Community Forum on Climate Justice
6:30pm Wednesday, July 11
Friends Meetinghouse, 4312 SE Stark
Jobs * Immigration * Environmental Justice * Energy * Ecosystems * Equity * Solidarity
This forum will provide a space for members of organizations in Portland working for systemic change to come together and talk about how our organizing intersects, with an eye toward the relationship between our local organizing efforts and the global ecological crisis. It is one step on a long path toward building a broad-based movement for justice, liberation, and a livable world.
Why a forum on Climate Justice?
Climate change is not just something that happens up in the atmosphere; it is the new battleground for racial, gender, economic, immigration and ecological justice.
All of our struggles are connected. When we come together and find avenues for action around these intersections, we are stronger.
Climate justice, with roots in the struggle for environmental justice, is a movement to dismantle systems of oppression, alleviate the unequal burdens created by climate change, and make a just transition toward more sustainable ways of living. This transition is urgently needed.
The forum will begin with a short panel discussion, followed by small group break-outs to discuss the issues in more depth. Participating organizations are invited to table at 6:30, and we will begin the forum promptly at 7:00.
Would your organization like to participate? Please RSVP to climatejustice@pcasc.net, and let us know how many people from your group you expect. Also let us know if you would like to have a table at the event.
Please spread the word to your members and networks! Feel free to pass on this email, and join the Facebook event at http://www.facebook.com/events/384910381569402/
The Community Forum on Climate Justice is sponsored by PCASC, Jobs with Justice, Rising Tide, AFSC, OPAL, PCUN and Voz.
Our panel will include:
Kari Koch, PCASC
Ian Wallace, Parasol Collective
Hector Osuna Mondragon, OPAL
Erubiel Valladares Carranza II, PCUN
Brian Frank, Rising Tide
Barbara Byrd, AFL – CIO
Kari Koch, long-time community organizer and PCASC (Portland Central America Solidarity Committee) member, will be giving an update from the Peoples Movement Gathering at Rio+20 in Brazil, which she attended as a part of a delegation with the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance.
Ian Wallace is a member of Parasol Climate Collective. He is a construction worker that has been involved with social justice work in Portland for the last 15 years.
Hector Osuna Mondragon obtained his B.A. in Community Development from Portland State University and has worked for community-based organizations and different government agencies. Héctor believes that “equity” and “sustainability” are just words, and that we must work to implement these ideals so that people of color & low-income communities can enjoy all the amenities, opportunities and benefits needed for healthy, productive lives, without being displaced from their
neighborhoods. He is currently organizing around public transit with OPAL (Organizing People Activating Leaders).
Erubiel Valladares Carranza II was born in Queretaro, Mexico, and moved to the US when he was 17. He is now a leader with PCUN (Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste), Oregon’s Farmworker Union, and is overseeing the construction of a new “low power” building for PCUN’s FM community radio station. The mission of the radio station is to mobilize the Latino Community in the Willamette Valley for civic engagement and to raise the consciousness of the Latino community.
Brian Frank has been active in environmental and social justice causes for the past 15 years and is a founding member of Rising Tide North America. Before founding Rising Tide he spent 6 months in New Orleans doing volunteer relief work where he got a view of the damage climate change can do, and how poor people and people of color are affected by so-called “natural” disasters. Brian believes that only by merging environmental and social justice movements into a common resistance movement against corporate power and resource colonialism can society be turned away from its catastrophic course.
Barbara Byrd teaches at the Labor Education and Research Center, University of Oregon in Portland. She also serves as Secretary-Treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO.