Commit2Respond: Witness for Climate Change

By Jennica Davis-Hockett

YC_2015_Guide_Witness

YC_2015_Guide_Witness

Saturday 4:45—6:15PM | Oregon Convention Center

A Message from the witness planners:
Our climate is changing, yet we have hope. Our world is in crisis, yet we have faith. Together, we are building a new way. In the face of the overwhelming reality and impacts of climate change and environmental destruction, we need each other. Together, we can celebrate life. Together, we can deepen our commitments to justice. Together, we can change the world. Come be renewed in and by our interconnectedness. Hear from American Indian and First Nations leaders at the frontlines, including Lummi Nation Councilman and treaty rights activist Jay Julius and Lummi Elder, international climate justice activist, and totem pole carver Jewell Praying Wolf James. Climate change threatens the ecosystems and way of life of Original Peoples of the Western Hemisphere, and the Pacific Northwest has become a corridor for fossil fuels. The largest coal port in North America has been proposed for Puget Sound’s Cherry Point, or Xwe'chi'eXen, which would desecrate Lummi Nation sacred lands and waters. Climate justice offers a new way: a way to dismantle the paradigm that treats marginalized people as expendable, non-human species as irrelevant, and our Earth as supply source and sewer rather than a single, beloved community of interdependent life. It offers a way to acknowledge the disproportionate impacts of injustice on frontline low-income and people of color communities and follow the leadership of those most impacted. Come honor our connections to each other and to all of creation. Together we will move through an experiential, worshipful event that allows us to access the deep emotional core touched by climate change: grief, anger, despair, and, finally, hope. From that hope we will take action. Together we will build a new way.
Visit Commit2Respond. Like them on Facebook This event will begin in the General Session Hall and will progress to the plaza directly outside the convention center. It is fully accessible to people of all abilities and open to the public.