's ahead of us is China um and keep in mind too that they have four times the population of us um and so and we're also one of the most powerful countries in the world so when we think about the the climate crisis we know that most of humanity bears very little responsibility for the climate crisis itself um it's estimated that the 85 lowest emitting countries in the world who have contributed virtually nothing to the problem of the climate crisis um will bear 40 of the economic losses and 80 of the resulting deaths of climate change um and the lion share of the responsibility of climate change where climate change comes from um comes from so depending on on how you determine that attribution that responsibility falls upon a handful of corporations um 100 companies are said to be responsible for 70 percent of all co2 emissions over time um the responsibility hand falls on a handful of industrialized countries with high levels of historic and um and per capita pollution so think the the United States Canada Europe um which is a continent not a country um Australia and Japan and so like those countries those countries and um and continents together have emitted 66 percent of all emissions over time with less than 25 percent of the global population as a whole um another way to think about who's responsible for the climate crisis is um 10 percent of um or the wealthiest the wealthiest 10 percent of our world is currently responsible for 50 percent of our carbon emissions whereas the poorest 50 percent of our global population accounts for less than 10 percent of our carbon emissions and both the causes of and the impacts from climate change can be seen along um very highly racialized gendered and class determined lines as um you know as as you can see from some of those statistics um so I know I'm like starting off a lot of math but please bear with me um so 2020 2016 and 2019 in that order have been the hottest years on record since you know the 1800s and when we started um started recording that data and so the planet has warmed um about 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels um so we're we're already experiencing global warming um and it continues to warm at a rate of about uh 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade and um something that I like to keep in mind is that the last time there was this much carbon in the atmosphere was over three million years ago and the last time that global average temperatures were two degrees Celsius warmer the world's oceans were 82 feet higher which I think is just an interesting fact um and so these numbers are super abstract but they're important um and they they also mask um a very violent and very current reality for folks all over the world we're seeing massive crop failures in India driving thousands of farmers to suicide um we're seeing um hundreds of millions of folks all over the world um in hunger uh we're seeing extreme weather and um slow onset events leaving hundreds of millions of people displaced um and by slow onset I mean events like uh salt water intrusion that's making drinking water undrinkable um uh events like sea level rise things like that um climate breakdown is causing the permanent loss of species we're facing the fifth um fifth extinction we're facing irreparable damage to ecosystems um and the worsening of of really every existing form of injustice that we see in in the world so hate to break to you but um we're all but guaranteed to warm another 0.5 degrees Celsius um and we have a disturbingly high probability of a lot more warming than that um we're really hurtling into a world that won't be able to sustain life as we know it um we're looking at a world where within the century much of South Asia where about 20 of our our human population currently lives um that that area will be too hot for humans to survive in the summertime um this is a region that you know is routinely devastated by by drought so some people speak about kind of the new normal of climate change but really there's there's nothing normal about this um the global system is not going to stabilize once we you know reach 1.5 degrees of Celsius of warming like the IPC report talks about um this is very new very deadly and very weird um so before working at Sierra Club um I spent some time at international climate negotiations with a delegation of students from College of the Atlantic where I graduated this June in Bar Harbor and so I want to dive a little bit more into how I saw some system failures playing out there um so these conferences are run by the United Nations um and when we think about the United Nations it's a very you know highly regarded institution um it's supposed to be an institution where countries are coming together to work on global challenges and you know solving world hunger and creating peace um but really it's a space that's dominated by rich and developed countries um it's dominated by international financial institutions multinational corporations um the UN climate conferences have lots of representation from oil and gas industries lots of national elites um and they're they're really a uh a place where imperialist and capitalist interests are served and where that is the status quo um it's it's kind of helpful to think that the UN is is dealing with the histories of and and relationships between nations so the climate change negotiations are spaces of encounter between these postcolonial past or not post past colonial powers um seeking to you know assert or reassert their dominance um and formally colonize nations or underdeveloped nations seeking to to rebuff them um and you know where we're having conversations about the responsibility of of nations so all of this to say there are really deep deep inequalities between those who are most responsible for the climate crisis and those who are victim to it um and I I want to share an experience that I had um with you all now uh and I'll share a video in a moment um but I was in in Madrid for the past climate conference um in 2000 2018 put pre-covid um and an action that I took up took part in there was a a a a political action that was spearheaded by indigenous and global south and by global south meaning um you know the the less developed portions of the world um by civil society and trade unions and and youth and this was an action that um brought all of these folks from the real world together to um to rally against these um this plenary um sorry I'm getting lost this this big plenary hearing um and so it was to really draw attention to and demand um rich countries tackle the climate crisis and so during this demonstration we were shut down very quickly by UN security and folks were kettlebelled meaning that um we were surrounded by UN security and physically pushed out of the conference center um we were stripped of our badges we couldn't go back into the conference um and then we were herded by by military um and police and um and left out in the cold for me it wasn't that cold it was like 45 degrees um in December in Madrid but the relative cold for for hours on end um and and to me this just really shows how little these institutions are willing to listen to folks who are being um being affected by the climate crisis right now so I'm I'm gonna share a quick video of some of the folks that are um that were speaking during the event um and I can share the youtube video in the chat after if you'd like to watch the whole clip um and Angola the first person who's speaking she's you'll notice that she's banging um a spoon of banging a cup with a spoon and this is um a form of protest called uh Calcero Zaro which is originated in Chile and involves like making noise by banging on pots and pans so just a heads up there um all right and I'll share my screen Angola we're here in solidarity with the frontline communities with the millions of people in the global south who are facing the worst of the climate crisis here because we haven't forgotten about them and our future we are here because we we need our governments to listen to us this last week it's been all about profit cover markets nature based solutions that don't respond to the needs of people and nature if we unite we can have a present and a future