Discussion with Jacqui Patterson, Senior Director of the Environmental and Climate Justice Program, NAACP

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Online

Free
Open to the Public

Jacqueline Patterson headshot, she is smiling and wearing glasses, dressed stylishly and posing against a brick wall
Jacqueline Patterson, Senior Director, NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program

Environmental Injustices and Climate Change through a Civil Rights Lens

Speaker: Jacqueline Patterson,

Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program

Thursday, October 15th, 2020

12:30pm to 1:30pm Pacific Time

Online via Zoom (details below)

Video Available

About the Topic

Climate change and other environmental injustices are about US.

Environmental injustice is about people in Detroit, Ohio, Chicago, Memphis, Kansas City, and elsewhere who have died and others who are chronically ill due to exposure to toxins from coal fired power plants and other toxic facilities.

Climate change is about the increase in the severity of storms which means that storms like Sandy and Isaac, which devastated communities from Boston to Biloxi, will become more of the norm. our sisters and brothers in the Bahamas, as well as Inuit communities in Kivalina, Alaska, and communities in Thibodaux, Louisiana and beyond, who will be losing their homes to rising sea levels in the coming few years.

Climate change and environmental injustice are about sisters and brothers from West Virginia to Tennessee who are breathing toxic ash from blasting for mountain top removal.

Environmental injustice and climate change are about the fact that in many communities it is far easier to find a bag of Cheetos than a carton of strawberries and this only stands to get worse as drought and flooding impact the availability and affordability of nutritious food.

Current ECJP Priorities:

  1. Reduce Harmful Emissions, Particularly Greenhouse Gases
  2. Advance Energy Efficiency and Clean Energy
  3. Strengthen Community Resilience and Livability

About the Speaker

Jacqueline Patterson is the Senior Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program. Since 2007 Patterson has served as coordinator & co-founder of Women of Color United. Jacqui Patterson has worked as a researcher, program manager, coordinator, advocate and activist working on women‘s rights, violence against women, HIV&AIDS, racial justice, economic justice, and environmental and climate justice. Patterson served as a Senior Women’s Rights Policy Analyst for ActionAid where she integrated a women’s rights lens for the issues of food rights, macroeconomics, and climate change as well as the intersection of violence against women and HIV&AIDS.  Previously, she served as Assistant Vice-President of HIV/AIDS Programs for IMA World Health providing management and technical assistance to medical facilities and programs in 23 countries in Africa and the Caribbean. Patterson served as the Outreach Project Associate for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Research Coordinator for Johns Hopkins University. She also served as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Jamaica, West Indies.  

Patterson’s publications/articles include: ”Jobs vs Health: An Unnecessary Dilemma”, “Climate Change is a Civil Rights Issue”, “Gulf Oil Drilling Disaster: Gendered Layers of Impact”, “Disasters, Climate Change Uproot Women of Color”; “Coal Blooded; Putting Profits Before People”;  “Just Energy Policies: Reducing Pollution, Creating Jobs”: “And the People Shall Lead: Centralizing Frontline Community Leadership in the Movement Towards a Sustainable Planet”;   book chapter, “Equity in Disasters: Civil and Human Rights Challenges in the Context of Emergency Events” in the book Building Community Resilience Post-Disaster; and book chapter, “A Circuitous Path to Climate Justice” in the Book, All We Can Save. 



Patterson holds a master’s degree in social work from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves on the Steering Committee for Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, Advisory Board for Center for Earth Ethics as well as on the Boards of Directors for the Institute of the Black World, The Hive: Gender and Climate Justice Fund, the American Society of Adaptation Professionals, Greenpeace, Bill Anderson Fund, People’s Solar Energy Fund, and the National Black Workers Center Project.

 

Recommended Reading

Lecture Location:  Online, Via Zoom

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Please note:   We will be filming the Zoom meeting with the permission of each speaker; if filming, attendees who participate in the Q&A portion with audio or video consent to be filmed; We reserve the right to exclude disruptive participants  

Questions

The Center for the Blue Economy is a research organization at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.  Our mission is to promote a sustainable ocean and coastal economy (the “Blue Economy”) through leadership in research, analysis, and education.  For questions contact: Rachel C. at cbe@miis.edu or visit centerfortheblueeconomy.org or call 831-647-4183 (must leave message and receive call back).