Town Hall Seattle, Juneau Street Resilience Pod, and the City of Seattle's Office of Sustainability and Environment hosts an evening with climate justice leaders who are reimagining our climate future in Seattle and beyond; discussing how community leaders, local government and academia can use joy and storytelling to build relationships and actualize climate resilience strategies, and sharing more about the upcoming One Seattle Climate Action Plan Update, including how you can get involved!

Moderator Nancy Huizar (they/them/theirs) is an environmental justice activist, facilitator, and consultant. They believe that everything we are doing to further environmental justice needs to address and connect to how people — particularly people of color — are impacted. Because the environmental movement has historically shut out communities of color, their work focuses on tending to, understanding, and centering the needs and health of communities of color.

Panelists Lylianna Allala is Interim Deputy Director for the City of Seattle's Office of Sustainability and Environment. Previously she served as the Climate Justice Director in the Office of Sustainability & Environment. In her current role, she provides strategic leadership and direction on policies and programs that address the root causes and impacts of climate change including citywide implementation of Seattle's Equity & Environment Initiative and Seattle's Green New Deal. Prior to joining the City of Seattle, Lylianna led climate & environmental policy & outreach for U.S Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal. She began her career in habitat restoration and ecology focusing on upland and urban forests, and wetlands. She is a co-creator of the Growing Old podcast, a 2019 Henry M. Jackson Foundation Leadership Fellow, and an alumna of the 2024 Obama Foundation Leaders USA program. She currently serves as a co-facilitator for the Obama Leaders Climate Community of Practice.

Debolina Banerjee (she/hers) is a Senior Climate Policy Manager at Puget Sound Sage. Her work includes research-based analysis of climate policies, campaign support on climate justice issues, and building power within Sage's local and statewide climate coalitions. Debolina has research experience in transit-oriented development, the environmental impacts of unorganized industries and project management for real estate development. In addition, she has extensive experience working with grassroots activists and marginalized communities in India, organizing for social justice around food, sustainable agriculture, clean environment, community development, and women's empowerment.

Aya de León is the Poet Laureate of the City of Berkeley, and she teaches creative writing at UC Berkeley. Kensington Books publishes her novels for adults, including the "Justice Hustlers" series and several standalone novels. Candlewick Books publishes Aya's "Factory" series for younger readers. Aya has appeared in the New York Times' "By the Book" and has received acclaim in the Washington Post, the Village Voice, and SF Chronicle. Her words have also appeared in Harper's Bazaar, The Guardian UK, and on Def Poetry. A graduate of Harvard College, with an MFA in fiction from Antioch University Los Angeles, Aya has been an artist in residence at Stanford University, a Cave Canem poetry fellow, and a slam poetry champion. In spring 2022, she organized an online conference entitled Black Literature vs. the Climate Emergency (available on YouTube). She's also on Instagram. In 2025, she kicked off her new project, Formation, an intergenerational community organizing project through the arts. She organizes with the Black Hive, the climate and environmental justice formation of the Movement for Black Lives. She is also involved with the Working Families Party and writes and choreographs social justice line dances to bring joy to political movements.

Dr. Esther Min received her PhD in Environmental and Occupational Hygiene from the University of Washington and her Master of Public Health with emphasis in community health from Touro University, California. Her focus is to build research processes and projects that uplift the voices of Black, Indigenous and people of color, and frontline communities and organizations are elevated, and their priorities and goals of environmental justice are supported by academic researchers and practitioners. Esther is the Director of Community Innovation, Evaluation, and Learning at Front and Centered, a coalition of frontline community organizations working on environmental and climate justice policies in the state of WA. She is also a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Washington's School of Public Health where she teaches an environmental justice course for undergrad and graduate students, and conducts research-to-action type projects.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle, Juneau Street Resilience Pod, and the City of Seattle's Office of Sustainability and Environment.

In relationship with Se'Si'Le, Braided River is celebrating the launch of their newest project, In the Spirit of Right and Respectful Relations: Conversations about Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Being in Nature. As told to Kurt Russo, with a foreword by Jay Julius Xw'tot lhem, and illustrations by Fiorella De La O (Quechua), this book invites readers into a conversation rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing and being in nature. The vision of the project is to draw on ancestral knowledge to further empower and inspire Indigenous-led environmental campaigns with non-Indigenous allies and partners to the benefit of Mother Earth and all her relations down to the seventh generation.

