Lithium Mining Behind the Curtain: What is Equity in an Extractive Energy Transition?

Join us on Wednesday May 24, 2023 from 12-1pm PDT (12pm PDT, 1pm MT, 2pm CT, 3pm EST) to discuss the impact of lithium mining and extraction on frontline communities and its implications for our work on equity and energy justice. Register here.

The Local Clean Energy Alliance’s mission is to promote equitable, democratized, local and renewable energy resources to address climate change and create resilient communities. However, we must grapple with the tension between meeting energy needs of vulnerable and under-resourced communities, and limiting the extraction that underpins these energy technologies. When energy has this devastating cost, what and who we prioritize becomes the most important question.

Bios

Johanna Bozuwa
Johanna (she/her) is the Executive Director at the Climate and Community Project. She directs the network of researchers and experts to develop crucial and justice-based climate policy. Her research focuses on extraction and fossil fuels, energy justice and democracy, and the political economy of transitions. Prior to joining the Climate and Community Project, Johanna managed the Climate and Energy Program at the Democracy Collaborative, a think tank focused on designing a more democratic economy. Johanna cut her teeth organizing in the Netherlands against fossil fuel infrastructure, influence, and finance, particularly against Royal Dutch Shell. Her work has been published and cited in outlets such as the Nation, the Guardian, Huffington Post, and the Hill.

Leslie Quintanilla
Leslie Quintanilla’s (PhD in Ethnic Studies, Certificate in Critical Gender Studies UC San Diego) grassroots organizing and research praxis focuses on contemporary issues related to transnational borderland activisms, including women-of-color feminist artivism, environmental justice and climate change activism, and cross-diasporic solidarities. Broadly, her long-term interests include: Zapatismo, US/Mexico border(s), Italian & Mediterranean border(s), climate change, and movement organizing. She is a co-founder of the Center for Interdisciplinary Environmental Justice (CIEJ), a collective of activists, academics, scientists, and artists working for decolonial environmental justice efforts trans-locally. Currently, the CIEJ is working alongside Indigenous communities to combat lithium mining driven by electrification economies. Prior to joining SF State, Quintanilla taught in Chicanx Studies at San Diego City College.

Mariela Loera
Mariela is a Policy Coordinator - Climate Programs based in the ECV office.  With a BS in Sustainability Studies from UC Riverside, as well as a Masters of Public Policy from UC Riverside, her background in environmental justice includes policy and research with a focus on climate and energy justice.  At Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability (LCJA), Mariela works alongside communities to elevate climate resilience and policy solutions across communities in Inland California at the local, regional, and state levels.

Please register here and join us on Wednesday May 24, 2023 from 12-1pm PST.