Summit Recording
Ecological Protection 2022
The first in our 2022 education and collaboration series.
Ecological Protection July 2022 Summit Recording

Agenda:

Welcome

Cheryl Davila, Director & Chair of CEMTF Steering Committee/ Former Councilmember, City of Berkeley

Land Acknowledgement

Corrina Gould, Tribal spokesperson for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan & Co-Founder, Sogorea Te' Land Trust

Militarism & Climate

Marcy Winograd, Code Pink & Janet Weil, Veterans for Peace's Climate Crisis & Militarism Project

Petrochemicals, PFAS, Plastics & Climate

Ben Schleifer, Sarah Packer & Andrea Braswell PMP, the Center for Environmental Health, Carol Kwiatkowski PhD, Green Science Policy Institute

Break 5 minutes

Wildfires in the Wild & the City

Maya Khosla-Wildlife Biologist & Filmmaker & Greg Simon-Author, Flame and Fortune in the American West, about the Oakland 1991 fire.

Katt Ramos-Managing Director of Richmond Our Power Coalition

Announcements & Closing Remarks

Cheryl Davila

Speaker Bios

Cheryl Davila

Founder & Chair

CEMTF Fundraising Committee

Former Councilmember

City of Berkeley

As a Councilmember, Cheryl was a champion for the climate. Under her leadership the Climate Emergency Declaration passed unanimously in June 2018 which was the sixth in the world. Now over 2120 governments around the world have since declared climate emergencies.

Cheryl founded CEMTF in 2019. Did you know the prohibition of natural gas infrastructure in new buildings was the brainchild of the CEMTF? True.

Land Acknowledgement

Corrina Gould

Tribal Chair Confederated Villages of Lisjan & Co Director

Sogorea Te Land Trust

Corrina Gould is the Tribal leader of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan. The Tribes territory is inclusive of five Bay Area Counties and her current work includes protection of Sacred Sites, the creation of the first Urban  Indigenous Women-led Land Trust in the Country with the specific goal of rematriation, tribal revitalization and saving the West Berkeley Shellmound.

Have you paid your Shumi Tax?

Militarism & Climate

Marcy Winograd

Code Pink

Marcy Winograd, Coordinator of CODE PINK CONGRESS, is a long-time anti-war activist who served as a 2020 DNC delegate to Bernie Sanders and co-founded the Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party. A retired English and government teacher, Marcy blogs about militarism and foreign policy at LAProgressive.com.

Janet Weil

VFP Climate Crisis & Militarism Project

Janet Weil is the newsletter and blog editor for the local Extinction Rebellion group in Portland, Oregon. A military family member, she serves on the Steering Committee of the Veterans For Peace Climate Crisis and Militarism National Project, where her passion is compiling and sharing powerful books, articles, interviews and videos on the nexus of climate and wars/militarism. Janet's writing has been published on Medium.com, wowblog.me. A bird lover, Janet is inspired by the decades-long quest to bring back the California condor from the brink of extinction.

Petrochemicals, PFAS, Plastics & Climate

Andrea Braswell, PMP

Petrochemicals, Plastics & Climate Program Manager, Center for Environmental Health

Andrea has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Sustainability from Meredith College in Raleigh, NC, and a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute.

She has led efforts to advance equity and diversity in several nonprofit organizations, and co-leads CEH’s justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion committee. Additionally, she has years of experience in data management, event planning and program work in the clean energy sector.

Sarah Packer

Director, Petrochemicals, Plastics & Climate, Center for Environmental Health

Sarah has a BA in international studies from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, culinary arts and personal chef certifications from the School of Natural Cookery in Boulder, CO, and is certified in international project management. She’s based in North Carolina and is thrilled to be fighting for a cleaner, safer world.

Carol Kwiatkowski, PhD

Senior Associate, Green Science Policy Institute

Carol leads several research projects associated with the Green Science Policy Institute’s program on “Six Classes” of harmful chemicals: PFAS, flame retardants, antimicrobials, bisphenols & phthalates, organic solvents, and certain metals. Currently her main focus is leading collaborative efforts to address the problem of PFAS pollution, and communicating the urgency of removing unnecessary uses of the entire class of PFAS. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University.

Ben Schleifer

Food Program Coordinator, Center for Environmental Health

Ben has over six years of experience working as a science educator in public schools and four years of experience working on environmental transformation of schools’ cafeterias. He applies his neuroscience degrees to both understand how to motivate behavior change and also how toxic chemicals can hinder normal childhood development.

Wildfires in the Wild & the City

Maya Khosla

Wildfire biologist, writer and filmmaker

Maya Khosla has documented forests, fire scientists and firefighters talking about ways to be wise about wildfire. Maya’s work has taken her across coastal India, Kenya, and the United States. Her work takes her to wilderness areas, to the page and to the screen.  Her film, “Searching for Gold Spot: The Wild After Wildfire” is about the high biodiversity of natural forests that have recently experienced large wildfires.    

