August 2020

Will COVID-19 change our food system for good? Increased coronavirus outbreaks in food markets, food plants, and farmworker communities have impacted food access and put a spotlight on food insecurity. Farmers are hurting as supply chains for fresh, perishable foods shrivel. Meanwhile, food banks have seen a surge in demand that has required distribution support from the National Guard.

What does COVID-19 mean for agriculture, our food supply systems — and our diets? Join us for a conversation with Lisa Held, senior reporter at Civil Eats and Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, on feeding a nation under quarantine.

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TEDxRyeNeckHigh

Jaime Latorre, a 15-year-old climate activist, and Eagle Scout candidate urges everyone to exercise personal leadership as he shares his views about the importance of youth organizations that reinforce the value of nature. Jaime, grade 9, plans to create an insect farm and butterfly haven for his Eagle Scout project. He is an outdoorsman who cares deeply for the conservation of the natural world. His TEDx talk focuses on youth activism and how organizations, such as the Boy Scouts, support participatory communities. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at TEDx.

Feeling anxious and overwhelmed about climate change and our ability to solve the problem? Our guest this month, environmental psychologist Dr. Renee Lertzman, says we have a window of tolerance that, once we exceed it, causes us to shut down. Turning to the tools of psychology, we can acknowledge the feelings of anxiety that can immobilize us and create conditions that allow us to show up as our brilliant selves. Dr. Lertzman’s unique and integrated approach brings together the best of the behavioral sciences, social sciences and innovative design sciences to create a powerful approach to engagement and social change.

Demystifying «sustainability» | Danat Tekie | TEDxUiO (New York)

Danat's talk is a captivating discussion about youth being the driving force for sustainability and to us viewers on reflecting on ourselves. If you are unsure of what sustainability really is, then this is a must watch.
Danat Tekie is a young and engaged earthpreneur (the word earthpreneur means making sustainability business as usual). She is the Chief External Relations of the global organization, Young Sustainable Impact. It is a global organisation working to solve the sustainability challenges through entrepreneurship and innovation by gathering the smartest young minds from all over the world to create impact startups from scratch. Prior to YSI, Danat was part of building the organisation Future Leaders Global, which has become the biggest and fastest growing leadership program for youth in the Nordics. She is passionate about leadership and making sustainability business as usual. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Asha O’Reilly, 14, takes Americans' association with meat as a staple of family life and encourages meatless family dinners as a way to take collective, positive climate action.

Asha O'Reilly, grade 9, is an expert on industrial agriculture and the meat industry. Her TEDx talk focuses on climate change and the macro-level impacts of industrial meat production and then she hones in on how any family at a dinner table can become part of the solution. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Vegetarianism. 

Students in CCL are influencing lawmakers, uniting their community on climate change, and taking action even during a pandemic. Learn what they are doing to embrace their own personal and political power.

Slide Deck & More #CCL2020 Presentations here.Join Citizen's Climate Lobby (CCL) here. 

How does an interfaith approach to climate change attempt to bridge the divides? How can a faith-based approach be more intersectional when it comes to justice issues? What are some specific examples of work that is being done, and how can CCL members connect to that work?


Get to know the organization Interfaith Power & Light, which works on a faith-based response to climate change. With IPL's Rev. Susan Hendershot and CCL Regional Coordinator Mindy Ahler, this session will explore IPL's programs, state affiliates, faith climate voter campaign, and more.


Slide Deck & More #CCL2020 Presentations: http://cclusa.org/presentations
Join CCL: https://cclusa.org/join

The national uprising ignited by the murder of George Floyd has cast a spotlight on the country’s embedded, institutional racism, including the fraught relationship between environmentalism and communities of color. Air pollution, severe weather and the economic upheaval brought on by climate change impacts black and minority communities first and worst, yet their voices are often left out of policy responses and market solutions.

How can we amplify and advocate for leaders of color in the fight against climate change? What can allies do to create a green movement that is inclusive and actively anti-racist? Join us for a conversation with Mustafa Santiago Ali, vice president of environmental justice at the National Wildlife Federation, Robert Bullard, distinguished professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University and winner of the 2019 Stephen Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication, and Glynda Carr, president and CEO of Higher Heights for America.

Speakers:
Mustafa Santiago Ali
Vice President of Environmental Justice, Climate, and Community Revitalization, National Wildlife Federation

Robert Bullard
Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning and Environmental Policy, Texas Southern University

Glynda Carr
CEO and Co-Founder, Higher Heights for America

Greg Dalton
Host, Climate One

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Please join The Commonwealth Club of California and UC Berkeley’s Townsend Center for the Humanities for the second in a series of dialogues on catastrophe, storytelling and the present moment. In “Climate Change and Sacred Groves,” Townsend Center scholar Sugata Ray will meet with visual artist Ranu Mukherjee to investigate the relationship between the natural world and the sacred realm, especially as it has developed in India over the last several centuries of civilization and the rise of the Anthropocene era.

In his most recent book, Climate Change and the Art of Devotion, Sugata shows how a site-specific and ecologically grounded theology emerged in northern India in the wake of the Little Ice Age (ca. 1550–1850), an epoch marked by climatic catastrophes across the globe. His interests dovetail in unexpected and compelling ways with Ranu’s visionary and captivating recent work, which positions the banyan tree as a meeting point between ecology and culture. Their conversation will be an opportunity for viewers to contemplate and rethink the role of art as it relates to contemporary concerns around climate, disease, human flourishing and the sacred.

Sugata Ray is associate professor of South and Southeast Asian art in the History of Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley. His research and writing focus on climate change and the visual arts from the 1500s onward. Ray is the author of Climate Change and the Art of Devotion: Geoaesthetics in the Land of Krishna, 1550–1850 (2019); Water Histories of South Asia: The Materiality of Liquescence (2019; coedited); and Ecologies, Aesthetics, and Histories of Art (forthcoming; coedited).

Ranu Mukherjee is a visual artist who makes paintings, animations and large-scale installations. Her current work focuses on shifting senses of ecology, non-human agency, diaspora, migration and transnational feminist experience. Her most recent installation was presented at the ecologically focused 2019 Karachi Biennale; she has exhibited solo at the San Jose Museum of Art, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Asian Art Museum, and the de Young Museum. She is an associate professor in graduate fine art at the California College of the Arts. Mukherjee is represented by Gallery Wendi Norris.

NOTES
Artwork from The Met (in public domain): "Krishna and Balarama by a River: Page from a Dispersed Bhagavata Purana (Ancient Stories of Lord Vishnu)"

Part one in this series, “The Book of Exodus,” can be viewed here


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Racism makes our economy worse -- and not just in ways that harm people of color, says public policy expert Heather C. McGhee. From her research and travels across the US, McGhee shares startling insights into how racism fuels bad policymaking and drains our economic potential -- and offers a crucial rethink on what we can do to create a more prosperous nation for all. "Our fates are linked," she says. "It costs us so much to remain divided."

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