rounded injustice no solutions no solutions no solutions we have one last speaker she's from the amazon and she's here to share one last thing with all of you here my name is Sandra Tukup I am from the Ecuadorian amazon and I am here because our territories are being violated those industries that are causing climate change are polluting our rivers and our territories we are here because we're defending our territory we're defending biodiversity we're defending the planet we're defending the rivers because you know that in each and every one of us we have water we are water because without the water we cannot live without our territory without our soil we cannot live without the earth with we cannot live no matter how much money we have the earth is to tell the big industries to stop violating our territories to stop this all right um and I will share uh the link to that in the chat if you would like to watch the full clip um I will let me people know that there's images in that clip a very highly militarized police if that is something that you do not want to watch I do not recommend watching the rest of the clip um so yeah um this clip brings up a lot of emotions for me um but um so back to you know what fair shares look like and who's responsible to the climate crisis um if the united states were to actually achieve its fair share of emissions reductions we would have to reduce our emissions by about 195 percent by 2030 um so that means getting to at least 70 percent emissions reductions nationally um and the remainder through support to develop to develop in countries who we've put at risk so that's how we get above that 100 percent um so compared to the to the biden plan that came out today um biden's plan is to reduce our emissions by uh about 50 percent by 2030 so that's that's really not enough when we look at that fair shares um and yeah um that was a bit all over the map but let's let's think about the state of Maine for a moment too um and the thing about systems is that they're ever present at all levels of society not just internationally um so we see them you know at the international level national level state level um community level as well um and so we're seeing in Maine that we too are not doing our fair share of climate action compared to what is needed um when we when we look at the the state of Maine's climate goals to reduce um our emissions by oh i forgot the number uh by 80 percent by 2050 um that that's not enough um we're also seeing that private interests and those interested in maintaining the status quo are given power um at the Maine climate council for example we're seeing representatives from fossil fuel um from fossil fuel groups on on the climate council and in its working groups um we're seeing resistance from our government to uphold tribal sovereignty resistance from our state to healthcare access to all um and and resistance to these calls of equity and justice and inclusion um in in all walks of our lives so I know that um I have limited time to talk to you all tonight and really I could talk about climate justice for hours so feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to talk more about it but I think with that I'll I'll pass it back to Kelsey to introduce our next speaker um and really grateful for you all for taking the time to listen to me oh Kelsey you're muted thank you um I haven't made that mistake yet uh I am going to put everybody's full bios um from our website if you want to read more about what other people work on um thank you so much Anya and thanks for all you do for the chapter and and all the other hats that you've worn as an activist um that was a really exciting broader kind of view of what's taking place across the state where actions are happening globally um we're gonna invite a very interesting and specialist perception or perspective right now um thinking about how um you know the economy or larger systems actually are part of this um both structural racism structural capitalism and also um just the ways that you know money and resources move through our community which has direct impact on how we're going to make significant changes for climate change so um up next is Davis Taylor Dr. Davis Taylor he's a professor of economics in the Cody Van Heerden chair of economics and quantitative social sciences at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor um he has served on the boards of national resources council of Maine the good turn food cooperative in Rockland and the cooperative development institute which is a really exciting organization um that's near and dear to me about cooperative making along with the policy committee of the main organic farmers and gardeners association his research and community engagement focuses on cooperatives economies food systems and ecological economies um and so we're really excited to welcome him and I'm gonna get you so that you're pinned and you're ready to go welcome Davis thank you thank you Kelsey uh it's wonderful to be here um thank you everybody for joining us everybody hear me okay um I've done a few notes to make sure I didn't go over time and try to keep my thoughts clear here so I'm gonna do a little bit of reading and a little bit of ad hoc commentary here um so intersectionality uh is an interesting uh perspective my understanding prior to the discussion tonight that it was mostly about social identity uh and how that affects an individual um so let me rephrase that individual identity but I'm expanding the idea here to include uh social position and I hope that's okay that I expanded the term in this regard even with a broader perspective we can still think of individual identity in the context of race ethnic identity and class and the intersectionality that produces within individuals in a larger context of people's social position within the economy so I'm kind of expanding the idea a little bit but hopefully it still makes sense and I hope it's okay that I did this um there is intersectionality all over the topics of the economy uh race racism and climate justice okay um it's economic activity of course that causes greenhouse gas emissions that are responsible for climate change and while any expression of racism is is pregnant the economic dimension of racism is arguably the most costly harmful and in need of change it's access to jobs access to education access to appropriate housing access to healthcare it's all about equal access really um as both consumers and producers uh where many black indigenous and people of color are denied the key intersectionality in my mind is that economic and equality and discrimination around the world puts people of color at greater exposure to the negative risks and consequences of climate change okay so I I'm not really talking here about justice in the sense of the causes of climate change as as much as I am the the impacts okay globally it's fangalashi farmers it's andy and pastoralists it's tanzanine um artisanal fissures they're the ones who are really feeling the impacts of climate change now in the united states and canada it's less about production and more about location the rich live further up the hill they have sturdier housing they can move out of harm's way the poor who are disproportionately represented by bipoc due to centuries of of discrimination have less capacity to migrate less capacity to mitigate against climate change and are less likely to receive assistance from government I'm going to share um a couple of just sort of general ideas here that I have been thinking about lately regarding these issues these issues what strikes and concerns me the most about the current historical moment is kind of the lack of recognition the invisibility of economic difference that's making the context of the current impacts of climate change that the way this difference is is affecting people regarding climate change we say that if we do something now then climate change will be averted then okay well I haven't read the book the perspective this perspective seems to be captured in the title of Bill Gates latest book how to avoid a climate disaster if we just act now there will be less problems then okay from a certain perspective of course this is true any