Pacific Standard & Miller-McCune Center Present:

Women & the Environment Conference

Featuring Naomi Klein

Calling Central Coast Leaders to Connect, Collaborate and Create During Uncertain Times

(Santa Barbara, CA) Pacific Standard Magazine and the Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media and Public Policy are pleased to announce a first of its kind Women & the Environment Conference (May 17 - 18, 2017), specifically designed for central coast leaders. This dynamic event is for changemakers who want to establish new partnerships and be effective agents of adaptation to climate and social change. Recognizing the unique role women play as changemakers across the world, this Conference convenes women leaders from around the west to share their inspiring work, innovative models to protect the environment and build communities and stimulate new ideas for addressing the challenges faced on the central coast and beyond. Seed capital will be provided for the top three ‘big ideas’ projects.

Miller McCune Center President Geane De Lima said, “Women are at the forefront of social and environmental change around the world. This conference honors and empowers this leadership at one of the most potent times in human history. We thought there was no better place to hold this conference than Santa Barbara the birthplace of the modern environmental movement and no better group to share this with than the innovative leaders on the central coast.”

Kicking off the Conference will be Naomi Klein, an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of critically acclaimed new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, is the 2014 winner of the prestigious Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.  She will speak at a FREE community lecture at the Granada Theatre on Wednesday, May 17 at 7:30pm on the topic titled, “Our Environmental Future: Connection, Collaboration, and Creation.”

On May 18 at the Kimpton Canary Hotel, 150 conference attendees from throughout California convene at the Canary Hotel for a power packed day of plenaries and exercises.  Plenary speakers come from around the west and will dig into a variety of issues including Food & Agriculture, Social Impact Business, Capital Fundraising, Coastal Protection, Leadership Development, Sustainable Communities and Environmental Justice. Speakers include Maggie Fox, former President of the Climate Reality Project, Lisa Pike Sheehy, Director of Environmental Activism, Patagonia, Diana Sokolove, Senior Planner, City of San Francisco and many more.

The last half of the day on May 18 will feature the ‘Big Idea’ session allowing conference attendees to pitch their ‘big idea’ for addressing environmental issues on the central coast.  Three select ideas will qualify for seed funding to stimulate further concept development.

The Women & the Environment Conference offers a $150 early bird special registration and is open to men and women who self-identify as "decisionmakers, changemakers or lawmakers.” 

Generous sponsors include the Community Environmental Council, Dudek, KCSB, Firestone Walker, The Trust for Public Land, The Nature Conservancy, World Business Academy, Santa Barbara Foundation, Montecito Bank & Trust, C’est Cheese, Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District, Kimpton Canary Hotel, Fetzer,the Santa Barbara Independent and Cox Communications. 

For more information, please go to www.weconference.events or email [email protected].

About the Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media and Public Policy: Miller-McCune Center for Research, Media, and Public Policy is a nonprofit foundation dedicated to informing the public about the world’s most pressing social, economic, and environmental problems and helping solve them by advocating just and sustainable public policies.

About Pacific Standard: Pacific Standard Magazine, the sponsor of the Women and the Environment (WE) conference, is the award-winning magazine for readers interested in working toward forward-looking changes to private behavior and public policy. By combining research that matters with ambitious narrative and investigative reporting, Pacific Standard tells stories across print and digital platforms about society’s biggest problems, both established and emerging, and the people attempting to solve them.