Thank you to everyone who attended or otherwise supported the 44th Annual Environmentalist of the Year Awards on November 8, 2017! We have photos of the evening in the album below, as well as on our facebook page — enjoy!
*NOTE* Location Change for this month: This month (November) the ECOS board meeting will be held in the Sierra Club California Conference Room at 909 12th Street (2nd Floor), Sacramento, CA 95814
Join the Environmental Council of Sacramento – ECOS for our November ECOS Board Meeting! Everyone who is interested is welcome. Bring a friend!
Monday, November 20, 2017
5:30 pm Reception
Please come and meet and socialize with ECOS Board Members and guests. Light appetizers and refreshments served. Feel free to bring something to share.
6:00 pm Meeting Begins
Paula Lomazzi, Executive Director of the Sacramento Homeless Organizing Committee (SHOC) will speak to us about the Homelessness Crisis in the Sacramento region. Did you know there was at least a 30% increase in the homeless population between 2015 and 2017? After we hear from Ms. Lomazzi, we will have a discussion/question and answer session.
As usual, ECOS Committees will report on their current business. Announcements from members and attendees are welcome at the end, as time allows.
Join the Sierra Club Sacramento Group, the Environmental Council of Sacramento (ECOS) and the Green Democrats of Sacramento for the Environmentalists’ Holiday Party, a long-standing annual holiday tradition.
This is a great chance to catch up with friends and meet new people interested in protecting and celebrating our natural world. There will be a silent auction with art, wine and other items available. Please RSVP on our facebook page, here.
WHEN/WHERE
Saturday, December 2 from 6 – 8:30 pm at the Shepard Garden and Arts Center, 3330 McKinley Blvd (entrance & parking on Park Way, between 33rd and 35th Streets).
FOOD
We will be providing a couple of pasta dishes along with green salad and garlic bread.
Please bring one of the following, based on your last name:
A-L Please bring your favorite side or main dish.
M-Z please bring your favorite hors d’ouvre or dessert.
Vegan dishes welcome!! Beverages will be provided, though if you have a favorite you’d like to share please bring it too! We will be having a silent auction – be prepared to pick up some great art work, Sierra Club logowear and other items for holiday gifts!
COST
A suggested minimum donation of $10 to help us cover facility costs and entertainment is much appreciated.
PRESENTATIONS
Protect Bears Ears – Sarah Friedman with the Sierra Club will present on the current threats to the Bears Ears National Monument. Bears Ears is the most recently-protected National Monument in the United States, and a beautiful and culturally significant place. To learn more about Bears Ears and the urgent need to protect it, please visit www.bearsearscoalition.org.
Pass a clean DREAM Act – Julio Molina is a Spoken Word Poet and a DREAMer – a young migrant who has never lived outside of the U.S. as an adult. Molina is advocating for a clean Dream Act. The “clean DREAM Act” is the name coined for legislation providing a pathway to U.S. citizenship for DREAMers like Molina. Read more about the clean Dream Act here: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/saving-america-starts-with-daca-pass-a-clean-dream_us_5a161973e4b068a3ca6df636.
ENTERTAINMENT
We will enjoy live music by Jenn Rogar, a local favorite and returning artist to our event!
Do You Want More Traffic, Noise, and Pollution in Your Neighborhood?
Local Sacramento residents are taking action on a serious threat to our neighborhoods – CalTrans intends to WIDEN Sacramento’s US-50 through Downtown Sacramento from I-5 to Watt Boulevard. We must act now! Our quality of life and our climate are at stake.
WHY NOT WIDEN THE HIGHWAY?
As concerned citizens, we want Sacramento to be a Green City and a Livable City.
Widening highways makes us just another dirty city because it:
1. Increases noise and air pollution (including greenhouse gases)
2. Induces demand (encourages people to drive more who wouldn’t otherwise). Expanding our freeways won’t decrease congestion.
3. Other local needs should take financial priority.
WHAT ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?
Bigger freeways and more cars increase our emissions, making it impossible to do our part to halt global warming. Fact: we cannot meet our regional goals for GHG reductions unless we develop real alternatives to driving.
ISN’T THIS A CARPOOL LANE?
CalTrans is disingenuously calling this project “green” under the guise of a carpool lane. Carpool lanes have been shown to not significantly increase the number of people who carpool or the throughput of people. We support turning an existing lane into a carpool lane, or even turning this proposed lane into a transit only lane.
WE’RE CHALLENGING CALTRANS
With this lawsuit we are demanding that CalTrans acknowledge and compensate for the increase in greenhouse gas emissions and traffic impacts that will result from more cars and more car trips on a wider freeway. We want to stop these projects in our area and have the money spent on transportation that keeps our streets livable and unclogged, gives us transit that gets us where we need to go, and helps reverse climate change.
WE NEED MONEY TO WIN
We must raise $11,000 to take this stand to cover our legal fees. You can take the stand with us by contributing online on our “gofundme” page, or by donating to ECOS directly via our website (www.ecosacramento.net) by clicking the donate button. (Just be sure to mark your donation for “Highway 50 litigation” – donations are tax deductible.)
Professor Jonathan K. London of the Center for Regional Change at UC Davis spoke to ECOS at our September 18th Board Meeting about their work on Environmental Justice. The Center for Regional Change has grown into a well-known policy-oriented research organization that aims to create linkages between the university and the region of which it is a part.
Professor London presented several tactics for how an organization such as the ECOS coalition can do more to help improve social equity in the Sacramento region. London directed us to get to know the Center for Regional Change’s report called “Capitalizing Environmental Justice in the Sacramento Region.” The report assesses the dire conditions of environmental injustice confronting low-income communities and communities of color in California’s Capital Region. However, local residents and regional leaders have begun to develop a cohesive framework for action to improve conditions in their communities, and to contribute to the region’s burgeoning Environmental Justice movement.
London reminded us of the plethora of information offered by CalEnviroScreen, including some analyses done by the Center for Regional Change on mapping pollution levels and drinking water contamination in the Sacramento region.
London also highlighted a tool called “IVAN” (Identifying Violations Affecting Neighborhoods). IVAN is an Environmental Monitoring System that connects the community with real people that can help solve local environmental problems.
The presentation emphasized the importance of environmental injustices to people living in rural areas and engaging them in environmental advocacy work. Connecting with neighborhoods, working to help bolster affordable housing options and joining food justice efforts are all also effective.
ECOS members in attendance were appreciative of the presentation, its cutting-edge research and the new tools for advocacy with which we left. Thank you to Jonathan K. London!
