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Climate Week NYC: Get Ready, Get Involved!
Climate Week NYC is just around the corner: Sept. 22-29, 2024. This annual gathering of climate leaders and events offers a great opportunity to expand your knowledge. And we have plenty of events for you to attend:
Sept. 19, 1:00-2:00 PM – Cumulative Impacts Implementation Webinar; Briana Carbajal will moderate with speakers from co-hosts South Bronx Unite, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and Earthjustice; RSVP
Sept. 24, 1:00-7:00 PM – City & State New York’s Second Annual New York Climate Justice Forum: Navigating Uncertain Policies to Deliver a Sustainable Future; Peggy Shepard will be a featured speaker and Manny Salgado and Pamela Stewart-Martinez will be among the panelists at this event we are co-hosting with City & State New York and Rise Light & Power at MOMA PS1 (22-25 Jackson Avenue in Queens); RSVP
Sept. 24, 5:00-6:00 PM – One of our EPA Region 2 TCTAC partners, Clean Energy Group, will be hosting Navigating Energy Justice Funding Opportunities. This online training session is intended to help organizations and municipalities in New York and New Jersey better understand the different types of federal energy grants available, where to learn about these funding opportunities, and what it takes to apply for a federal energy grant. RSVP
Sept. 24, 5:30-8:00 PM – Toxic Beauty Film Screening & Panel discussion at the NAC Ballroom in the North Academic Center building on the City College of New York’s Harlem campus (160 Convent Avenue); Liz Reyes will moderate panelists including Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health’s Dr. Ami Zota, Clean+Healthy’s Sophia Longsworth, & Mane Moves Media’s Natasha Gaspard; RSVP
Sept. 25, 12:00-1:30 PM – Centering Equity in the Clean Energy Transition: A Focus on Renewable Energy Transmission; Charles Callaway will moderate the panel discussion with Minority Millennials’ Founder & President Dan Lloyd, Orsted’s Labor Relations Commercial Workforce Development Director Erik Antokal, New York Power Authority’s Vice President of Environmental Justice Kaela Mainsah, and New York Transco’s Director of Communications & Public Affairs Shannon Baxevanis; RSVP
Sept. 28, 10:00 AM-1:00 PM – Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot 10th Anniversary Celebration at the A. Philip Randolph Senior Center (108 West 146th Street); Charles Callaway will lead a tour of the facility and share what was learned from this historic WE ACT campaign; RSVP via the MTA
Our staff will also be participating in a number of events hosted by other organizations:
Sept. 21, 10:00 AM-7:00 PM – Caleb Smith will be a jury member and table with Liz Reyes at the Climate Film Festival
Sept. 22, 11:00 AM-5:00 PM – Pamela Stewart-Martinez, Sasha St. Juste, and Marieclaire Joseph will be tabling at Street Work Earth, a free street arts & climate action festival along 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens
Sept. 23, 11:00 AM-1:30 PM – Peggy Shepard will be on the Sabin Center for Climate Law’s Combating Myths and Misinformation about Renewable Energy panel
Sept. 25, 11:30 AM-12:30 PM – Eric Walker will participate be on ACE NY’s panel discussion of New York State's 70×2030 goal, moderated by Marguerite Wells, at the Mezzanine (55 Broadway)
Sept. 25, 4:30-7:00 PM – Valentina Rojas will be tabling at Building a Resilient Future: New York’s Climate Education Movement, hosted by the American Museum of Natural History, Climate and Resilience Education Task Force (which we are a member of), and SubjectToClimate at the American Museum of Natural History (77th Street entrance, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue)
Sept. 25, 5:30-7:30 PM – Annie Carforo will be on the Building Energy Exchange’s Women in Sustainability & Energy: Bridging the Gap Between Equity & Electrification panel
Sept. 26, 4:00-5:30 PM – Eric Walker will participate in Collective Impact: Aligning Across Sectors for Environmental, a panel discussion exploring the intersections between environmental justice, climate justice, energy justice, and social justice; ConEd is hosting and Dr. Diana Hernandez moderate at 4 Irving Place
Sept. 26, 6:30-8:30 PM – Dr. Micaela Martinez will participate in a New York Climate Exchange panel discussion following the screening of Outside the Climate Bubble: Democratizing Conversations through the Lens of Health on Governors Island (309 Clayton Road)
Sept. 27, 12:00-1:00 PM – Annie Carforo will be on the Waterfront Alliance’s Bringing Land Back to the People: The Importance of Community Land Trusts panel
Sept. 28, 4:00-5:30 PM – Cameron Clarke will be on the Human Impacts Institute’s Culture of Environmental Justice panel
Be sure to check our online calendar of Climate Week NYC events as we will be updating it regularly with additional events and new information!
