Mario Savio Memorial Lecture

As the fights around fracking, coal, and the Keystone pipeline continue,  the 17th Mario Savio Memorial Lecture will present a panel discussion on New Strategies for Confronting the Climate Crisis, with leaders of five national environmental organizations: the Sierra Club, Greenpeace USA, 350.org, Movement Generation/Justice & Ecology Project, and the Ruckus Society.  

Despite hundreds of millions of US dollars raised and spent each year on environmental activism, education and lobbying, no major environmental legislation has passed since the 1970s and recent attempts at national climate change legislation have failed.  Critics have charged "Big Green" organizations with soaking up the money while abandoning grassroots organizing and of pursuing inside-the-beltway market-friendly strategies that are at once ineffective, compromised, and incapable of bringing about the fundamental changes we need.  But the new struggles are slowly altering that dynamic, shifting power to a new generation of leaders and organizations and networks that link these fights to broader struggles for social, economic and ecological justice.

Please join us to hear about new collaborations and strategies for building a powerful and truly influential movement to deal with the coming -- perhaps already here -- climate crisis.

The Memorial lecture honors the memory of the late Mario Savio, a spokesperson for Berkeley's Free Speech Movement (1964), and the spirit of moral courage and vision which he and countless other activists of his generation exemplified.  The evening includes a presentation of the Mario Savio Young Activist Award, which recognizes young people engaged in the struggle to build a more humane and just society.  For further information, contact savio(at)sonic.net or see www.savio.org. Event day queries: 510-761-6879.