Come be a part of the celebration of this inaugural project, with a night full of powerful Pacific Northwest speakers. Facilitated by Jeff Renner, engaging public speaker and meteorologist, the talk will include Jay Julius Xw'tot lhem (President and founder of Se'Si'Le, previous Lummi Nation Chairman), Lynda Mapes (Pacific Northwest Journalist, reported with the Seattle Times for 27 years), and John Vechey (Cofounder of groundbreaking technology companies, and board member of Se'Si'Le).

Jeff Renner holds degrees in Atmospheric Sciences and in Journalism and Political Science. He is a polished and engaging public speaker with a passion for the Pacific Northwest and a deep love of the natural world. In addition to his public speaking, Jeff is a meteorologist for the King 5 television station in Seattle.

Jay Julius Xw'tot lhem (Lummi) is the President of Se'Si'Le. A fisherman, Former Chairman and Councilman at Lummi Nation, Jay was a leader in the fight to protect Xwe'chi'eXen (Cherry Point). He has organized and executed Tribal, local, regional, and national campaigns. A bridge-builder, he uses empathy and storytelling to bring people together. Principal at Julius Consulting LLC.

Lynda Mapes is a journalist, nature writer, and author based in Seattle. A full-time daily newspaper reporter since 1985, Maps worked at the Seattle Times for 27 years before her recent retirement to focus on writing books and long-form journalism.

John Vechey is a board member of Se'Si'Le and is based on the San Juan Islands. In Right and Respectful Relations, Vechey is highlighted under the chapter about technology. As the co-founder of groundbreaking technology companies, including Pluto VR and PopCap Games,Vechey has helped conceive of and produce popular video games like Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies.

Se'Si'Le is an Indigenous led, Bellingham-based non-profit that works to protect Indigenous areas, resources, and sacred sites.

Mountaineers Books

Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Braided River.

How can one person fight for social justice? Can everyday people actually make changes in systemic, structural inequality? Social psychologist and author of the book Change the Wallpaper, Nilanjana Dasgupta offers science-driven answers to these questions, arguing that social shifts start with small changes to our "wallpaper," or the things that we experience in our daily lives. In other words, we need to revise the hyperlocal cultures we live in to make broader change.

Dasgupta believes that these small shifts in our cultural "wallpaper" are far more effective in producing structural change than through popular movements such as bias awareness training, symbolic proclamations, or even just relying on people's good intentions. By integrating a wide range of studies in psychology, neuroscience, education, sociology, economics, public health, urban studies, cultural geography, and even landscape architecture, Dasgupta shows how attitudes and beliefs are based on what we see and hear every day. They nudge our behavior to create or reinforce small inequalities that go unnoticed and ultimately accumulate over time. So, how do we change our wallpaper?

By consciously disrupting these patterns and habits, Dasgupta argues, we can create opportunities for social mixing across lines of differences, allowing new relationships to form, and promoting a better understanding of others' experiences. These actions lead to organizing and larger social shifts. It's through these small changes in our daily lives, Dasgupta explains, that we can all work toward justice.

Nilanjana Dasgupta, author of Change the Wallpaper, is Provost Professor of Psychology and inaugural Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of many articles, the winner of the Hidden Bias Research Prize from the Kapor Foundation, and the recipient of multiple U.S. government research grants. Her work has been featured in the New York Times and other major outlets.

Paula Boggs is the founder of Boggs Media LLC. A TEDx speaker, U.S. Army veteran, and musician, she previously served for a decade as Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary at Starbucks Corporation. Her career spans roles as Vice President Legal at Dell, law firm partner, Assistant U.S. Attorney, and U.S. Army captain. Appointed by President Obama to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, she actively serves on multiple nonprofit and corporate boards.

Third Place Books

As founder of Moms Demand Action — the nation's largest grassroots movement against gun violence — author Shannon Watts has helped thousands of women find their voice and take action. In her new book, Fired Up, Watts outlines a practical and inspiring framework for reigniting purpose, confidence, and ambition. With real-life stories from women across generations and backgrounds, Fired Up offers tools to help readers identify what sparks them and live with greater intention and impact.

Watts seeks to challenge the negative narrative that many women hold, asserting that empowerment begins where expectations end. In a world that often pressures women to shrink themselves, choosing to embrace desire and step outside prescribed roles becomes a powerful, even radical, act.

