Portland State University issued the following announcement on May 17.
On May 12, Portland State hosted a symposium on climate justice that brought together staff members from community organizations, regional and local climate policy leaders, and student activists from PSU and PCC to discuss their priorities and explore how PSU can aid and elevate the efforts of those working directly on this important issue.
The event, “Creating a Just Climate Future: A Community Dialogue," paired with PSU’s 15th Annual Sustainability Celebration, was seeded by PSU President Stephen Percy’s climate initiative announcement last November.
“All of us here today are taking part in the commitment to hear and honor the rich assets and strengths of our students and our communities and to urgently take collective action to create a just climate future through education, leadership, and equity minded policies,” said Lindsay Romasanta, Assistant Vice President for Global Diversity & Inclusion, the event emcee and a member of PSU’s climate initiative steering committee.
Following a blessing by Judy BlueHorse Skelton, faculty in Indigenous Nations Studies, the event kicked off with the first of three panels, featuring representatives of three community organizations actively involved in climate justice issues in our region.
“Environmental justice is like a spider web,” said Nikita Daryanani, who manages climate and energy policy efforts for the Coalition of Communities of Color. “Everything we do is really connected.”
Darayani described the coalition’s work on energy justice and a drive to make the grid more equitable by putting more decisions in the hands of local communities. She said that a course she took at PSU helped her to better understand the energy policy landscape and that the university has an important role to play in educating current and future activists.
Ira Cuello-Martinez, who works on climate policy with PCUN (Pineros Y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste), said university research helps organizations like his, which works on issues such as protecting agricultural workers from climate-induced extreme weather conditions.
The community partners also emphasized the importance of intersectional education to prepare students to be leaders in climate justice, as this issue impacts everything from housing to health and requires the centering of marginalized communities who overwhelmingly bear the brunt of climate impacts.
What else should PSU be teaching students? The second panel of local and regional climate policy leaders was asked this question, and John Wasiutynski, director of Multnomah County’s Office of Sustainability, had a straightforward answer.
“We should teach students that burning fossil fuels is an existential crisis,” he said. “It’s actually not that wicked of a problem. We have to stop using fossil fuels. And we have the technologies to do that; we just need to scale them up.”
This panel also noted that PSU faculty research has played an important part in informing regional decisions around climate action, and highlighted their interest in continuing to engage “high capacity” student interns from the university in their efforts.
The third and final panel focused on student voices. Four student activists — three from PSU and one from Portland Community College — emphasized the need for communities to have self-determination when it comes to climate adaptation.
Heifara Wheeler, a native Hawai’ian and PCC student, spoke about Pacific Island communities losing their homelands and autonomy as a result of climate change, and noted the emotional toll of advocacy work.
Pavithra Prasad, who leads sustainability affairs for the Associated Students of PSU, said that she had witnessed climate impacts firsthand in her home country of India and how that led to a sense of responsibility — both to take action on climate-related issues and to cultivate a sense of hope.
“We are hoping for the better version,” Prasad said. “We need to have hope that there is a better version.”
Following the panel discussions, the 15th Annual Sustainability Awards were announced, honoring members of the PSU community who are advancing the work of sustainability at Portland State through teaching, research, activism and in their daily work on campus. The new ‘Community Partner’ award was also introduced, going to Latino Network.
Jenny McNamara, planning and sustainability director for Portland State, also announced that an inclusive and participatory yearlong process to develop a new Climate Justice Plan for the university would kick off in the fall.
The next steps for the climate initiative include following up on opportunities to partner with community groups on climate justice issues and continuing to map the current and potential research, curricular, and creative work on climate happening across the university.
You can view some of these resources and watch for future events at pdx.edu/sustainability/climate.
Original source can be found here.
Source: Portland State University
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