SEI Update

September, 2022

LACCD Sustainable Environment Institute
from the editors…

Welcome to SEI Update, a more frequent, shorter email meant to supplement our in-depth SEI Reports. As always, we welcome submissions and feedback from LACCD faculty who might have a short text or commentary to share on any aspect of the environment from the global to the local to your own campus. Email the SEI staff with your proposed article or news brief of a calendar event. SEI has a new email address. Please feel free to contact us at anytime at SEI@laccd.edu

SEI Schedule and Links for Fall Semester Seminars

September 22: “Climate politics” with Professor Dr. Denise Robb, LA Pierce College, and Aris Hovasapian at Anser

It is often said that we have the means and the technology to address the climate crisis right now. We have the science to understand the rate and intensity of change as well as the scale of impacts that result. But we “lack the political will” to act. This observation has been brought into the public view even as significant changes in US policy have been made very recently. Climate denial seems to hang on in the Republican Party and the fossil fuel industry despite some public acknowledgement by Exxon or BP that there is a crisis and that their products play a major role. 
 
Thanks to the activism of young people like Greta Thunberg and veteran activists like Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein, we are able to see where international efforts fail, such as the IPCC. National efforts are stymied in the US at the federal and state levels even as the Biden administration presses for significant changes in energy policy and technological advances. Some are detailed and demand action fast, but powerful interests push back. California’s electric car directive for example, a modest attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transportation, is already seeing pushback. 
 
Indeed, if our challenge is political…
  • Where do we go from here? 
  • How can climate policy be best analyzed at a level and approach that allows an informed citizenry to act politically? 
  • What changes in approach are needed to engage younger people whose future is at stake?
  • Which inevitable conflicts can be addressed in the public sphere? (finance sector, fossil fuel companies, pension funds, etc.)
  • How can the science of climate change be expanded beyond the STEM silos of higher education? 
  • How can climate politics be both global and local?
  • Is there a role for humanities, even religion, to help reshape our sense of place in the world and responsibilities to Nature? 
 
Dr. Denise Robb is a very popular professor at Pierce, organizing town hall meetings for the whole campus to participate in climate discussions. She is active on and off campus and engages her students to participate in the political sphere. She is a graduate of UC Irvine, receiving her PhD in 2011. On the side, she was a former stand-up comic eight years ago! That makes her lectures very suited for the serious topics she covers with the healthy spoonful of humor essential to our mental health. 
 
On September 22, Dr. Robb will be a guest in a workshop on Climate Politics hosted by the Sustainable Environment Institute of the LACCD. This is the second in the summer/fall series of workshops and lectures hosted by the SEI.
 
We also have the participation of Aris Hovasapian. Aris is Sr. Director/Vice President - Energy & Education at Anser Advisory, an environmental and educational consulting firm. Before this new post Aris worked on the implementation of energy conservation goals in the many buildings across the nine campuses of the LACCD. In 2018, he succeeded in getting the Board of Trustees to speed up decarbonization by ten years to the new goal of 2030, zero Carbon by 2040. 


 
October 20: “Aridity and Water” Our October 20 SEI professional development workshop will have a second look at the problem of “growing aridity” of the American West. It is not accurate to refer to our water crisis as a "drought". This has serious implications for water policy across the region and especially with regard to the Colorado River watershed. As always we will go from the global to the local with a focus on water policy in Southern California and the efforts at conservation and new sources in the Los Angeles region.  

with Dr. Bhutia, LA Harbor College.
Heat wave 

On August 18, the SEI workshop covered the topic of Urban Heat with two guests, Dr. Jason Findley, professor of meteorology at LA Pierce College and Marta Segura, Chief Heat Officer for the City of Los Angeles. Our discussion can be seen here with many articles for teaching purposes. Since that day we continue to see the importance of this problem nationally and even globally in major press coverage. These articles collected by the SEI have much to offer those wanting to know more. We have limited to the list to LA alone:
 
 
 
 
 
 
Briefs:
 
  • The SEI is signatory to the Sierra Club campaign called “Beyond Dirty Fuels”. Nicole Levin has obtained support from a long list of Los Angeles organizations to urge the Board to adopt the proposed Oil Well Ordinance. The Oil Well Ordinance is a necessary first step to ensure oil drilling is eventually phased out throughout all of unincorporated Los Angeles County.   
 
  • The County of Los Angeles is forming a Youth Climate Commission. Coordinated by the Chief Sustainability Office (CSO), the vision is to have Commissioners make recommendations, provide ideas, and advice to the Board of Supervisors on the County’s climate-related goals, plans, actions, policies and initiatives. Each County Supervisor will select 5 commissioners for their own District, for a total of 25 Commissioners countywide. The County is committed to an inclusive recruitment process and invites young adult leaders from all backgrounds and communities to apply.


  • Visit the new Climate Advocacy Library Guide housed at Valley College Library. This library guide provides resources including reading and video source material directed at action. Organizations providing advocacy and news outlets for reliable up-to-date information on climate change, action and advocacy. This is an excellent resource for faculty and students working on environmental justice and advocacy research and action.

  • SEI made a short presentation at a meeting with the student trustee and other LACCD Student leaders, promoted upcoming SEI events and asked for suggestions of sustainability education activities from the student leaders.

  • Pierce College will be holding its first Sustainability Committee meeting this Friday September 23rd. This shared governance committee of the Pierce College Council, was formed in Spring of 2022. The committee plans to provide leadership and resources for the campus, faculty, staff and students to engage issues of sustainability in the curriculum, on campus and in daily life. West Los Angeles College also has an established sustainability committee and Valley College is in the process of researching how best to formulate this committee. If you are interested in helping to foster these vital committees on your campus let us know. We are happy to help and we have resources such as committee charters to help start the discussion. Contact us at SEI@laccd,edu. 

  • Work is in progress on the SEI Community of Practice. This will be a regular district wide meet-up for supporting each other in the work of infusing sustainability into our curriculum - across all disciplines. We will figure out best practices together. More information to follow. Feel free to contact us with any questions at SEI@Laccd.edu.   

  • SEI is has developed a partnership with SustainableWorks with plans to offer Student Sustainability Workshops (sustainability 101) to students at several district colleges. Pierce and Valley are planning on holding these 8 week workshops in the Spring. At least one of these workshops will be offered online- synchronous, as a result, students across the district can attend. These free, no-credit, 8 week workshops, introduce students to sustainable choices, impactful practices, and ways to infuse sustainability into career choices.  Faculty are asked to provide extra credit to students to help motivate them to attend and complete the workshop. Keep an eye open for announcements for sign-ups to share with students in the Spring. Please consider offering extra credit to participating students. 

  • SEI made a short presentation at a meeting with the student trustee and other LACCD Student leaders, promoted upcoming SEI events and asked for suggestions of sustainability education activities from the student leaders

  • SEI has a new email address. Please feel free to contact us at anytime at SEI@laccd.edu