On April 14 2021 I attend the RYCL summit from 9:00 am – 12:00 pm. I had to miss a few classes but the sessions were informative and I learned so much!
A rundown of the schedule is available here.
The welcome and overview was from 9:00 – 9:30 and then the breakout seasons began
For the first breakout session (9:30 – 10:15) I went to session A1. Titled “ROC the Climate: What climate change will mean for Rochester & the Finger Lakes region” In this session there were three speakers, who all spoke on how Rochester will be effected by climate change and the steps needed to mitigate climate change:
Shalini Beath, City of Rochester Office of Energy and Sustainability
James Gilbert, Meteorologist, WROC TV Channel 8
Kate Kressmann-Kehoe, Documentary Filmmaker
For the second breakout session (10:30 – 11:15) I attend session 1B, titled Climate Justice. This session discussed how climate change will disproportionality effect Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) both globally and locally. We also learned about about how the intersection of social justice, anti-racism work, and climate activism come together to create climate justice movement. For this session their were two speakers:
Calvin Eaton, Founder, 540WMain
Paola Betchart, Environmental Anthropologist, Educator & Social Entrepreneur
After this was the conversation cafe but I skipped this in favor of going to a portion of chorus.
Finally the closing words, which were given by Dr. Genevieve Guenther, Founder & Director, End Climate Silence. In her closing remarks she discussed the importance of everyday activism and the meaningfulness of youth leadership in the fight against climate change.
Overall I enjoy this event immensely, I felt it encapsulated a lot of my interests and made a lot of good points about climate change. My curiosity was especially peaked by the climate justice session, and I think will explore this topic in the future.
Heres how the chart looks now (an arrow is pointing to the one its filling):