action right now the clump that combats climate change is good um presuming it's not preempting other more effective actions and the sooner the better but to a significant extent there really is no we and there really is no then I think regarding the we there are some people who are dying today of climate change as as on you noted and there are probably some people who are really never going to be touched unless the entire human species goes down the drain some people are going to be able to buy their way out of this okay we give us a comfortable feeling that we're all all in this together and in some ways that's true of course but in some ways it's not we cannot and should not erase the truth that people of color around the world are facing a much different reality regarding impacts of climate change than are the affluent people of the world regarding the then climate change is happening right now it's impacting hundreds of millions of lives and probably killing tens of thousands of people every year it's not then it's now then gives us a comfortable feeling that we have yet to mess things up severely that we can still escape a race in the reality that millions haven't escaped won't escape are not escaping so so this is a real tension okay I of course understand the activist message that we must do all that we can that it's not too late in a certain sense that whatever avoidance of climate change we can do now will pay huge dividends later and in that sense it's a great economic return but I also worry that this message disguises difference different realities differences that matter immensely we somehow need to craft the message that communicates our togetherness along with terribly uneven impacts of climate change another big thought I have is there's there's really two kinds of economics at work in the they're necessary I would say to understanding the intersectionality of the economy racism and climate change the first is the familiar kind of economics it's the economics of production distribution consumption it's supply and demand prices and most importantly it's a distribution of income and income earning factors such as education this sort of economics is is essential in understanding the situation we're facing but I think there's a second kind of economics that is relatively new it's relatively new perspective on how economies function and it's the economics of institutions institutions in this context are the formal and informal rules and sorry I'm going to get a little wonky here institutions are the formal and informal rules of the economy and the associated political system what what we now recognize is that these rules are incredibly important in determining economic outcomes the formal rules are the laws the courts the property rights the constitutions the things that determine how things run but informal rules are just as important the norms and expectations and understandings of how things get done but basically the culture it's the informal institutions that are such a big part of racism patriarchy and other forms of oppression and and these are equally important to the formal institutions is the country's formal and informal institutions overall that determine its economic growth its distribution of resources and the role that justice plays in its economy and understanding of the and the functioning of institutions is critical to understanding an economy but what really matters in this context of race and climate change is institutional change I believe that understanding institutional change will play the sights of role in the ways and degrees to which we in which we tackle economic racism and and climate change justice unfortunately the news here isn't terribly good the study of institutional change reveals that institutional change happens slowly and often haphazardly particularly the informal institutions in the united states for example we pass some great laws regarding civil rights and the environment in the 1960s and 1970s these laws led to some great and significant changes but clearly they didn't change everybody's minds they didn't change their informal practices they didn't change culture in a lot of places within the united states furthermore institutional change is dominated by elites and elites are very cautious about institutional change because clearly every win-win even win-win changes are going to rock the boat so to speak individual elites might get pushed out of the process of institutional change nowhere do you see this more clearly than in our continued use of fossil fuels there are so many win-win situations out there where we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions get better jobs have economic growth really transform our economy and and many of us are aware of this but the but the processes that these tales that these changes entail will lead to winners and losers and even if we could even if clearly the net gains are obvious the elites in the fossil fuel industry and their allies in the political system are digging in their heels regardless of how clearly the gains are to the planet the human race and even their own economies there there are now this context to this and there are now the situations to this in the context of racism and the institutions that perpetuate so I spent a lot of time thinking about institutions and it's a very powerful perspective I think lastly something I've been thinking about lately is the role of technological change in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in our economy and around the world 20 odd years ago when I first started studying ecological economics I was pretty skeptical of what it is referred to as technological optimism okay that's the basic idea that technology can essentially save us that we can work around our environmental and perhaps even our social difficulties through improved technologies okay the opposing perspective is technological pessimism that argues that we can't rely on technology and then we should make deep cultural shifts in order to use your resources and do the proverbial saving of the planet like many social natural scientists at the time I was very skeptical about relying on technology and I furthermore believe that some cultural shifts would be a very good thing would serve us very well we should come to see that having more stuff for more people for most for many people doesn't lead to more happiness I thought and I still believe that it doesn't lead to more happiness it doesn't lead to better lives and there's a whole interesting science out there on this that we would benefit from being less materialistic and that we would just be better off if we reduced our consumption rather than relying on technology to allow us to keep consuming while hopefully having less negative impacts on the planet it was even easy in a sense to make the argument that a less materialistic attitude toward life would also lead to more social justice even while recognizing that this was a very abstract relationship we'd all sort of becomes in buddhist and peace out I know this is a huge cultural shift a very big step especially within the the notions of institutional change that I discussed a moment ago but I sure wasn't going to try to rely on technology today I remain skeptical technology in many dimensions technology is not going to restore the coral reefs it's not going to bring back the rhinos it certainly won't do things we should be pardon me certainly I certainly don't think we should be relying on geoengineering at this point but I look at the state of the world regarding global commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions the degree to which those commitments are actually followed or achieved and the roles that technologies of photovoltaics when wind battery storage and other technology the roles that those things are playing and I'm beginning to rethink technology in general I'm wondering if I was a bit too dismissive of it in the past it seems that we're just not terribly good at reducing our consumption through through simply cutting back as opposed to through technological change so despite despite millennia of spiritual practice and wisdom from various cultures around the world despite all