Climate Justice = Social Justice, Leah Thomas and X Martinez

For the first time ever, partners from across the CSU are collaborating to host October Sustainability Month virtual events meant to educate, empower and activate students, faculty and staff to join the movement for environmental, social and racial justice and get out the vote this November! Events will be free and open to all 23 CSU campuses. Live captioning will be provided at both events for accessibility.

REGISTER HERE

Live Panel Discussion and Q & A with Young Leaders of the Movement

Join intersectional environmental activist “Green Girl” Leah Thomas and indigenous climate activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez for a discussion moderated by CSU Chico AS President Breanna “Bre” Holbert.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

LEAH THOMAS (Panelist)

Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. She’s passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism and identifying the ways in which injustices happening to marginalized communities and the earth are interconnected. You could say Leah’s trying to make the world a little more equal for everyone and a little nicer to our home planet! She graduated from Chapman University in 2017 with a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy with a cluster in Comparative World Religions. Leah remains committed to sparking conversation and mobilizing the environmental community to be anti-racist and not complicit, and encouraging and inspiring all members of our planet to explore new places, live more sustainably, and practice radical self-acceptance. In 2020, Leah launched Intersectional Environmentalist, a platform for resources, information and action steps to support intersectional environmentalism and dismantle systems of oppression in the environmental movement.

XIUHTEZCATL MARTINEZ (Panelist)

Earth Guardians Youth Director Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, (pronounced ‘Shoe-Tez-Caht’) is a 20-year-old indigenous climate activist, hip-hop artist, and powerful voice of a global youth-led environmental movement. At the age of six Xiuhtezcatl began speaking globally, from the United Nations Summit in Rio, to addressing the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York. He is currently a plaintiff in a youth-led lawsuit against the federal government for the government’s inaction around the climate crisis and its failure to protect their essential public trust resources. Xiuhtezcatl‘s book “We Rise” was published by Rodale in 2017, and his second book “Imaginary Boarders” was published and released by Penguin in the spring of 2020. As a musical artist, Xiuhtezcatl also has multiple EP and full length album credits to his name.In addition to serving as the Youth Director for Earth Guardians, Xiuhtezcatl is the co-Founder of a company called NOW which is mobilizing humanity to reverse the climate crisis through planting a trillion trees and scaling on the ground carbon drawdown technologies.

BRE HOLBERT ( Moderator)

Bre Holbert hales from Lodi, California where her love for agriculture took root. Bre was heavily involved in the National FFA Organization, and served in various capacities that aimed to share the story of the agriculture industry with various stakeholders of Agricultural Education across the nation and world. She currently serves as the CSU, Chico Associated Students President and was recently awarded the CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement Trustee Emeritus Ali C. Razi Scholar. She attends California State University of Chico where she plans to pursue a career as a high school Agricultural Educator. Her goal is to teach in an urban/inter-city setting to shed light on the agriculture industry to students in ethnic minority identifying communities and aid them in reclaiming their stories in Agriculture.

Hosted by CSU Fullerton