The 2020 Virtual Sustainability Town Hall was held on Wednesday, August 26. In case you missed it or would like to take another look, you can watch it below. There is closed-captioning embedded in the video which you should be able to turn on and off as needed.
The theme for this year’s Town Hall was bold climate action, which was highlighted in the keynote presentation by Kristin Eberhard, Director of Climate Change and Democracy at Sightline Institute. Sightline Institute’s mission is to make the Northwest a global model of sustainability— strong communities, a green economy and a healthy environment. A member of the management team at Sightline, Kristin researches, writes about, and speaks about climate change policy and democracy reform. In her Town Hall presentation, “Bold Action: Communities Respond to the Climate Crisis”, Kristin featured examples of bold climate action from various cities in the US and Europe.
An integral theme of the virtual Town Hall event was climate justice. Johannah Hamilton, who co-leads the Coalition’s Community Inclusion Action Team and is co-chair of the King Legacy Advisory Board, explained how climate change impacts communities of color. Johannah is currently a PhD student in the Public Policy Department at OSU, where she also serves as co-advisor for OSU’s chapters of SACNAS (Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science) and MANRRS (Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences).
The 2020 Virtual Sustainability Town Hall was supported by a variety of business and organizational sponsors and individual donors. Primary sponsors were Blue Sky, First Alternative Co-op, G. Christianson Construction, and Corvallis Radiology. Additional sponsors included Block 15, Owen Dell and Associates, Peak Sports, Sibling Revelry, Town & Country Realty, Valley Catering, Audubon Society of Corvallis, Corvallis Electric Bicycles, Element Graphics, First United Methodist Church Environmental Care Team, Greenbelt Land Trust, Marys Peak Group of the Sierra Club, McLellan Temporaries, and Western Pulp Products.
For more information about the 2020 Virtual Sustainability Town Hall, email or call 541-230-1237.
The event was hosted by the OSU Sustainability Office and organized by the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition.