Register now–July 13! Fall in Love with the Future. Empowering Local Climate Action: Education, Policy and Practice

Kick off your PNW Climate Week Right!

We are thrilled to announce that this event is officially the opening event for PNW Climate Week in Portland! There is no better way to launch a week dedicated to our planet than by grounding ourselves in hope, strategy and community.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the headlines. But what if we did something radical to start our week? What if we allowed ourselves to fall in love with the future, and then figured out exactly how to build it?

Join Future Climate Collective, Lewis & Clark Law School and its Green Energy Institute, as well as Electrify Oregon, for a day of “Empowering Local Climate Action: Education, Policy and Practice.”

This is not your average climate conference. This is a hands-on, high-energy day designed to make a sustainable future feel completely irresistible, giving you the skills, connections, and blueprints needed to spark real change. Whether you are a high school student finding your voice or a lifelong advocate looking for fresh strategy, this event is for anyone who wants to feel better about our climate future and learn how we get there.

9:00 am Featured Experience: The “We Did It!” Visioning Session

We are skipping the boring introductory speeches. We are starting our day–and PNW Climate Week–by leaping forward in time to practice what Rob Hopkins calls “radical imagination.”

Imagine this: We’ve been to the future, and we did it! What does Portland look like, feel like, and breathe like? We will work in interactive groups to map out our ultimate climate goals. As we talk, a live visual artist will draw our collective hopes and dreams, right before our eyes, creating a vibrant, visual blueprint for the rest of the week and beyond.

10:00 am Law Professor Melissa Powers will set the stage for the day, to help understand what is happening on climate policy and why.

Then, inspired by John Doerr’s Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now, we will enjoy panels and workshops focused on the following topics:

11:00 am Decarbonizing the Grid and Infrastructure: Learn about localized actions to decarbonize the grid on the neighborhood and individual residence level in ways that promote equity and resilience. Panelists include Community Energy Project’s Sherrie Villmark, Earth Advantage’s David Heslam, and PCEF’s Jaimes Valdez.

12:00 LUNCH! A vegetarian and vegan Mediterranean buffet.

1:00 pm Climate-centric Transportation: How do EVs, public transportation, and other transportation alternatives fit into a climate forward future? Hear from Lewis & Clark Law Professor Lisa Benjamin, PBOT’s Gena Gastaldi, and 1,000 Friends’ Anna Kemper.

2:00 pm Protecting Nature: Learn how lawyers are protecting our natural places and how you can help. Hear from Brenna Bell at Crag, Mary Stites from the Northwest Environmental Defense Center, and Eve Goldman from 1,000 Friends of Oregon.

3:00 pm Cleaning Up Industry: Clean Tech hubs in the PNW and “green collar” jobs in your backyard? Yes, please!

4:00 pm Fixing Food: Fighting factory farming in Oregon through legislative and legal avenues and promoting sustainable agriculture. We welcome Lilli DiPaola from Food & Water Watch, Alice Morrison from Friends of Family Farmers, and Suzannah Smith from Center for Food Safety to speak about the opportunities to engage in this important area.

Simultaneous workshops for more hands-on learning will offer deep dives on electrification coaching, human behavior, local action to support renewable projects, and how to engage in activism through crafting!

Enjoy a keynote at 5:30 pm from Graham Zimmerman at Protect Our Winters, followed by a reception at 6:30 pm.

The day’s events will take place in Council Chamber located in Templeton Student Center on the Lewis & Clark College campus.

The keynote will take place in the Chapel on the Lewis & Clark College campus.

Register here.