Shannon Watts is the founder of Moms Demand Action, the nation's largest grassroots group fighting against gun violence. Known as the 'summoner of women's audacity,' she spent more than a decade leading one of the world's largest field experiments for mobilizing women. She has been named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People, a Forbes 50 over 50 Changemaker, and a Glamour Woman of the Year. She is an active board member of Emerge America, one of the nation's leading organizations for recruiting and training women to run for office. She is the author of the 2019 book Fight Like a Mother, and she writes regularly for Substack and outlets like The Washington Post, Elle, TIME, and more.

Brooke Baldwin is a TV host, award-winning journalist and bestselling author. She writes a weekly Substack entitled "Unraveling, with Brooke Baldwin." It's inspired by her bombshell first person essay published in Vanity Fair entitled: "Leaving CNN Was How I Found My Voice." For more than a decade, Brooke anchored her own live daily news show on CNN and was renowned for her versatility, authenticity, and humanity at the news desk. After CNN, Brooke hosted a popular social experiment show on Netflix called The Trust. Brooke is the author of the bestselling book Huddle: How Women Unlock Their Collective Power, redefining the word 'huddle' to explore how women lean on one another to provide support, empowerment, inspiration, and the strength to enact meaningful change. Brooke now lives in Los Angeles after a ten-year run-in New York City. She is a proud graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Elliott Bay Book Company

Did you know that private equity firms have a hand in many U.S. industries, including hospitals, daycare centers, supermarket chains, local newspapers, and prison service providers? They also manage highways, municipal water systems, fire departments, emergency medical services, and a growing swath of real estate. In her new book, Bad Company, journalist Megan Greenwell illuminates how ingrained private equity is, and how it's preying on the most vulnerable people in our society, controlling congress, and causing destruction in communities around the country.

Private equity is a system of finance that pools money from outside investors and huge bank loans to acquire companies that hold a lot of debt. The company retains their debt, which makes it difficult for the company to recover and protects the investors from those debts. This might sound like a lot of finance jargon, but Greenwell wants to show how this industry is affecting all of our lives. Entire communities are ruined as a result of their buyouts. Workers lose their jobs. Communities lose their institutions. Only private equity wins, Greenwell argues.

Greenwell shares personal experiences of four workers and how private equity upended their employers and communities: a Toys R Us floor supervisor, a rural doctor, a local newspaper journalist, and an affordable housing organizer. Throughout these stories, Greenwell highlights how private equity executives are among the wealthiest people in the United States and are reshaping the economy, disrupting communities, and hollowing out the very idea of the American dream.

Megan Greenwell is a journalist who has written or edited for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, WIRED, and ESPN. She is also the deputy director of the Princeton Summer Journalism Program, a workshop and college access initiative for students from low-income backgrounds. A California native, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their pug.

Jay Willis is a writer who covers courts, politics, and democracy. He is the editor-in-chief at Balls & Strikes, and was previously a staff writer at GQ magazine and a senior contributor to The Appeal. Before his journalism career, he practiced law at large firms in Washington, D.C. and Seattle.

Elliott Bay Book Company

One guiding principle for resisting the patriarchy in the United States is to demand equal rights for men and women. Yet, author and multidisciplinary expert Dr. Anna Malaika Tubbs argues that fighting patriarchal culture is more complicated than that. Tubbs believes that this fabricated hierarchy became so deeply ingrained over time that it now goes unnoticed. She outlines the history of patriarchy in the United States along with everything it intentionally conceals.

Pulling from her latest book, Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden from Us, Tubbs highlights how the United States has its own unique gendered hierarchy. From the founding fathers to the current Supreme Court justices, from enslaved women to maternal health crises, from the exclusion of women in the Constitution to the continued lack of an Equal Rights Amendment, Tubbs brings together academic research, the stories of freedom fighters, and her own experiences to reveal what is erased. She goes further, showing a patriarchal system that has survived by hiding the tools that are necessary to dismantle it.

Resisting a patriarchal system, Tubbs believes, is more complicated than once thought. She argues that humanity in the United States is determined by gender in a limited and flawed binary that is also always tied to whiteness. The first step to dismantling patriarchy is to understand how deeply ingrained it is. The next step, Tubbs says, is telling a different story that highlights everything the patriarchy shrouds, and bringing it back into the narrative.

Anna Malaika Tubbs is a New York Times bestselling author and multidisciplinary expert on current and historical understandings of race, gender, and equity. With a Ph.D. in Sociology and a Masters in Multidisciplinary Gender Studies from the University of Cambridge in addition to a Bachelors in Medical Anthropology from Stanford University, Anna translates her academic knowledge into stories that are clear and engaging. Her articles have been published by TIME Magazine, New York Magazine, CNN, Motherly, the Huffington Post, For Harriet, The Guardian, Darling Magazine, and Blavity. Anna's storytelling also takes form in her talks, including her TED Talk that has been viewed 2 million times, as well as the scripted and unscripted screen projects she has in development. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their three kids.

