Monday, January 5, 2009

Get Your Conference On

There are two Conferences that Appleseeds might like to attend in the near future. The first one is close to home and right after classes start on January 23rd. Queens College is co-sponsoring the Queens Green Business Summit. The registration is free and the speaker line up seems to be interesting and not short of environmental lawyers and activists along with government and business community folk.

Possibly not free is the We Act conference Advancing Climate Justice that runs from January 29-30 and is being held at Fordham Law School. It looks like an amazing two days of inspiration and wonkiness that should not be missed. I've "applied" for the event scholarship, meaning I wrote three lines of text during the registration process in hopes of not paying the $60 price tag. We'll see. In case its helpful to anyone else who's interested in going and doesn't have $60 lying around, I wrote:

"I am a CUNY School of Law student who has worked with other students to form our campus Green Coalition, which works on environmental issues at CUNY and in our community while functioning as the CUNY Environmental Law Society. My master's work dealt with sustainable development policy and I have experience working within the emerging corporate climate change legal profession as well as sustainability policy in the nonprofit sector. I will also be coordinating a 12-month project beginning this year to investigate and ameliorate the impact my campus has on climate change and connect best practices to the larger CUNY system." (I know, I know, that last line is full of hopeful optimism [is that an oxymoron?], but I really do believe that the ball is rolling on the Campus Ecology Fellowship after speaking with Dean Koster and Dean Anderson this past semester + Michele and I are ON IT)

Not super eloquent, but action-packed for three sentences, methinks. We'll see if it works - I'll let you know. I also listed this blog as our group's website on the registration so if there are inquisitive minds out there at WeAct (other than James Subudhi, who we know has an inquisitive mind since a lot of us Appleseeds met him after the CLORE event "How Law Affects Community Health Outcomes and Impacts Dietary Choices") who are actually checking out this web real estate: I'd REALLY like to attend and I'm a public school kid so I need the price break!

And, while I'm at it let's not forget about the 15th Annual Rebellious Lawyering Conference at Yale from February 20-22. I know a couple Appleseeds are already signed up (word up, Jills and Paulas). Van Jones (big love) is keynoting, which should be excellent and CUNY students who have gone in the past have said its a great time and place for some public service lawyering community good times. The registration is $30, but if you do it soon you can get a t-shirt. I know there was some talk of the NLG subsidizing registration and we could discuss if the Green Coalition might be able to offer the same. We should also talk about carpooling or synchronized train riding at the first Green Coalition meeting in January.

Post your events, peeps! I know that engaging in the community at large on ecolegal-sociojustice issues energizes me for school (why do I need to back-of-my-hand-know promissory restitution again??). And, its so good to have a buddy to attend with.

No comments: