Climate Strike

Groups with tables:

• The Ocean Foundation, Richard Charter
• Mendonoma Whale and Seal Study
• Friends of Gualala River
• Zero Waste Mendocino
• Sierra Club
• Oz Farm
• ACORN Partners in Education
• Friends of Point Arena-Stornetta Lands
• Redwood Coast Medical Services
• Gualala River Park Campaign
• Redwood Coast Land Conservancy
• Anchor Bay Amateur Radio Club
• B Corporations and Conscious Capitalism
• Keepers of The Coast
• Energy Table
• Climate Science Education Table

Some Speakers

Richard Charter: a Senior Fellow with The Ocean Foundation and has been working for over three decades to ensure protection for fragile marine ecosystems and sensitive coastlines. Richard worked with bipartisan Members of Congress to maintain the 27-year annual renewal of an offshore drilling moratorium that previously protected the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and Bristol Bay in Alaska, in addition to securing a separate law which still protects the Gulf Coast and Panhandle of Florida from new offshore oil and gas leasing until at least 2022. Richard coordinated the local government support that originally led to the creation of the Gulf of the Farallones, Cordell Bank, Channel Islands, and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries, presently serves on the Gulf of the Farallones Sanctuary Advisory Council, and also has served on the U.S. Department of Energy?s Methane Hydrates Advisory Committee until kicked off by President Trump. Richard worked to help finalize the 2015 Obama White House declaration of permanent federal protection from offshore drilling for Alaska?s fishery-rich Bristol Bay. The designation by NOAA of a boundary expansion doubling the size of the Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuaries, a project Mr. Charter has long pursued, took place in 2015. Richard is currently working to protect existing Sanctuary boundaries now under review, advance three new National Marine Sanctuaries along the California coastline, to protect the Biscayne Bay Coral Reef Preserve from being overturned, and to prevent the Trump Administration from now opening the Arctic Ocean, the California Coast, and the Atlantic Coast to offshore drilling.

Ted Williams: Mendocino County 5th District Supervisor. As a kid growing up in Comptche, sitting at a primitive computer powered by solar panels, I never envisioned being compensated as a software programmer. After more than two decades of professional experience, I still wake in amazement, eager to solve problems. My career has largely focused on embedded systems and challenges inherent in smart devices. In 2011, I took the role of Fire Chief of Albion. In 2015, a group of concerned citizens asked me to join a Timber Harvest Plan field presentation hosted by applicant Mendocino Redwood Company. Initially I was reluctant to participate, but seeing that the fire district was the only form of local government, I quietly enjoyed the tour and listened carefully. A group of us, including retired CalFire Air Attack Captain Kirk Van Patten, assembled a committee and authored the text of Measure V, a county wide ordinance requiring timely cleanup of intentionally killed and left standing trees.

Rietta Hohman: is on the education team for the Greater Farallones Association, where she develops marine science curriculum and coordinates the At Your School Marine Science Outreach Program and the Marine Explorers Summer Camp. Rietta has a B.S. in Biology from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and is currently earning her M.S. in Environmental Management from the University of San Francisco. She is a SCUBA instructor and scientific diver, working with various institutions such as Bodega Marine Lab, the Tahoe Environmental Research Center, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Reef Check, and the Southwest Fisheries Science in Santa Cruz.

Scott Mercer: Scott began researching marine mammals in 1974 with a 2-year study of the feeding ecology of the California sea otter. Scott studied Invertebrate Marine Zoology in order to be able to identify what the sea otters were bringing to the surface to consume. In the late 1970s, Scott moved back to his native northern New England and in 1978 founded New England Whale Watch, the only whale watch north of Boston and the only biologist-owned company. Scott was also a Major Contributor to the Catalogues of Identified Individuals for humpback, finback, and North Atlantic right whales. He flew aerial surveys for the New England Aquarium for right whales of the S.E. Coast of the US. He coauthored The Great Whale Book in 1982 with two colleagues at the University of New Hampshire and taught a marine mammal class there for 14 years. He cofounded the Brier Island Ocean Study Research Station on Brier Island Nova Scotia, Canada. He led winter expeditions in the British Virgin Islands for humpback whales and coral reef study.

"We can't save the world by playing by the rules because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today."

Greta Thunberg, an inspirational TEDx talk by a 16 year-old Swedish girl about global warming