kinds of findings from contemporary scientists in the realms of psychology and sociology we just seem unwilling to live our lives with less stuff and I should say here I'm speaking of those around the world who are living in relative material abundance not those who are who are at subsistence levels and and suffering from material deprivation although many of them ironically are leading very happy if materially shortened lives even my own little organization College of the Atlantic um speaks very little about operating with less stuff okay about actually reducing our energy and material consumption we just aren't willing to educate with less okay I even though I think we could do a very good job we could do just fine with this if the greenest college in the world or the greenest college in the United States can't reduce consumption it makes me very worried about the rest of the world in this regard it seems we are throwing our hopes behind technology for better or for worse it doesn't mean that people are bad or evil you know that we're just greedy people although there's plenty of that out there there are explanations for our addiction to energy and our addiction to to stuff I think a lot of it has to do with the natural human desire for status and inclusion although a lot of it also hasn't do with very successful marketing by large corporations okay it just means that we probably shouldn't be hoping for the sorts of reductions we need in in carbon and other resources via simply consuming less it's going to be technology okay and that's a little scary but it seems to be the way things are going um in my my technology provides the best news regarding climate change which again is also good news for communities of color around the world who are most affected by climate change the plummeting price the plummeting price of producing energy versus photovoltaics or wind is really heartening the technology of energy storage is way ahead of where people thought it would be even just a couple of years ago economic growth and unfettered markets of the neoliberal utopia may be killing the planet but the stampede to be the first to markets regarding electric cars home energy storage a newer better more democrat more democratic grid it's these places it seems to me was the most hope for for actually addressing climate change this of course doesn't mean we should stop pressing for institutional change across all fronts for example we should continue to press for higher mileage requirements and the grandfathering and even the grandfathering of vehicles that run off fossil fuels we should demand fewer emissions better agriculture better forestry better care for our oceans etc and these will require legal restrictions global negotiations the sorts of things that the many great organizations like the Sierra Club are working on now but as amory lovens used to say we didn't leave the stone age because we ran out of stones and i would add to that we didn't leave the stone age because we made stones illegal okay markets that spur technological innovation and effective formal and informal institute institutional change supported by governments creating the institutional institutional framework to encourage them is really a great way i think to be able to get toward lower greenhouse gas emissions okay these markets and the institutional change and governance are not substitutes for each other they are compliments we need them both i know that putting um this is getting towards the end of my comments here um putting a price on carbon is controversial um in environmental and social justice circles i checked out the um Sierra Club national web page and found that there's some support for it there but i know that people have lots of different minds regarding this um i have some understanding of why but i think an effective price on carbon um globally applied would would really fix a lot of things relatively quickly okay achievements would be extremely hard the forces of institutional inertia are just as strong in this realm as as and others in the in the ways that i described earlier the possibilities of corporate malfeasance are hot but what we probably don't have the time here right now to go into the gory details of carbon pricing i think the wards of a price on carbon would be dramatic um lastly even with success with successful technology we haven't avoided climate change and as i point out things will probably get worse before they get better in terms of the actual temperature increases along with severity of storms droughts things like that this means that regardless of how successful our technologies might be we need to address the historical inequities that make climate change mitigation a very unequal uneven playing field for black indigenous and people of color in the united states and around the world i'll be happy to expand on these comments or talk more about it sorry we're gonna have a chance to answer questions with the whole panel at the end thank you so much um that was a really exciting and dynamic track through um so many different complicated systems and i really appreciate your eloquence davis with them leading us through all of them so last but not least um we are welcoming to the virtual zoom room uh josh wood who is a now 16 year old racial and climate justice organizer based in sanford main at main strikes he's the co-organizing director he served as the youngest communications director in mains black lives matter movement after the death of so many black people as we continued to look at this week including children across america during a global pandemic by he started a petition to remove school resource officers in his hometown and his awareness of racial justice issues has grown increasingly local to his area um in august 2020 he helped create initiatives in black lives matter main that have since seen the demilitarization of police departments in small towns equitable changes to schooling and more um he now continues to work with main climate strikes to pass country-wide climate emergencies and manage statewide action teams um josh is going to join us to talk about um how we can make big uh change on big levels in smaller places um let me unpin myself where is josh so you can pin him there we go thanks josh yeah of course hey everyone my name is josh and i you see him pronouns i was the director of communications for black lives matter main uh now known as project relief project relief is an organization that does mutual aid projects across the state providing basic necessities to families like food clothing money and more um at black lives matter main the organization was able to expand into geographically marginalized communities um so we were able to protest across main um i was also the co-organizing director for main strikes a youth led organization responsible for climate strikes across our state in support of climate justice um and today i want to talk to you about how race and climate are inextricably intertwined or intersectional to each other uh racial justice is climate justice as much as it is environmental justice here's why green action says a world that encompasses environmental justice is a world where people live at their highest potential without interruption by inequity in a country which was only created to serve white people and frankly white people's interests this is not possible our neighborhoods as black people have more police and less trees and as a result of that backward investment our communities are brutalized beyond belief take what you see in the news as an example by defunding and reinvesting money into our communities we will finally see those trees instead of our bodies on tv uh we're not there though yet and celebrating things like Derek Chauvin's conviction is just simply not enough and we can't expect police convictions to save anyone's life because they didn't save george floyd's real justice would be george floyd coming home to his family but it never works that way for victims of police brutality nor does it work for the countless people of color who die at the hands of corporations uh that pollute our air in most states police don't even enforce environmental regulations they're too focused on