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WE ACT Hosts Global Convening on Mercury Exposure as an Environmental Injustice
Last week we convened more than 50 advocates and experts from around the world for our inaugural Environmental Injustice of Mercury meeting. This critical convening focused on addressing the often-overlooked issue of mercury exposure that disproportionately affects people of color and low-income through products like skin-lightening creams and dental amalgams. These exposures add to the cumulative burden of other environmental injustices experienced by these communities.
During this two-day event, held at the US Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC, we rigorously reviewed the latest science and current data on mercury exposures in people of color and low-wealth communities, identifying gaps in knowledge and outlining potential policies to reduce or eliminate these harmful exposures. Expanding on our ongoing beauty justice work, this event marked the beginning of our dedicated advocacy to protect vulnerable communities from the toxic impacts of mercury in beauty products and dental amalgams.
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Join Us on Monday: NYC Community Cooling Workshop & Call to Action
Join us from 6:00-7:30 PM on Monday, Sept. 9 for our Extreme Heat Coalition's Community Cooling Workshop in-person at 127 Lincoln Avenue (Second Floor) in the Bronx. You will learn how communities can be better protected through policy solutions that transform our neighborhoods, including three New York City Council bills: Codifying Cooling Centers (Intro 0998-2024), Tenant’s Right to Cooling (Intro 0994-2024), & Cool Pavement Pilot Program (Intro 0928-2024). We will also have a call to action! RSVP
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Emergency Preparedness Workshop in Spanish: Taller de Preparación para Emergencias en Españole
We will be conducting a Climate Ready Uptown Plan (CRUP) workshop in Spanish on Thursday, Sept. 12 from 6:30-8:30 PM at the Juan Pablo Duarte Foundation (408 Fort Washington Ave, Suite 23A) in Washington Heights – or via Zoom. These emergency preparedness workshops have been garnering a lot of attention, including a recent story on CBS News, so our WE ACT en Español Work Group is hosting this workshop to help Spanish-speaking residents of Washington Heights prepare for climate emergencies like flooding, heatwaves, and storms. RSVP
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Get Ready: Membership Meeting to Focus on Children's Environmental Health
It's back-to-school season, so we will be focusing on issues impacting children's environmental health at our September Membership Meeting on Saturday, September 14 from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM. We'll let you know once we've locked down a location, as this will be an in-person meeting. Come join our discussion of asthma, green and healthy schools, and electric school buses - along with a little hope and joy. RSVP
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Cameron Clarke was quoted in a Columbia Spectator article about a Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Defend Harlem teach-in he attended on the displacement Columbia University has been causing. He explained how the University’s impact is much greater than the area surrounding the main campus, extending all the way up to its medical center on West 168th Street.
Our work on PFAS earned us mention in articles that appeared in Blavity and Rolling Out on the high rates of PFAS exposure in Black communities. The Blavity article also cites our Justice40rward campaign.
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Dare to Breathe: Clean Air Now
We are part of the Clean Air for the Long Haul coalition, leading the charge on federal rulemaking campaigns to reduce air pollution from power plants, cars, and trucks. One of those campaigns, Dare to Breathe, showcases the impact of this pollution on environmental justice communities and the activists who are working to address it. In our latest video, we showcase Rayan Makaram, Climate Policy Advocate for Clean Air Now in Kansas City. Watch
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Are You Registered to Vote? You can find out by clicking here or calling 866-868-3692. Check now. Don’t wait until October 26, which is the deadline, because this is too important! If you are not registered, click here to learn about all the ways you can fix that, whether you register online, in-person, or by mail. Again, please don’t put this off. Too much is at stake with this election!
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