about the environmental activism Panel:
This is the third panel in the series and will take place on on November 7th from 10-11 AM (PST). It will be composed of people who participate in environmental activism groups and can speak on their experience working with them. Through this panel, I hope that students are inspired to begin taking individual action by looking at and even participating in local youth activist groups and by educating themselves beyond this panel series.
Meet the panelists:
Aaron Feigelman
Aaron began his climate activism during his junior year of high school. He founded and led a grassroots movement to convince his school district officials to install solar panels throughout the schools located in his hometown of Benicia, CA. He worked for 4 years on the project, and in 2018 $5.5 million worth of solar panels were installed.
Since graduating from engineering school at UCLA in 2019, Aaron has been focusing his efforts on mitigating climate change by preventing food waste. Currently, he is building out The Kawa Project, a business focused on recycling agricultural waste into chemicals for personal care products and food. During college, Aaron worked on business and engineering topics at Tesla in the energy storage division. He enjoys spending his time learning about renewable energy technologies and backpacking in the Sierra Nevadas.
Alan Mattlage
Alan Mattlage has been a political activist in one form or another since high school. In the 1980s and ’90s, he was a faculty advisor for the student group “Nonviolent Alternatives” at St. Cloud State University. Later, he managed petition drives to win legal recognition for the Maryland Green Party and worked on several local candidate campaigns. He served on Hyattsville, Maryland’s Environmental Committee, advising the City on sustainability issues. He also served on Hyattsville’s Board of Elections. More recently, he helped launch a small community solar company to demonstrate the viability of solar thermal technology and he testified before Maryland’s Public Service Commission in support of favorable net metering rates for distributed solar facilities. Alan joined Citizens’ Climate Lobby in 2016, serving as its liaison to Rep. Jackie Speier. With CCL, he has lobbied dozens of congressional offices. He currently serves on the Program Committee for the Environment and Sustainability Community at Thrive, the Alliance of Nonprofits of San Mateo County and he leads the Grasstops Outreach team for CCL’s San Mateo County chapter.
Aniya Butler
Aniya Butler is an activist and organizer part of Youth Vs Apocalypse. She is also a published poet and spoken word artist who believes through poetry the truth can be told and change can be made. She has been part of Youth Vs Apocalypse for a year now and she has helped organize strikes, lead creative strikes, and other small things. One of her goals as an activist and an organizer is to uplift the voices of Black and Brown communities and youth because she knows these are the frontline communities of the climate crisis.
Katerina Gaines
Katerina is a junior in high school and was born and raised in the Bay Area. She has been involved in the climate justice movement since her freshman year in high school. She is now part of Youth vs. Apocalypse and is one of the Green New Deal Campaign coordinators. She has also started a club at school to promote climate justice by raising awareness and participating in direct actions. She hopes to continue and expand her involvement in the fight for an equitable and liveable future and believes that we have the power to save the planet if we work collectively and with intersectionality.
Madeline Dyke
Madeline is a senior at Williams College in Massachusetts, where she is double majoring in Biology and Political Science. On campus, she rows on the Crew team, she's a barista and manager of the student coffee bar, and she is a near-peer college counselor with Matriculate. Currently, she's taking a "gap semester" to organize for climate candidates running for Senate in the 2020 election. As part of that effort, she co-founded a group called Climate Changemakers, which is an all-volunteer and nonpartisan community of climate-concerned folks who channel their concern into an hour per week of high-leverage action towards climate solutions. She grew up in Berkeley, CA, and attended Head-Royce High School.