Commonwealth Salon, Central Library in Copley Square
Nov 16, 2022
3:30 EST
Free
What would it look like if efforts to address climate change took seriously the relationship of the climate crisis to historic patterns of accumulated injustices? What kinds of political and economic conditions could offer the possibility for building a more just social order? And how do local movements for environmental and social justice situate themselves in the larger global geographies of climate change?
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, the author of Reconsidering Reparations, will lead a roundtable discussion on how environmentalism should engage with local and global social justice efforts together with Boston-area organizers, activists, and policymakers.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. He is the author of Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else) and Reconsidering Reparations. His work exploring the intersections of climate justice and colonialism has been featured in The New Yorker, The Nation, Boston Review, Dissent, The Appeal, Slate, Al Jazeera, The New Republic, Aeon, and Foreign Policy.
María Belén Power oversees environmental justice campaigns and supports the work of the organizing team at GreenRoots. She represents GreenRoots in local and statewide coalitions as well as in national movements for environmental and climate justice.
Oliver Sellers-Garcia serves as Boston’s first Green New Deal Director and is a cabinet-level Senior Advisor to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. In this role, Oliver works across the City to advance climate action through strategies that address social, racial, and economic inequality.
Na’tisha Mills is a Program Manager at Embrace Boston, and is engaged with Embrace Boston’s work to foster community conversation around reparations to atone for the historical and ongoing disenfranchisement of Black people in Boston.
Alexandra Bruns-Smith is a graduate student worker at Northeastern University Law School who is involved with organizing her workplace with United Auto Workers. She is also on the national Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Labor Steering Committee and has been involved in numerous worker organizing efforts in New England and nationally.
At 6pm the same day, join us for an author talk about Táíwò’s new book Elite Capture: How The Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else).
