Lewis & Clark College Ushers in PNW Climate Week with a Major Conference, and a Question

Amidst a wave of headlines about heat domes, planetary tipping points, and forever chemicals, over one hundred youth and climate advocates arrived on the campus of Lewis & Clark College to kick off Portland’s PNW Climate Week with a provocative question: What if we allowed ourselves to “Fall in Love with the Future” – a thriving and sustainable city and region in 2035 – and figured out exactly how to build it?

The event, organized and facilitated by the Green Energy Institute at Lewis & Clark Law School, together with Future Climate Collective and Electrify Oregon, set the stage for the first cross-region climate week in North America. Inspired by the practice of “radical imagination,” it brought together students, community leaders, attorneys, heads of NGOs, agencies, and utilities to engage in conversation, hands-on learning, and workshops that were organized around climate action topics including decarbonizing the grid and infrastructure, climate-centric transportation, protecting natural places in the Pacific Northwest, green collar jobs, and sustainable agriculture.

Devoting the day to “Empowering Local Climate Action: Education, Policy and Practice,” the event brought together many of the College’s longstanding programs and initiatives that focus on social responsibility, sustainability, and building just and equitable systems.

For example, the Green Energy Institute, a climate policy and energy law organization housed at the Law School, has arranged a youth climate summit for the last three years. This year, the Institute brought together law school alumni and professors (including Melissa Powers, Jeffrey Bain Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law, who provided an overview of climate policy “whiplash” across multiple levels of governance) as well as students from dozens of Lewis & Clark programs that focus on community leadership, entrepreneurship, advocacy, and global health.

For example, students from the Circular Innovation Challenge at the Bates Center for Entrepreneurship and Leadership, as well as students participating in a Data in Action precollege summer program attended, and college students who volunteer for the nonprofit Future Climate Collective moderated discussions as well a keynote address by author, alpinist, and filmmaker Graham Zimmerman, who was introduced by President Robin Homes-Sullivan.

The event was covered by KGW and KATU news. Henry Hay, an environmental studies and economics student at Lewis & Clark College, noted the work of organizations such as Future Climate Collective, where he interns this summer: “It is an awesome nonprofit based in the Portland area doing climate education and going into schools and assisting with climate projects that bridge the gaps between different generations.”

Gregg Macey, the College’s new director of the Environmental Innovation Center, attended as part of his first week on the job. “The Fall in Love with the Future” event showcased the unique strengths of Lewis & Clark College, and, frankly, the region: our commitment to address the climate crisis; rethink and fix outdated elements of higher education; offer comprehensive training that includes not only knowledge and analytical skills but also professional identity, communication, management, ethics, and care; and encourage entrepreneurship. We won’t rest until each of our students and alumni, whether they are attorneys, teachers, school leaders, counselors, community leaders, researchers, or they inhabit entirely new roles, can serve as effective leaders in environmental and climate action. The deep engagement encouraged today across generations, organizations, and ideas was that spirit in microcosm.”

The Green Energy Institute would like to thank Lewis & Clark’s amazing events staff for helping to make the day a success.

PBOT’s Gena Gastaldi, Lewis & Clark Law Professor Lisa Benjamin, Oregon Environmental Council’s Kristopher Fortin, and Green Energy Institute Staff Attorney Jamie Johnson