Green Series: Toward a Green New Deal

Thu, Nov 29 2018
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Leonard Library

author talks BPL Presents environment green series


Join Ashley Dawson, Jamie Tyberg, Kali Akuno and Kate Aronoff for a wide-ranging discussion on how to fight for a Green New Deal.

The need for urgent climate action is more apparent than ever. As grassroots organizers continue to build robust climate justice movements and Democratic Socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez promise to fight for a Green New Deal as a Democratic congressperson, we need to ask: What does a Green New Deal look like? What are some concrete proposals for how to make it as radical and far-reaching as possible? 

Will recently elected Democrats in Congress be able to put forward and pass transformative legislation to deal with climate change and social equality? Or will we lose limited time under a rejuvenated Obama-era Green New Deal? How can the movement for climate justice (and other progressive social groups) put pressure on elected officials to the level of necessity? What can be done on the ground in progressive cities and states to force change at the national, and therefore international level? What are the ways environmental justice can be infused into the fight against racial oppression and the movement for immigrant rights? 

Co-presented with Verso Books.

Ashley Dawson is Professor of English at the Graduate Center/CUNY and the College of Staten Island. He is the author of two recent books on topics relating to the environmental humanities, Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change (Verso, 2017), and Extinction: A Radical History (O/R, 2016), as well as six previous books on global social justice movements and anti-imperialism. He is a long-time member of the Social Text Collective and founder of the CUNY Climate Action Lab.

Jamie Tyberg is a Brooklyn-based movement fundraiser and climate activist. Born in South Korea, Jamie immigrated to the United States in 2002 and currently serves as the Development Director for New York Communities for Change, a grassroots organization of low-income members fighting against racial oppression and economic injustice. Jamie also helped found the National Ecosocialist Working Group of the Democratic Socialists of America, building a robust network of climate activists and organizers across the nation to combat the climate crisis. She received a BA in Journalism and Film from the University of Georgia in 2014, where she was the recipient of the McClure Broadcasting Scholarship.

Kate Aronoff is a Brooklyn-based journalist whose writing on American politics and climate change has appeared in Harper’s, the Guardian, The Nation, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, The American Prospect, Dissent, Jacobin, and The New York Times. She is a contributing writer to The Intercept, on the editorial board at Dissent magazine, and just finished a two-year writing fellowship at In These Times. With Michael Kazin and Peter Dreier, she is the co-editor of a forthcoming anthology about democratic socialism in America (New Press, 2020) and is writing a book about climate politics, tentatively titled The New Denialism (Nation Books, 2020). She previously served as the Communications Coordinator for the New Economy Coalition and co-founded the Fossil Fuel Divestment Student Network as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College. 

Kali Akuno is co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson. Kali served as the Director of Special Projects and External Funding in the Mayoral Administration of the late Chokwe Lumumba of Jackson, MS. His focus in this role was supporting cooperative development, the introduction of eco-friendly and carbon reduction methods of operation, and the promotion of human rights and international relations for the city. Kali also served as the Co-Director of the US Human Rights Network, the Executive Director of the Peoples' Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) based in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and a co-founder of the School of Social Justice and Community Development (SSJCD), a public school serving the academic needs of low-income African American and Latino communities in Oakland, California.

Brooklyn Public Library’s Green Series is a series dedicated to innovators in environmental conservation and understanding, and presents these voices while the new Greenpoint Branch is being renovated and redesigned with a new environmental education center. Join us and learn how to make an impact and make your voices heard. 

This program is made possible through the generous support of Whole Foods Market.

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Add to My Calendar 11/29/2018 02:00 pm 11/29/2018 03:30 pm America/New_York Green Series: Toward a Green New Deal

Join Ashley Dawson, Jamie Tyberg, Kali Akuno and Kate Aronoff for a wide-ranging discussion on how to fight for a Green New Deal.

The need for urgent climate action is more apparent than ever. As grassroots organizers continue to build robust climate justice movements and Democratic Socialists like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez promise to fight for a Green New Deal as a Democratic congressperson, we need to ask: What does a Green New Deal look like? What are some concrete proposals for how to make it as radical and far-reaching as possible? 

Will recently elected Democrats in Congress be able to put forward and pass transformative legislation to deal with climate change and social equality? Or will we lose limited time under a rejuvenated Obama-era Green New Deal? How can the movement for climate justice (and other progressive social groups) put pressure on elected officials to the level of necessity? What can be done on the ground in progressive cities and states to force change at the national, and therefore international level? What are the ways environmental justice can be infused into the fight against racial oppression and the movement for immigrant rights? 

Co-presented with Verso Books.

Ashley Dawson is Professor of English at the Graduate Center/CUNY and the College of Staten Island. He is the author of two recent books on topics relating to the environmental humanities, Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change (Verso, 2017), and Extinction: A Radical History (O/R, 2016), as well as six previous books on global social justice movements and anti-imperialism. He is a long-time member of the Social Text Collective and founder of the CUNY Climate Action Lab.

Jamie Tyberg is a Brooklyn-based movement fundraiser and climate activist. Born in South Korea, Jamie immigrated to the United States in 2002 and currently serves as the Development Director for New York Communities for Change, a grassroots organization of low-income members fighting against racial oppression and economic injustice. Jamie also helped found the National Ecosocialist Working Group of the Democratic Socialists of America, building a robust network of climate activists and organizers across the nation to combat the climate crisis. She received a BA in Journalism and Film from the University of Georgia in 2014, where she was the recipient of the McClure Broadcasting Scholarship.

Kate Aronoff is a Brooklyn-based journalist whose writing on American politics and climate change has appeared in Harper’s, the Guardian, The Nation, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, The American Prospect, Dissent, Jacobin, and The New York Times. She is a contributing writer to The Intercept, on the editorial board at Dissent magazine, and just finished a two-year writing fellowship at In These Times. With Michael Kazin and Peter Dreier, she is the co-editor of a forthcoming anthology about democratic socialism in America (New Press, 2020) and is writing a book about climate politics, tentatively titled The New Denialism (Nation Books, 2020). She previously served as the Communications Coordinator for the New Economy Coalition and co-founded the Fossil Fuel Divestment Student Network as an undergraduate at Swarthmore College. 

Kali Akuno is co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson. Kali served as the Director of Special Projects and External Funding in the Mayoral Administration of the late Chokwe Lumumba of Jackson, MS. His focus in this role was supporting cooperative development, the introduction of eco-friendly and carbon reduction methods of operation, and the promotion of human rights and international relations for the city. Kali also served as the Co-Director of the US Human Rights Network, the Executive Director of the Peoples' Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF) based in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and a co-founder of the School of Social Justice and Community Development (SSJCD), a public school serving the academic needs of low-income African American and Latino communities in Oakland, California.

Brooklyn Public Library’s Green Series is a series dedicated to innovators in environmental conservation and understanding, and presents these voices while the new Greenpoint Branch is being renovated and redesigned with a new environmental education center. Join us and learn how to make an impact and make your voices heard. 

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