Climate & Global Migration Sessions
Climate Change Impacts and Community Responses in the U.S.
During this session, we will discuss how communities in the US are experiencing and responding to climate change, including efforts to remain safely in place, and difficult decisions to relocate out of harm’s way. Communities throughout the US are already feeling the impacts of climate change. We will also discuss how too often, BIPOC communities face disproportionate risks from sudden climate events, such as storms or floods, as well as slow-onset climate changes, like sea-level rise.
Following this session, participants will:
Understand how communities in the US are experiencing climate change, and particularly displacement risks posed by climate change.
Identify ways that communities are responding, including efforts to remain safely in place; and approaches to difficult decisions about potential relocation.
Presenters
Rev. Dr. Kristina J Peterson
Rev. Dr. Kristina J Peterson resides on the traditional lands of the Biloxi- Chitimacha Choctaw Peoples on the Louisiana Delta. Her work reflects the years of engagement in disaster mitigation, displacement and sustainable development including being support staff and volunteer to CWS domestic disaster program, refugee placement and PDA. Her passion is human and environmental rights based decision making through participatory engagement for sustainable seventh generation planning. She is the facilitator for the Lowlander Center, co-founder of Disaster Justice Network, board member of the Greater New Orleans Interfaith Climate Change Coalition, Environmental Stewardship Commissioner with Louisiana Interchurch Conference, and First Peoples’ Conservation Council. Current innovations include efforts to establish Climate Adaptation Land Trusts as well as being an advocate for a new Cabinet position, Secretary of Climate Adaptation and Resettlement. She has been a Climate fellow with the Unitarian Universalist Social Committee and cherishes the partnership and the amazing network of ohana who believe in a just and sustainable future.
Rachel Gore-Freed, Vice President, Programs, UUSC
Rachel Gore Freed is a human rights lawyer, community organizer, and social justice advocate and educator with a wealth of domestic and international experience. As UUSC’s Vice President, Programs, Rachel leads the organization’s creative and effective approaches to advancing human rights. Previously serving as the Senior Program Leader for UUSC’s Rights at Risk Program, she has spearheaded, planned, and implemented UUSC’s work responding to humanitarian crises and advancing the rights of people who are most overlooked or discriminated against in crises such as forced migration, large-scale conflicts, genocide, and natural disasters. Prior to joining UUSC, Freed was deeply engaged in community struggles around the world. This work included successful litigation against Exxon for violations of the Clean Air Act in the Houston Baytown shipping channel, arguing for the right to seek asylum before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and representing low-income immigrants and detained asylum-seekers pursuing relief from unjust deportation in New York City. She has also helped volunteer youth serve as peace witnesses in Gujurat, Northern India after communal rioting and worked with the legal team that prosecuted former President of Liberia Charles Taylor and leaders of the rebel forces through the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Rachel currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Human Rights Funders Network, the Board of Mavuno in the Congo, and works with progressive women’s community organizing groups in the Boston area. Rachel holds a bachelor’s degree with a focus in International Development from the George Washington Elliott School of International Affairs and a law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School.
Robin Bronen, Executive Director, Alaska Institute for Justice
Robin works as a human rights attorney and interdisciplinary social scientist on the issue of climate-forced displacement. She has been working with Alaska Native communities since 2007 to create a federal relocation governance framework based in human rights. She coauthored the Peninsula Principles on Internal Displacement and was a technical advisor for the Brookings Institute’s Guidance on Planned Relocation. She co-founded and directs the Alaska Institute for Justice, a non-governmental organization that serves as a research and policy institute focused on climate and social justice issues, and is a senior research scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Stanley Tom, Former Tribal Administrator, Newtok Traditional Council
Stanley Tom is former Tribal Administrator with the Newtok Traditional Council, in the coastal community of Newtok, Alaska. For two decades he has advocated for an urgent response to the impacts of climate change in Newtok, which include accelerating erosion and increased exposure to powerful coastal storms.
Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar,Traditional Tribal Chief of Grand Caillou/Dulac Band, Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw
Shirell Parfait-Dardar is Traditional Tribal Chief of the Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, an Ordained Minister of the Universal Life Church, and a Traditional Dressmaker and Clothing Designer/small business owner, becoming the first Native American business owner in the Historic Downtown District of Houma, Louisiana. Chief Shirell is an active advocate for coastal restoration and preservation, development and utilization of alternative energy sources, community resiliency, education and human rights. She is one of the founding members of the First People’s Conservation Council of Louisiana, and is currently seated as the Secretary, and was elected the first Native American Chairwoman of the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Indian Affairs Native American Commission
Watch Session
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