We Paved the Road: A Frontline Perspective on the Green New Deal Moment
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Saturday, Jul. 13 2:15 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Saturday, Jul. 13 3:15 PM (Eastern)
The concept of a Green New Deal has become a salient variable of the climate movement’s lexicon. Yet many still are unaware of the roots of this moment, the perspectives of frontline communities or the solutions including Just Transition, Energy Democracy and Food Sovereignty that have been exercised for decades. It will take a principled and radical vision, along with an ecosystem of approaches, an understanding of the plurality of roles, and alignment of powerful tactics to tackle the environmental and social challenges of our time. This means centering frontline and marginalized communities in an effort to avoid mistakes of the past associated with Waxman/Markey. How we approach and democratize political engagement from now and beyond 2020 will be a reflection of grassroots organizing and can present either incredible opportunities for profound change or reproduce long standing inequities and power dynamics in our movement that ultimately, will not address the flaws in our political system.
Moderator
Anthony Rogers-Wright
Selected as one of the Grist.org 50 People You’ll Be Talking About in 2016, Anthony K. Rogers-Wright has over ten years of policy analysis, community organizing and outreach/advocacy experience. While serving as a policy analyst for various environmental consulting firms in California and Colorado, he specialized in land use, Clean Air Act and environmental justice compliance. He has used his organizing and outreach experience to advocate for a variety of social justice campaigns including environmental justice, affordable health care access, income inequality and civil rights for LGBT citizens. In 2012, Anthony led the effort to make Colorado Health Insurance Cooperative the first health insurance provider in the State’s history to remove transgender health exclusions from all of their policies.
In 2016, he acted as a surrogate and policy advisor for the Sanders presidential campaign and testified on the need for increased action on climate justice to the DNC Platform Committee. He’s written numerous articles discussing the axiomatic nexus between the climate crisis and social justice, and spoken of this issue at universities throughout the United States and in Europe.
Anthony earned his undergraduate degrees in Environmental Science and Policy and Jazz Composition as well as his Graduate Degree in Community Development, Environmental Science and Public Policy. He is blessed to be the father of his energetic, entertaining and VERY loquacious three-year old son, Zahir Cielo (aka “Bean”).
Other sessions: Align Left: Why Designers are Integral to the Resistance
Panelists
Zakia Elliott
Zakia Elliott works with the Sierra Club Pennsylvania Chapter as the Coordinator of Philadelphia Climate Works, a coalition uniting labor, environmental allies, and community activists to move the city to build climate resilience through equitable investments in the community and workforce. Zakia was born in Philadelphia and raised in a union family. Previously, she worked with PennFuture as the Southeast Regional Outreach Coordinator where she led their federal climate policy and regional watershed advocacy efforts, and before that, she taught outdoor education with youth at Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Studies from Brown University, where she focused her studies on legislative solutions and public participation on climate change policies.
Elizabeth Yeampierre
Elizabeth Yeampierre is an internationally recognized Puerto Rican environmental/climate justice leader of African and Indigenous ancestry, born and raised in New York City. Elizabeth is co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance, a national frontline led organization and Executive Director of UPROSE, Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community-based organization. Elizabeth was the 1st Latina Chair of the USEPA National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and opening speaker for the first White House Council on Environmental Quality Forum on Environmental Justice under Obama and recently featured in NY Times as a visionary paving the path to Climate Justice. She recently was named by Apolitical as Climate 100: The World’s Most Influential People in Climate Policy and a recipient of the Frederick Douglass Abolitionist Award FD200