ZCS Annual Meeting & Climate Crisis Panel Discussion

This year, after a brief Annual Meeting and Report from the ZCS Board of Trustees at the Forman House at 12:30 p.m., we are devoting the afternoon to learning more about the climate crisis and how we can work together to create a climate action plan for our community.

The event, featuring a panel discussion and more, will begin at 3 p.m. at CNY Rise, across the street from the Zen Center, at 275 W. Seneca Turnpike. It is free and open to the public. Click here for the Facebook Event page.

Organized by the Zen Center and co-sponsored by CNY Rise, Syracuse Peace Council/Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation, Skä•noñh - Great Law of Peace Center, and Interfaith Works of CNY, this special event will feature a panel discussion with Mark Lowery, Assistant Director at NYS DEC Office of Climate Change, Freida Jacques, Clan Mother of the Onondaga Nation, Jim D'Aloisio, P.E. representing the Climate Change Awareness and Action Group, Rhea Jezer, environmental educator and policy advisor, and Lucia Oliva Hennelly, Community Development Manager at the Climate Advocacy Lab and resident at Dai Bosatsu Zendo. See Panelist’s bios, below.

Representatives of local climate action groups will be available to provide information about how we can work together to respond compassionately to the effects of climate change.

A musical performance by Sangha member Dylan Gilbert will introduce the program.

The event will be held at CNY Rise, across the street from the Zen Center, at 275 W. Seneca Turnpike. Free and open to the public.

Panelist bios:

Mark Lowery, Assistant Director and a 31-year veteran of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Office of Climate Change. He provides oversight to all Office of Climate Change programs, focusing on climate adaptation, and leads the state’s Interagency Climate Adaptation and Resilience Work Group, and spearheaded implementation of the Community Risk and Resiliency Act, including promulgation of the state’s sea-level rise projection regulation and development of state flood risk management guidance.

Freida Jacques, a Clan Mother of the Onondaga Nation, who will give a teaching about the Thanksgiving Address and will speak on “An Indigenous Response to the Climate Crisis.” Nationally known for her sharing of Native American wisdom, she has been assisting with the Witness to the Injustice Program that is supported by the Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation, a program of the Syracuse Peace Council. Now retired, she worked for many years as a Home/School Liaison at Onondaga Nation School, with the elderly at St. Camillus and also with developmentally disabled adults at Transitional Living Services. She has been a bridge between her culture and the area’s colleges and universities, and is an advocate of Healing for Peace, a teaching on emotional healing that she shares to help people have peaceful lives.

Jim D’Aloisio, P.E., is a professional engineer who has trained with Al Gore as a Climate Reality Leader. He's chair of the SEI (Structural Engineering Institute) Climate Action Team, who is educating architects and engineers about how to reduce carbon emissions from buildings. He's a member of the local Citizen's Climate Lobby group, pushing for adoption of H.R. 763, Energy Innovation & Carbon Dividend Act, which would put a revenue-neutral fee on carbon emissions. He's also involved with the group Climate Change Awareness and Action, which is the Central New York 350.org, a group whose mission is to educate others and work to reverse the anthropogenic climate disruption that threatens the earth.

Rhea Jezer, founder and director of the Symposium on Energy in the 21st Century, now in its 15th year and known as the most important renewable energy conference in the Northeast, drawing some 400 people each year. She is President of Energy21 LTD and teaches at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. A pioneering environmental educator and policy advisor in New York State and nationally, she has served on the environmental transition teams for President Bill Clinton, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Governor Andrew Cuomo, and was a co-chair of the transition team for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Dr. Jezer is a board member of the New York League of Conservation Voters, serving on its policy and endorsements committees, was a presenter for the Al Gore Climate Project on Global Warming, and has lectured extensively on the topic. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Post Standard Achievement Award “for her contributions to making Central New York a better place,” the Greening USA “Greening our Community Advocacy Award,” the NAACP Humanitarian Award, the National Organization of Women “Woman of Power” Award, a 2016 InterFaith Leadership Award from InterFaith Works of Central New York, the Rhea Eckel Clark Award from the Central New York Regional Planning Board, and most recently the NYS Comptroller Award for “Outstanding Insight and Leadership Effort to Create a Green Future.” As a Congressional Fellow, she penned major legislation for the encouragement of women and under-represented minorities to enter the fields of science and math. She holds a Ph.D from Syracuse University, an MA from Columbia University Graduate Studies, and a BA from Brooklyn College. She founded the Syracuse Camerata Orchestra and has performed extensively as a harpsichord soloist and choir director.

Lucía Oliva Hennelly, M.S., Community Development Manager for the Climate Advocacy Lab, a network of some 2,500 advocates, organizers, social scientists, data experts, and funders focused on building an effective climate movement. An interdisciplinary problem-solver and collaboration catalyst at the intersection of climate change and social justice she developed a national Latinx engagement program at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). Under her leadership, the organization’s first program focused on a community of color, and she co-chaired the development of EDF’s first Diversity Strategy. Trained at Stanford University in interdisciplinary environmental science and policy, she has worked on campaigns, policy, and advocacy alongside some of the country’s foremost organizers and. In 2015, she was selected to be an Aspen Ideas Scholar and in 2017 she was a recipient of the Spiritual Ecology Fellowship. Originally from Santa Fe, NM, Lucía is now a resident at Dai Bosatsu Zendo, a Rinzai Zen training monastery in the Catskill Mountains associated with the Zen Center of Syracuse.

Date: 
Sun, Aug 25, 2019 - 12:30pm - 5:30pm
Location: 
Zen Center and CNY Rise Center (across street)
Program fee: 
n/a