shooting us so it's time to start policing the police because killing us is not their job maybe if they were focused on planting trees the world would be a better place but instead they're making money off of our neighborhoods and livelihoods clearly a system like that doesn't work and it's not enough I want to share with you presentation share screen sorry share awesome so if you see this big saying right there it says racial justice is climate justice and I find that to be true especially in my smaller circles that I talk to you about this issue racial justice is climate justice is a saying that is not as old as time but definitely important celebrating Earth Day without acknowledging the deaths of Dante Wright and Makaya Bryant is not enough either if the government put its money where its mouth is maybe Dante and Makaya would still be alive today unfortunately because of their death we have people's attention that black lives matter but black lives matter means a lot of things black lives matter is as much of an environmental movement as it is a movement to decry police brutality it's a movement of love for our people and our planet Eric Garner died because he couldn't breathe after being put in a chokehold by the police there are also inner city kids who are dying because they can't breathe from pollution so here's what we're doing we can't see your presentation hold on stop here Josh if you'd like me to help you too you can share with me I could share yeah for sure that would be much better I just shared it with you so to continue black lives matter means a lot of things but it's more to decrypt brutality and here's what we're doing about that outside of Maine and bigger bigger inner cities BIPOC communities see the impact of environmental inequity and racism take cooperation Jackson for an example an organization based in Mississippi they point out the adverse effects of climate change by providing housing cooperatives for black folks in the city it's an initiative being tried and failed in cities and states everywhere clearly we have work to do in Maine African Americans are taking action where the government can't especially youth and I want to tell you about some last summer I led an effort to demilitarize my police my small towns police department uh this was the first time I'd been to my city hall like Kasia Burks I thought the space provided by city hall would make some really good low-cost apartments I could easily envision our unhoused population living in there but that's not what we were there to do we were there to ask our town to take a leap of faith investing money from the police into environmental initiatives now instead of hearing us out Sanford had representatives at our protest with guns brandishing guns in our faces because they didn't believe the message that black lives mattered when we protested people came out and brandished weapons at us like Anya said these institutions couldn't care less this is where environmental racism truly manifests itself but we have to be careful because police brutality is not the only way racism manifests itself racism is also not being able to go on hikes because you fear someone will brutalize you in the woods it's the microaggressions we hear in the workplace it's the racial profiling we are subject to by police it's the socioeconomic injustice and disadvantage we're subject to in every facet of our lives it's the racist stereotypes that society media and government continue to peddle it's undoing the enduring legacy of slavery that continues to scar the black diaspora in our communities so white people I hope what I've said makes you uncomfortable enough to act simply celebrating a conviction like Jerick Chalvins is complacency dismantling oppressive systems requires you to have hard conversations organize and act planting the seeds to uproot the same systems destroying our planet thank you I've also left some links at the end of my presentation and I will drop them in the chat thank you so much josh for all of your work and on top of that taking time today to share it with us those photographs are really powerful and we look forward to I'll enjoy taking a look at the resources that you shared too in the in the links so I want to welcome all of our speakers to I'm going to put us back if you are watching you might look at gallery view if you'd like to turn on your chat we're going to be in the q&a portion of this if folks are interested in participating via video with your own questions you're welcome to put them into the chat too and I can also amplify some people's if they want me to read their question out loud to the three that we've assembled here today one of the biggest things that Anya had mentioned who invited the panelists here today to talk with us is just about the nature that you know we are really at it again a moment there's there's this legacy of the environmental intergenerational movement about what's the next youth front here and how does that reconcile itself into the movement we are again in that you know in that forefront where we have so many more youth activists both on the climate justice front as well as the racial justice and social justice friends so would the three of you maybe comment about what you see as a future for an intergenerational coalition how can we build that more in main who do we need to be listening to and how do we make more space for young people in our movements either from a teacher or from a youth activist perspective I'd love for you to go first as the youngest person in the room if you're open to it yeah so for intergenerational alliances there's a lot we can do we need to be more empathetic to each other I think is the first step especially in defining generational gaps so we understand that our generation grew up with technology older generations did not it's really an easy thing to learn this is not a dig at older folks we definitely do need to be more empathetic older folks do need to be more empathetic younger folks need to be more empathetic especially about racial and socioeconomic gaps I feel like there's a huge gap there I've seen it in organizing spaces where folks talk over each other and yeah I feel like we all can do more thanks so much do Anya or Davis want to chime in Anya this means you're next for going Yeah I think you know so another hat that I wear is I'm the youth representative on the main climate council so have really seen some of these dynamics of like adults versus youth play out and I think something that that I think I talk a lot about that I talk about a lot as a youth activist is that you know I in my generation and you know folks in this room as well but you know my I will be experiencing climate change in a way that's different than some of the older generations that that are currently on earth I think climate change has been a part of my life since I was a child and continues to be it's shaped my decisions as I become an adult it's shaped where I wanted to go to school it's shaped where I want to live it's shaping what I want to do for my career it's shaping you know my future decisions of deciding whether or not I want to have children you know it's it's an undeniable part of my life in a way that I think is not true for all generations that are currently on this earth and so I think we really need to be listening to our younger generations but also thinking you know generations ahead I think yeah I don't know that's a whole nother rabbit hole I could go down but but basically I think and then I also really agree with Josh I think especially in the environmental movement there is a lot of institutional knowledge and a lot of really amazing you know grassroots work that has been happening in the state of Maine for many years for you know 20 30 40 50 years longer than that there's a lot of a lot of history in this state that needs to be taught and learned from and I think definitely what Josh was saying about empathy and having more conversations is I think really an important piece but as a young person who's been told to my face that maybe my ideas aren't important maybe they're just bad I had an adult tell me that once related to the climate council I think we need to do a better job at listening