Florangela Davila is a newsroom leader and journalist who has been working in Seattle media for more than two decades. She's earned regional and national awards for her own work as the former race and immigration reporter for The Seattle Times, and has led teams at Crosscut/Cascade PBS and at KNKX Public Radio to accolades, including the 2024 national Edward R. Murrow award for Overall Excellence in the large market radio category. In February, she joined the BIPOC-led and focused online journalism outlet The South Seattle Emerald as executive director. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, the child of immigrants from Colombia and Peru.

Elliott Bay Book Company

Is Seattle on the cusp of a biking Renaissance? From Beacon Hill to SODO to the Waterfront and Downtown, the next few years will bring major improvements to Seattle's growing network of connected and separated bike lanes and bike paths. That's good news for people who want a safer, healthier, more equitable and climate-friendly city.

Join Cascade Bicycle Club on Bike Everywhere Day for a conversation with climate journalist and bike advocate Paul Tolme, Biking Uphill in the Rain author and Seattle Bike Blog founder Tom Fucoloro, and Cascade Bicycle Club Policy Manager Tyler Vasquez. Learn about the history of Seattle's bike advocacy movement, how the passage of Proposition 1 last November is a gamechanger for biking, and how building a Bikeable Seattle is an act of love and compassion.

Paul Tolmé is an award winning environmental journalist, former Associated Press staff reporter, and winner of the Ted Scripps Fellowships in Environmental Journalism whose work has appeared in Newsweek, the New York Times, Audubon, National Wildlife, Salon, Ski, High Country News, and more publications than he can remember over a 30-year career. In 2020, following his move to Seattle, he switched careers to engage in direct advocacy on climate, transportation safety, and transportation equity as the spokesperson and content strategist for Cascade Bicycle Club, the statewide nonprofit that helped defeat the effort to repeal Washington's Climate Commitment Act. He lives with his wife on a tiny houseboat on Lake Union and bikes, walks, and uses mass transit to reach nearly all of his Seattle destinations.

Tom Fucoloro is the Founder of SeattleBikeBlog.com and author of Biking Uphill in the Rain: The Story of Seattle from behind the Handlebars (2023, UW Press). An independent journalist originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Tom has been reporting about bicycling in Seattle since 2010. He is a car-free parent and received Cascade Bicycle Club's 2023 Doug Walker Award "for outstanding leadership in improving lives through bicycling." He was a finalist for the 2024 Washington State Book Award.

Tyler Vasquez is a dedicated transportation advocate with experience in policy development, public engagement, and project management. Growing up in a frontline community impacted by inequitable infrastructure decisions, he is committed to ensuring that transportation investments are transparent, accountable, and prioritize historically underserved communities. As an advocate with Cascade Bicycle Club, he works to improve bike infrastructure and safety, ensuring that no one's right to mobility comes at the cost of their safety.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Cascade Bicycle Club.

Third Place Books

What if everything you thought you knew about crime and punishment was shaped by those who profit from it? Join us for a discussion with civil rights attorney and author Alec Karakatsanis as he examines "copaganda"—the deliberate manipulation of public perception by police, prosecutors, and the media. Despite historically low crime rates, the United States imprisons far more people than it did just decades ago, driven by a sprawling and profitable punishment industry. Karakatsanis will explore how media narratives fuel fear, distort public policy, and divert attention from systemic harms, challenging us to reconsider who truly benefits from these widespread misrepresentations.

Recognized by Teen Vogue as "one of the most prominent voices" on the criminal legal system and a featured guest on shows like The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and The Breakfast Club, Karakatsanis brings his legal expertise, trenchant political analysis, and humorous personal storytelling to delve into one of the most critical topics in our society today.

After beginning his career representing people accused of crimes who could not afford an attorney, Alec Karakatsanis founded the Civil Rights Corps, an organization that challenges systemic injustices in the U.S. legal system. In the last decade, the organization's work has freed hundreds of thousands of people from illegal confinement in jail cells, reunited hundreds of thousands of families, returned tens of millions of dollars to marginalized communities, and advanced inspiring alternatives to punishment as a means of preventing and addressing social harm. He was named the 2016 Trial Lawyer of the Year by Public Justice for designing and litigating landmark constitutional challenges to cash bail and modern debtors' prison practices across the United States. The author of Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System and Copaganda (both from The New Press), he lives in Washington, DC, with a community of wonderful friends, family, weird paintings, a garden, and his rock collection.

