UCSC Student Climate Conference celebrates second year - Santa Cruz Sentinel

UCSC Student Climate Conference celebrates second year - Santa Cruz Sentinel

SANTA CRUZ — UC Santa Cruz students, faculty and community members gathered at Rachel Carson College on the UCSC campus on an overcast Saturday morning for the second Student Climate Conference presented by the UCSC Climate Coalition.

The theme for this year’s conference was “ Shifting the Story: Climate Vulnerability, Social Solidarity and Environmental Justice,” and the focus of many of the panels was centered around fostering community to create change.

“When people think about climate change they don’t always think about the communities that are affected and also the plants and animals and how they’re affected,” said conference organizer and UCSC student Jazlyn Solano. “We need to be able to protect every living thing, not just ourselves, especially here in Santa Cruz where we’re right by the forests and the coast.”

The conference began with the bluegrass stylings of the band “Shhh” and an engaging short film titled “The Climate Endgame” by UCSC sophomore Donnie Wagoner. Waggoner was inspired to make the film over the summer after learning more about the impacts of greenhouse gases such as sulfur dioxide and the immediacy of the climate crisis.

“We have less time than we thought,” said Waggoner. “Something needs to start happening now.”

The keynotes talk was given by author and environmental educator, Ashani Ajani, who waxed poetic about navigating the borderlands between activism and art.

“As people who are studying climate and environment, we can often find ourselves caught between the morality of memory and the desperate desire to be ingrained in social consciousness, yet still be worried about how that memory might take shape,” said Ajani during her talk. “Too often, we find ourselves speaking to an empty orchestra, but never-the-less we create because we know someone out there will find use, comfort or incentive to take action based on our stories.”

German exchange students Jeremias Boucsein and Mira Newe, and South Korean exchange student Dain Shin, joined the UCSC Climate Coalition this year, and were part of the peer review committee that chose the event’s speakers. The three were looking forward to seeing how the various panelists would be received by attendees.

“There are actually quite a few professors here,” said Boucsein. “I am looking forward to conversations between the panelists, which are students, and the professors, and getting everyone’s opinion on the topics and having interesting discussions.

UCSC senior and founding member of the university’s Climate Coalition, Max Rogozienski, said that he has been continually amazed at how much the nascent coalition has accomplished at the university in just a few years.

“The more results we get, the more I want to do,” said Rogozienski. “It’s so important for people coming out of this conference to feel like they can make a difference. We can decarbonize. We can do this. It’s all about taking action.”

Panels at the conference included topics such as housing and the climate crisis and the relationship between gender inequality and climate change. One of the conference’s student organizers, Amber Khan, discussed gender-based violence in the wake of climate change in one of the panels.

“I think this is a good example of how community organizing and community action can bring so many people together and help inspire change,” said Khan. “It’s hard if you feel really isolated to make any type of change and I think there is such a beauty in building community. I think community action is the only way that we’re going to be able to get through this and being able to organize this conference is a wonderful example of that.”

Sophomores Alana Jordan and Charlotte Bruckner spent their Saturday at the climate conference to support their friends who are a part of the UCSC Climate Coalition and to educate themselves on the subjects of climate change and environmental justice, among others, discussed by the conference’s panelists.

“A good place to start is just understanding what’s going on and finding the small ways you can help,” said Jordan. “Even if the bigger part is scary.”

Sentinel reporter Madeline Reinsel contributed to this report.