Gregory L. Simon

Associate Professor of Geography & Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Denver

In addition to his  book cited above about the Oakland fire where he was living in 1991, Greg is co editor of Cities, Nature, and Development: The Politics and Production of Urban Vulnerabilities. He has been a core advisor to the United Nations Foundation and is a National Science Foundation grant award winner. He has recently served as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at Stanford University.

Due to a family emergency Greg Simon is not able to join us. Greg & his family are in our thoughts and prayers.

Katt Ramos

Managing Director - Richmond Our Power Coalition

Katherine has experienced and been witness to many of the inequities navigated by Richmond residents. She has been a grassroots community organizer with a focus on mentorship of youth and developing decolonized curricula for education cooperatives. As a single mother, it has been her principal goal to help create the environment where her son and all the community he engages can have access to basic needs like clean water. Katherine has been a core member of Newark Water Coalition (NWC) and Urban Cooperative Enterprise Legal Center (UCELC), leading education sessions on alternative economic models and cooperatives, COVID know your rights training for workers as well as the coordination of water distribution hubs.

Katherine joined the Richmond Our Power cohort, where she is tasked with co-creating plans and solutions with members of each of the coalition organizations in order to move the Just Transition based projects forward with support and funding. Her commitment to community activation, democratic collective power, and building community deeply grounded in transformative justice and mutual aid continues to drive the work she is dedicated to doing.

From the Chat:

From jeffrey Gould to Everyone:

VIRTUAL RALLY AND ACTION FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

AUGUST 6, 2022 – 9AM PDT

AUGUST 9, 2022 – 9AM PDT https://enlightenedfilms.com/aug

From Marcy Winograd:

  1. House bill: Yemen War Powers Res (H.J. Res 87)
  2. Senate Yemen War Powers Resolution: SJ 56, just introduced as Biden arrives Saudi Arabia. Pls ask your US Senators to co-sponsor SJ Res 56.
  3. www.peaceinukraine.org
  4. Billions of dollars the US and European nations had pledged to the Global South as something akin to reparation
  5. To Do's--thank Congresswoman Barbara Lee for her work for peace and urge her to oppose future weapons shipments to Ukraine because there is no military solution and if we pour gasoline on this fire we push the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.

From Janet Weil:

Please visit the Veterans For Peace Climate Crisis and Militarism Project https://www.veteransforpeace.org/take-action/climatecrisis

To schedule a presentation to your group, church, or club: https://www.veteransforpeace.org/take-action/climatecrisis/ccmp-presentation

From Chat:

  1. The US has over 750 bases overseas.
  2. The Pentagon has failed every one of its audits!
  3. Two short videos: https://youtu.be/lmolNG0fnMA / https://youtu.be/oMozyspFuBM

  • Petrochemicals, PFAS, Plastics & Climate

Ben Schleifer, Sarah Packer & Andrea Braswell PMP, the Center for Environmental Health, Carol Kwiatkowski PhD, Green Science Policy Institute

From Carol Kwiatkowski she/her Green Science Policy Institute to Everyone:

  1. @Maya Reverse osmosis water filters do the best job of filtering PFAS
  2. Re: substitutes for scotch guard or other waterproofing. There are companies making products (clothing/shoes/furniture) with safer alternatives but I haven't seen much in the way of sprays consumers can use. You can check pfascentral.0rg on the PFAS Free page. I saw one product by Granger that looks like it might fit the bill.

From Ben Schleifer (he, him)/ CEH to Everyone:

  1. @Elaine I am sorry you were exposed to that gear while you were in the Airforce. I would invite you to speak out to your community (especially if you are still plug in with the Air Force) to uplift your concern and push for better for our service folk.

  • Wildfires in the Wild & the City

Maya Khosla-Wildlife Biologist & Filmmaker

From Maya:

  1. While the Yosemite Fires are burning, the biomass energy company Enviva is going to Congress with a new bill, the "Save Our Sequoias Act". As I am sure you know, Enviva (co-sponsor of the new bill) does not have good intentions - in fact they are planning to set up deforestation projects and take down sequoias to generate even more biomass energy by burning trees and "snags" - the housing complexes of the wild. Earth Justice and many others have already written letters against "Save Our Sequoias Act".
  2. Anyway, Enviva features as one of the worst of the industries creating toxic waste in Lisa Merton's film, BURNED. All versions are below, and I recommend the 30-minute version if you have not watched it already: https://burnedthemovie.com/streaming-and-screening/
  3. Rejuvenation https://www.mayakhosla.com/rejuvenation-poem
  4. HOME SAFETY FILMS featuring Jack Cohen (not Maya's films):

You've probably seen one of these films, but Maya always likes to keep the essential ones together so here they are...

  1. Excellent Jack Cohen Films: FIRST VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL_syp1ZScM
  2. SECOND VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqKFDDBGd5o
  3. THIRD VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW4ojYJtGbA

  • UNITED ACTIONS, take action!

Katt Ramos-Managing Director, Richmond Our Power Coalition

From Katt:

Here is the accessible slidedeck! Presentation

katherineramos@ourpowerrichmond.org