Erin Papworth, MPH, is a serial entrepreneur, executive, and ex-fintech founder, with a robust background in healthcare, finance, and technology. After leading multi-million dollar health programs in West and Central Africa, Erin co-founded Nav.it, a U.S.-based AI-driven financial wellness app. Nav.it was acquired by The Fintex Group (TFG) in Q1 2025. She is now the CEO of luupo, Inc, a subsidiary of TFG, bringing the mission of more inclusive consumer banking to TFG's global banking and payments network. Erin is an avid traveler, startup advisor, and maintains connections to research institutes, primarily documenting the outcomes of investing in diverse entrepreneurs and social enterprise.

Elliott Bay Book Company

America is facing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, with troubling effects on our mental and physical health. We live in one of the most divisive times in our history, one in which we tend to work, play, and associate only with people who think as we do. How do we create spaces for people to come together — to open our minds, understand our differences, and exchange ideas?

In his new book, Meet Me at the Library, Shamichael Hallman argues that the public library may be our best hope for bridging these divides and creating strong, inclusive communities. Public libraries are increasingly playing an essential role in building social cohesion, promoting civic renewal, and advancing the ideals of a healthy democracy. Many are reimagining themselves in new and innovative ways, actively reaching out to the communities they serve. Today, libraries are becoming essential institutions for repairing society.

Drawing from his experience at the Memphis Public Library and his extensive research and interviews across the country, Hallman presents a rich argument for seeing libraries as one of the nation's greatest assets. He includes examples from libraries large and small — such as the Iowa's North Liberty Library's Lighthouse in the Library program to bring people together to discuss important topics in a safe and supportive space, to Cambridge Cooks, an initiative of the Cambridge MA Public Library that fosters social connection by bringing people together over shared interest in food.

As an institution that is increasingly under attack for creating a place where diverse audiences can see themselves, public libraries are under more scrutiny than ever. Meet Me at the Library offers us a revealing look at one of our most important civic institutions and the social and civic impact they must play if we are to heal our divided nation.

Shamichael Hallman serves as the Director of Civic Health and Economic Opportunity at Urban Libraries Council, an innovation and action tank of North America's leading public library systems. In this role, he's working to advance conversations about public libraries as essential city and county infrastructure, including their value as physical spaces and a connector of diverse lived experiences. From 2017 – 2022 he served as the Senior Library Manager of the historic Cossitt Library (Memphis Public Libraries), tasked with overseeing the multi-million-dollar renovation of this space which reimagined the roles that a branch library could play in the community. During his tenure with Memphis Public Libraries, the library system was awarded the 2021 National Medal for Museum and Library Science by the Institute of Museum and Library Services and was recognized as the Nation's Most Innovative Public Library by Smithsonian Magazine in November of 2021. His 2020 TEDx talk "Reimagining the Public Library to Reconnect the Community" garnered international attention among librarians and social innovators.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Seattle Public Library.

Elliott Bay Book Company

From bestselling authors and journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance is a call to renew a politics of plenty, face the failures of liberal governance, and abandon the chosen scarcities that have deformed American life.

To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don't have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven't built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget — if they are ever finished at all. The crisis that's clicking into focus now has been building for decades — because we haven't been building enough.

Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear's villains. Rather, one generation's solutions have become the next gener­ation's problems. Authors Klein and Thompson contend that progress requires facing up to the institutions in life that are not working as they need to. It means, for liberals, recognizing when the government is failing. It means, for conservatives, recognizing when the government is needed.

In a book exploring how we can move from a liberalism that not only protects and pre­serves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and propose a path toward a politics of abundance. At a time when movements of scarcity are gaining power in country after country, this is an answer that meets the challenges of the moment while grappling honestly with the fury so many rightfully feel.

Co-author Derek Thompson joins us at Town Hall for a talk about his book, our current challenges, and the path forward.

Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the host of the podcast Plain English. He is the author of the national bestseller Hit Makers and On Work, an anthology of his writing on labor and technology. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Clayton Page Aldern is a senior data reporter at Grist. A neuroscientist turned environmental journalist, he holds a master's in neuroscience and a master's in public policy from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He is also a research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. With Gregg Colburn, he is the author of Homelessness Is a Housing Problem. His book The Weight of Nature, on the effects of climate change on brain health, is out now from Dutton.

Third Place Books