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Confirmed Speakers
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Peggy Shepard
Executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice & Co-Chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council
Richard Moore
Co-Coordinator of Los Jardines Institute & Co-Chair of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council
Justin J. Pearson
Tennessee State Representative & Founder of Memphis Community Against Pollution
Wizipan Garriott
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior
Indy Burke
Carl W. Knobloch, Jr. Dean Yale School of the Environment
Gerald Torres
Professor of Environmental Justice, Yale School of the Environment, Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Helena Gualinga
Ecuadorian Human Rights Activist
Krystal Two Bulls
Executive Director of Honor the Earth
Grace Gibson-Snyder
Plaintiff in Held v. Montana
Gus Speth
Co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council
Istiakh Ahmed
Climate Adaptation at the German Development Cooperation (GIZ)
Jahi Wise
Former Special Assistant to the President for Climate Policy and Finance
Aja DeCoteau
Executive Director
Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
Shade’ Yvonne Jones
Black Land Loss and Farmer Organizer
Angaangaq Angakkorsuaq
Shaman of Greenland from the Kalaallit nation
Michael Méndez
Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy and Urban Planning University of California, Irvine
Tamara Toles O’Laughlin
President and CEO of Environmental Grantmakers and Founder of Climate Critical
Briana Parker
Senior Director, Justice 40 Accelerator
J. Phillip Thompson
MIT Professor of Political Science and Urban Planning
Kordae Jatafa Henry
Tabita Rezaire
Dr. Ana Baptista
Centering Justice Initiative Lead
Dr. Denae King
Associate Director Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice
Dr. Sofia Martinez
Co-Director Los Jardines Institute
Dwaign Tyndal
Executive Director Alternatives for Community & Environment
Joy is a transformative force with diverse meanings. It can be innate, born of grace when one feels in harmony with nature, community, faith, culture, laws and policy, or even the economy. It is what injustice can take from us and what we regain when healing and repair occur. Joy is a core piece of what we seek when working for justice. It is celebrated in community and can also be an expression of the goal that sustains the work for a better world.
The Yale Center for Environmental Justice (YCEJ) is hosting the 6th Global Environmental Justice Conference titled Environmental Joy: Roadmaps for Resistance, Resilience, and Thriving, held on November 8-9, 2024. This year’s conference will occur just days after the 2024 U.S. general election, a time of much political uncertainty. Additionally, 2024 is a record year where over half the world will have experienced elections. The conference will provide an early opportunity for environmental and climate leaders to convene, strategize, and forge paths forward despite the complexities of political environments across the globe. At its core, the conference will center joy as a means to inspire hope, direction, and action.
The conference agenda will consist of tracks, interactive sessions, plenaries, and exhibitions/showcases for its art and culture components, to spark synergies among existing efforts as well as innovation and scale for new environmental justice work. The audience for the conference includes environmental and climate justice communities, policymakers, academics, and thought leaders in faith and culture, though all are welcome to attend. A significant fraction of conference sessions will be designed to be hybrid, with presentations tailored to deliver experiences optimized to each modality. Plenary sessions will be recorded for more comprehensive, post-conference dissemination.