to our future generations and listening to the young folks and what they are screaming and striking from school about because they're the ones that are going to be you know experiencing this in such a real way so yeah I would totally echo what's being said particularly the ideas about listening and I'll take the opportunity to apologize for going a little bit over my allotted time I was that speaker sorry so I think I went over to Davis it's no no more time listening listening is is of course always a great idea and it's something we can sort of say oh of course we're going to listen and we should listen to young people but I feel that the way people of my generation need to listen should change it is not just sort of like oh let's listen to the youth and hear their ideas and stuff like that I feel a palpable shift in the energy and the capacity of the young people I work with these days and they are not just angry upset but they're also very well educated on the issues and it's I just learn a lot I learn a lot more than I used to so I think a kind of listening that really opens our minds to the possibility that some ideas that just seem implausible or too radical we need to be able to take those in and I suspect the people in this gathering are very progressive in the open people but nevertheless I think there's more space for that it's just so exciting to hear what's happening and I think climate justice issues got the ball rolling over the past four or five years young people just were too angry so too many stupid things going on and then the events of of the past year regarding social justice and diversity equity inclusion issues and police violence and so on and so forth and building up before that in in previous events over the past four or five years just really brought out an energy and intensity and a focus that people of my generation can really benefit from it's just really astounding and I'm so really thrilled to be a part of it my next question is also about kind of broadening the coalition and I think each the each of you has a really interesting perspective on whether it's interdisciplinary between urban rural this idea of just like starting initiatives that bring it are making a bigger tent for a lot of people or finding strategic partnerships with the environmental movement and organizations that specialize in something else I see that Davis with you with kind of economic structures teaching as a kind of radicalizing practice as well as collaborative collectives Josh with like clear crossover between both being an activist that sits in one racial justice movement and as well as the environmental movement I noticed that you were like teaching and doing a teach-in with the Audubon Society back in February so like showing up in all these different communities and making this crossover dialogue and kind of syncing those movements or Anya you know the climate coalition or this other kind of coalition building stuff that can include everybody from small businesses like a solar business to and you know professional activists to lobbyists so what do you think is the most important thing we need right now and in making connections to make a stronger network across our state or is there something you've seen in the past couple years that really excited you about how people worked together to get either legislation or something in private development closed or changed well I'll I'll take the baton first here as I was mentioned in my my introduction I work with cooperatives and the way people are thinking about cooperatives is extremely exciting these days and it's an extremely broad perspective it's it's not just about trying to provide economic well jobs or products or something for people it's not really just about economic democracy it's about voice I was at a conference a number of years ago on cooperatives it was it was in Wooster, Massachusetts which is a very sort of challenged place economically extremely diverse plenty of poverty and I was just amazed that the conference was dominated by people in their 20s and they were interested in cooperatives because they saw that saw it as a social justice issue and they wanted to to form workroom businesses and housing co-ops and so on and so forth because they saw it as a way to bring power they said that there there is no justice without control and there's no control without ownership and that has just struck me ever since so I see for my angle I think there's way more than just cooperatives out there but cooperatives are this really amazing way in which you can bring a lot of things and we're working with Moff to right now to expand uh farmer cooperatives and working with farms and things like that so there's all kinds of exciting things going on there. Kelsey could you repeat the question? Yeah sure just thinking about what are either some tools or things that you've been learning about making wider coalitions in your personal practice or examples where you feel like recent changes or trends are making that kind of cross-pollination possible? Yeah um thank you uh I I think um something that I've been thinking about a lot recently especially coming to work with Sierra Club is that you know one organization in one person can't do everything and I think we're starting to realize that more and more but there's still this like dream and want to be like the end all be all like climate justice group or climate justice organization and like I'm guilty of that as well like I want to be able to like be doing the most good but I think you know we do the most good when we are playing to our strengths and when we are um figuring out what we you know as an individual or as a community or as a coalition can do the most good um you know given our resources and background and I think something that I've been seeing a lot more of recently is like folks really putting in the work to um understand you know their own personal lives and histories and I think you know we saw that a lot this summer with especially with the movement for Black Lives saw a lot of like white people finally realizing that they're you know racist and like steeped in racist institutions and like really starting to think about that um and I think you know like like Josh was alluding to in his talk that's a step in the right direction but you know not enough but um but I think it's even since you know I started working in the climate justice space just a few years ago um it's encouraging to like see that shift of people really going from that like urgent we need to act now um and just do something to like all right let's like take a step back and really like evaluate why we are in this place and why we are acting the way that we we are and like that's the way that we're going to be able to move forward and like actually solve this as if we like actually understand where we are um so yeah I don't know if that really answered the question um so it's a really helpful reflection and um Josh I want to turn it last to you and I don't know whether or not you want to answer this from a like you've existed in different coalitions or spaces or also just talking about size of community and like what you need to get stuff done um in smaller communities and what you've learned about that yeah well first as a black dude and the only person of color on this panel I think we all gotta be a bit more intersectional when we make connections especially when we consider like black trans people and indigenous trans folks um as well as like super marginalized populations have made um in order to be intersectional I think we have to be accommodating to folks and really meet people where they are so meeting people where they are means providing stipends for work that youth are doing or providing stipends for work that marginalized folks are doing instead of just going out into the streets and saying I protested or I supported Black Lives Matter so that makes me an anti-racist um you really have to do the work and dig deeper in and the same goes for the climate justice realm um if you go into the street and say I protested for climate justice but then throw money out of corporation uh like Walmart or Amazon or Exxon rather than like an indigenous owned