CUNY Summit Spotlights Paths to Climate Justice

Cover photo and above show Lehman students Keke Grant-Floyd and Victoria Moran Garcia presenting their podcast at the CUNY Climate Summit. Photo by Eileen Markey

By Gilbert Areizaga
The NYC Environmental Justice Alliance (NYC-EJA) in collaboration with the CUNY Climate Justice Hub (The Hub) hosted the CUNY Climate Justice Summit on Feb. 25 at the CUNY Graduate Center. Featuring several panels from NYC-EJA faculty, fellowship members, representatives from partner organizations, plus interactive presentations from members and community partners, it was the first student-centered event that the organizations have held. The summit served to raise awareness about the climate crisis, what The Hub and its partners have done to improve its impact on people’s daily lives, especially in marginalized and low-income communities, and what can be done to ensure a more just future.

Climate justice itself is an often-overlooked aspect of the effects of climate change, which unlike disasters can be felt every day. While strides have been made to address these issues, people and their communities continue to fight for change, and for previous changes to remain. As NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said, “The gains we fought for, and won, are being erased,” so fighting, particularly by the people that live in these communities, is more important than ever.

A huge part of the Climate Justice Hub’s mission is to change the way communities are supported. “It was started to offer a kind of corrective to the ways that universities and colleges typically interact with community organizations,” Kobie Coleman, professor at Brooklyn College and the classes and curriculum lead of The Hub, told The Meridian. “There have been partnerships between schools and the communities served before, but those partnerships often went one way.”

By providing the tools for change directly to communities, people are empowered from within rather than relying on outside forces. Maria “Mariposa” Teresa Fernández, professor at Lehman College and veteran environmental activist, was born in the 70s, a time when the Bronx was on fire. She recalls, “That era just really impressed upon me what the impact of pollution can have on the spirit, and obviously on people’s health. I remember just the smell of Hunts Point being different and crossing over the Hunts Point Drawbridge and being able to smell what smelled like sewage.” Many of the challenges Bronx organizations face today can be traced back to those fires.

Victoria Moran Garcia, a student at Lehman College who spoke at the event, said that while she has not personally experienced respiratory issues such as asthma, all of her cousins living in the South Bronx have dealt with asthma for their entire lives. In fact, Moran Garcia, in collaboration with fellow student Keke Grant-Floyd, have their own podcast hosted by The Bronx Journal called “Fighting Forward: The Bronx Environmental Justice Story,” where they discuss these issues with Bronx residents and leaders of community organizations.

“No one is coming to save us” was repeated by several presenters, and that realization is a big reason why organizations such as Nos Quedamos/We Stay, a South-Bronx-based community environmental organization, exists in the first place. Another central theme of the conference was raising awareness. A number of the student speakers made the point in saying that issues of climate/environmental justice were completely unknown to them until they got directly involved. Alejandro Lozerno, a professor at John Jay College, said that when he taught his students about these issues, “I saw a light bulb going off in their heads, like they had seen these kind of unfair distribution of harms and benefits across [their] communities, but they didn’t have that language”.

“When you invest in our power, you invest in our ability to fight.”-- Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE, a Brooklyn based environmental organization

However, the most crucial takeaway from all of this was the power of organization. Yes, there was a wealth of statistics, graphs, stories of progress, and hopes for an even brighter future. But none of this was achieved alone—it was the result of unity, collaboration, and shared purpose. This summit is just one step in a much larger movement, not only to spread awareness but to drive real, community-led change. And the hope of the NYC-EJA and the CUNY Climate Justice Hub is that everyone—regardless of age, education, or background—will take part. This sentiment was exemplified by Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE, a Brooklyn-based environmental organization, who stated, “When you invest in our power, you invest in our ability to fight.”