bookstore or a black owned bookstore or a bookstore owned by even your own neighbor um then you're not really doing the work and I think people need to realize that more and have a better awakening of how these issues really are intersectional to each other maybe pick up a book yeah thank you so much for that I was looking for the link to put in the chat but um there was some exciting philanthropy news here in Maine where Maine initiative has just made a hundred thousand dollars in grants towards mutual aid organizations um mostly BIPOC that's black indigenous and people of color um for those of you that have not heard that acronym before um organizations um which is a really exciting just like frontier of seeing that that just redistribution of funds to the people doing the work in their community you know we should just trust the leaders that know how to distribute those funds and who needs the support um so I yes thank you so much Josh for bringing that up um in the chat I also put a little bit of information about the Sierra Club and kind of the big shift towards this as far as where we are with base building and coalition building um for a green future and so you know there's a lot of work to be done and Sierra Club is really open to feedback and so um if any of you have questions I want to open the floor to the attendees here um feel free to raise your hand or if you want to put it in the chat and then we can answer that to all of um or put that to our group that we've assembled here today or Sierra Club staff and um yeah I don't see and maybe the other hosts can help me see if there anybody raises their hand um or otherwise I have a couple more questions I can ask I'll put one more prompt would any of our panelists like to ask questions of each other and what you heard today well I'm going to jump into my next question but please um if folks have any we still do have everybody for a few more minutes um just thinking about futurisms which I think is like really you know we are on Earth Day it's meant to be this celebratory kind of both day of action day of community caretaking day of protest um it's both of resistance and joy um and thinking about those two principles together as we head into the future um what are each of you working on that you're most excited about or what is something that's happening in the state that you want to that you're going to be fighting to see happen in the next legislative session or in your local community and yeah what's what's next for each of you I'm going to call on Ania because you have not gone first yet okay um yeah I mean what's next for me um I'm continuing to to work with the chapter um I um I'm I think something that I'm really excited about that's really focused around climate justice is working with the coalition main climate action now on creating a climate justice crash course that we're we're trying to create by the end of the year for activists and folks in the state of Maine to learn more about climate justice um both at the international level like I was talking about and during my talk but also very much at the state level um including more stories like um like that Josh shared um of of things that are happening within the state of Maine um so that's a project that I'm really excited to work on I think um climate justice is something that's like extremely hard to uh you know put into just a few sentences or like even an hour and a half conversation it's many many conversations it took me like a whole college degree to start to figure out um so um yeah excited to work on projects to make climate justice more accessible to folks um and to yeah continue working with the chapter to um you know make climate justice a reality in in the state of Maine that's great uh Davis or Josh do you ever want to hop in with something that's exciting on your horizon yeah I'll go um so I want to focus on promoting youth leadership in my own community and because there are a lot of young blooming leaders here that do not have the resources to speak up organ into activism so I've been helping folks out lending them platforms um and working behind the scenes really to promote voices that have been shut out um because I know what it feels like to have been shut out and being platformed and sharing my story has been honestly really cool um and I want others to have that chance too um also I want to go into mental health advocacy um advocating for mental health and capacity and activism spaces and youth spaces um and you will also see me doing communications in press for a release calling out fossil fuel companies pretty soon fabulous I don't know if you sleep but uh thank you for continuing to wow Josh to your accomplishments for 16 are uh truly intimidating uh Davis you want to give us the final words and if nobody puts a question in the chat we'll all wave goodbye and have your day one another no pressure um I continue uh my my my research and scholarship is focusing on the role of elites within our economy uh and um I'm also doing some work with the cooperative development institute and moff guy as I noted but what really has me excited is this very small project I'm working on I'm preparing to co-host a talk at College of Atlantic over the summer with Roger Millican so you some of you might remember Roger Millican he's a former CEO of the basket he can company they have about 120,000 acres of land up in Washington County that's some of the you know best managed forests in the state in terms of sustainability and and and production he's former uh chair of the nature conservancy not yeah chair of the board of the nature conservancy at the national level uh he was involved with the nature conservancy getting that large tract of land on the St. John river and what's really amazing and talking with him is that he's um a big advocate and a close friend of Robin Wall Kimmer who's is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass and um many of you have probably read that book if you haven't I cannot recommend it highly enough Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmer is just an astoundingly good book there it's in a genre of of Native American writers writing about environmental issues but it is off the charts in in its wisdom and its approaches and and Braiding means all kinds of different things in the context of the title so it's it was really amazing the former CEO of a Timmer company is is looking at the world in that way and I find that extremely heartening and he's also questioning the role of elites within the leadership of things like climate change um he thinks you know on the one hand having Bill Gates interested in social justice issues and and climate and so on and so forth is great but he really questions it too and it sees it as a way of just continuing elite dominance instead of really addressing things that are more fundamental systemic levels so that's a project that has me really excited there's there's lots of cool ideas going around and it gives me some confidence that that a person he's ten years older than me he's sort of a stalwart of the business community but he's really seeing that we need to change some things so I'm excited about that thank you so much and that's a really great um piece of critique to be thinking about in the years ahead as we've also this year we've seen mega donations from Jeff Bezos and Mackenzie Scott which are clearly um exciting towards climate change futures with big funding for research and possibly you know as you said questions about big tech and whether or not we should be tech optimistic or pessimistic um Heidi I want to uh have a nice comment in the chat and also I see you've raised your hand so we'll give you the final question and Davis if you have the link to that event if it's online or the date please put it in the chat for us um Heidi I'm going to unmute you thank you I am a proud uh former resident of the down east main area I uh I started at George Stevens Academy in my sophomore year of high school was part of the outing club there and also graduated from Durile Stonington High School in the class of 1984 and also attended college of the Atlantic so and I'm glad to have met Davis uh that that Dave I'm getting everybody's name uh Davis Taylor at Common Ground Fair a couple of years ago or almost a decade ago but I think we've run into each other since then um so my questions have to do is with the concern about what's happening while I have a larger concern about the the the law of respecting the laws of nature and I do really can am concerned about the or cared about the the indigenous rights um uh EJ communities and things that are happening but my concern is anybody I've heard somewhere along the line that there's a big like not there there the the perma g mine it may have been renamed since I was there in Blue Hill main needs a little bit of attention and I also was wondering what your chapter was doing about the um about the pine tree amendment and also in terms of one of my major issues had since 1991 and meeting cut some of the Cree spokespeople is the the genocide and ecological ethnic cleansing of our Korean and and Inuit neighbors and other indigenous native relatives up in the James Bay and other areas in the the the wake of the hydrokebec mega dams disaster and not to mention our pristine main wilderness which is a huge carbon sequestering resource that's left on our planet that we need to ensure stays put and doesn't get bulldozed and also with the windmills that are coming through from the western mean western mountains and rivers corporation that is trying to sort of make inroads in that so I'd like to know like to know what you guys are doing and not just as a chapter but with also with the with the folks at college of the Atlantic and anybody else in the chapter that would like to talk about what's being done in their own communities I would love to hear from you about this yeah this is a really exciting great question Heidi for like an ending question about just like some specific really big issue topics there was a bunch of questions in there so I'm going to try to answer a couple of them point to also a structural question about our chapter and then I'll open it up to everybody else I'm going to stick in the chat our press releases and testimony that the chapter gave towards when there was conversation about the cmp transmission line so that would and you know there was some great resources both from our climate change conference in 2019 as well as various community conversations that we've had that have featured both our some indigenous First Nations Canadian neighbors talking you know giving testimony and talking about the research in their communities that this is causing to native fishing rights as well as other things the executive committee has been extremely involved in giving testimony and trying to give testimony to that I would highly recommend if those of you on this call if this just struck your fancy and you're not reading our e-news to take a look at what's taking place in the chapter and maybe I'm going to just quickly pass the mic to Anya just to quickly maybe you can point people to the teams that work on this and maybe just introduce the team structure as our staff person eat you know different areas of environmental activism within the chapter have different teams and those teams are coalition and volunteer led so if especially if you're interested in one of these topics to find out you know the Sierra Club team that would be either the appropriate one that's already doing action or to bring that up at those teams oh thank you Marina that's great the team opportunities are in the chat but if one of you want to talk about that and then I'm just going to open the floor if anybody wants to comment about those various issues that Heidi brought before we sign off the chat yeah thanks Kelsey and thanks to Marina for sharing that in the chat I know we also have a volunteer orientation coming up next Wednesday and would encourage folks to sign up for that if they're interested in joining the chapter on a volunteer basis um but yeah um I guess um how do I put this briefly um I guess you know in terms of the pine tree amendment that's something that the chapter is definitely focused on um definitely uh the um pipe for tribal sovereignty is something that is a um chapter priority as well as the cmp transmission line and um Sara or Marina the other staff folks on the line feel free to hop off me if you want to talk more about that but um yeah um yeah I would I would just encourage folks to come to the volunteer orientation if you want to learn more about our teams and kind of the more individual projects that we're working on we do have local climate action teams across the state doing local climate action work in folks you know immediate communities um yeah um I'll leave it at that but um Josh I want to invite you to talk to if you want to talk about any ways that folks can get involved either with project relief or main strikes um moving forward or Davis if you have any um you know thoughts about action action steps that books and take moving forward I think it's one um so following project relief on instagram is the best way to get involved especially because we always need money so money is the number one thing that we need um because we're trying to feed folks we're trying to put clothes on folks we're trying to meet people where they are like I said um although I am not really involved anymore I know that we are doing some great work also another mutual aid project that you could donate to if you can't get out on the streets you can't support people in town halls city halls whatever is main needs main needs does a lot of great excellent work supporting folks putting clothes on people um toys for kids boots mittens hats shirts socks name it um main strikes right now is working on earth day initiatives um we are submitting written testimony in support of some bills that are being passed in the state legislature you can see it on climate strike mains instagram um main youth for climate justice and MCANN which is a part of the coalition that we're in is doing a lot of great work surrounding bills as well legislative priorities so if you want to get involved in any of that uh just hit us up on instagram um and if you don't do instagram then there are always websites and emails that you can use and I've dropped all those links in the chat thanks so much josh davis do you have some uh resources from up in your neck of the woods I don't have anything to match anything close to to what's just been articulated that those steps are very impressive but I would just say in general um kind of time back to some of the things I said uh I said that institutional change is hard to make happen but it does happen it happens through continued pressure and Heidi the the breadth of your of your questions just speaks to sort of intersectionality if if you will if I could take a little liberty there um just how there's all these different things going on and we just have to keep pressing just have to keep pressing and pressing and pressing um so you know a couple months ago gentle motors announced that they're going to they say they're going to stop making fossil fuel powered cars by 2035 that's astounding some people are suspicious of it but it didn't happen because they all of a sudden decided to to worry about climate change and be nice it happened because people were pushing pushing pushing and so all these action steps the audience and josh suggested are really powerful ways and we and we just have to ways of making change and we just have to keep pushing great um thank you all for coming thank you for celebrating earth day with us I wish you all a happy earth day I hope you've walked away with either some things to read about some ideas about who you want to invite to your local climate coalition um or how you can participate in sierra club with our work um and uh if anybody has any last links please stick them in the chat and um we hope you'll just stay tuned to the e-news and to all the great organizations that are represented through this incredible group of three speakers that are active on different fronts that um all really add to a broader more equitable um environmental coalition as we move into the future so thank you all for your time and um this has been really really wonderful thank you everyone happy earth day happy earth day thank you