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Earth Day SF features community activists, expert speakers and youth sharing their knowledge and views on all things green, from the state of the oceans to wildlife conservation to actions you can take in your community.

Earth Day is a teach-in, where you’ll learn about breakthrough innovations, practical home remedies, and many other ways to help build a sustainable future. EarthDaySF2021 is honored to hear from three of our most active local environmental leaders. 

Judy Goldhaft, Isabella Zizi & Alison Ehara Brown

Judy Goldhaft, involved with Planet Drum Foundation since its inception, is currently its Director. Over the years she has served as administrative coordinator, managing director, lecturer, workshop leader, art director, photographer, and director/performer of dance and theater pieces. She produced symposia, benefits, events, and edited periodicals, journals and books for Planet Drum. Judy is an activist who uses art, theater and education to further social change. Her writing has appeared in Coyote’s Journal, Reinhabitng a Separate Country, and City Lights Journal and her concerns about water and water policies led her to create a single-person performance piece, Water Web, incorporating movement and spoken word to celebrate water and describe our complex relationship to it. She continues to perform as well as gardens, studies tap dancing, and is a maker, repairer and reuser.

Isabella Zizi (Northern Cheyene, Arikara and Muscogee Creek) is a leading  member of Idle No More SF Bay and also a signatory on the Indigenous Women of the Americas Defending Mother Earth Treaty. She also works as the co-manager of the Community Supported Agriculture program with Urban Tilth, a visionary organization dedicated to building a more healthy, just and sustainable food sovereignty in Richmond, with school gardens and community farms. 

Alison Ehara-Brown (Mohawk, Seneca, Palatine German and Scottish) is one of the founding grandmothers of Idle No More SF Bay, a signatory on the Indigenous Women of the Americas Defending Mother Earth Treaty and a Board Member of Movement Rights, a powerful, visionary organization dedicated to working with tribes and communities to align human laws with natural laws. Both Isabella and Alison live in Richmond, in the shadow of the Chevron Refinery in the East Bay.

Idle No More SF Bay is a Native women-led, multi-generational group dedicated to climate justice and Indigenous sovereignty. We work for a rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels towards clean, renewable, sustainable energy and a healthy future for the generation to come. We work to protect the Water, Land and Sky and all of the sacred system of life. From 2014 to 2017 we led sixteen Healing Walks in the Refinery Corridor of the East Bay, calling attention to the devastating effects of the five oil refineries on our shoreline, while also inspiring everyone to envision a fossil-free, healthy, just future. We have organized many non-violent direct actions with ally groups, shutting down business as usual, painting street murals, offering testimony at government meetings, organizing against false solutions such as carbon trading and more. Initially guided by a grandmother's prayer group, over the last few years, the founding grandmother's have turned the leadership of INM SF Bay over to the powerful younger women that we have been mentoring, through a process of intergenerational sharing of skills and knowledge. Now functioning as grandmother advisors, we are proud to see our younger INM women organizing powerful actions, painting street murals, shutting down business as usual, supporting our Lisjan Ohlone sisters and brothers, and so much more.

The Indigenous Women of the Americas Defending Mother Earth Treaty was signed in 2015 by a group of six Native women leaders from the Arctic to the Amazon.  Since then, hundreds of Native women have signed on to the Treaty. The Treaty (www.indigenouswomenrising.org) lays out the harms to Mother Earth and the Waters and notes the critical time we are living in. The Treaty has two obligations:  1) to gather at each New Moon to pray for the Water and 2) on each Solstice and Equinox to engage in non-violent direct action at the places where the harms (or decisions that cause the harms) to the system of life are happening.  The Treaty acknowledges the special role of Indigenous Women while also calling on all women (and our allies) to rise up to protect the sacred system of life.  The Native women in INM SF Bay are all Treaty signatories.

Planet Drum was founded in 1973 to provide an effective grassroots approach to ecology that emphasizes sustainability, community self-determination and regional self-reliance. It developed and defined the concept of a ‘bioregion’—a coherent life place, often bounded by a watershed, where nature and humans coexist. Using the bioregion (or life place) as a jumping off place, Planet Drum developed innovative and pioneering materials to explore and educate people about their places. The question, “Who are we, where are we and what are we going to do about it?” recognized that natural systems are always the basis for culture and long-term sustainability. Learning to restore and maintain them is essential to our continued existence. Planet Drum has produced more than fifty publications, hundreds of workshops and presentations, and numerous community organizing events.

Both in San Francisco and internationally people are rethinking local, recognizing that we are supported by our ecosystems and developing long term methods for living in them. We are part of the places where we live; our best hope to save the biosphere is by saving individual bioregions. Plunge into a love affair with your place!

Call it a bioregion, a life place or just simply local. We are part of the places we live.

Past Speakers

Dolores HuertaLabor leader, civil rights activist (United Farm Workers)

MonaLisa Wallace Attorney, Speaker
Organizer

Lindsey Allen Executive Director – Rainforest Action Network

Stacy MalkanAuthor, Speaker – Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, US Right To Know

EarthDaySF 2021 presents some of our favorite musical talent for your enjoyment! Please follow their links to hear more! Stay tuned for our 2022 line up which will be live and in person once again...

Ace Of Cups

Bayonics

Pamela Parker's Fantastic Machine

The MonaLisa Project // Jamie Zee & Jack Rice

Highway Poets

The Live Oaks

No pipeline, no way!

Earth Day San Francisco gratefully appreciates the leadership of Corrina Gould, for envisioning a beautiful future for the historic Shellmound, so vital to honoring the ancestors and future generations on this land. Please support the Shellmound, an Ohlone sacred heritage site in the East Bay in California, which reminds everyone of the thousands of years of harmony between humanity and the earth and our human rights.

Water protectors arising nationwide show solidarity in the collective efforts to protect clean water from pollution.Stop Line 3 Pipeline! #StopLine3Mural #StopLine3 #NoDAPL #BuildBackFossil

This street mural was painted on February 27, 2021 on Clay Street, peacefully blockaded directly in front of the Oakland, California Federal Building using nontoxic clay and tempera paints.

For seven years, Indigenous communities in Minnesota and their allies have been resisting the construction of Line 3, an oil pipeline connecting the tar sands in Canada to Wisconsin. Enbridge Energy, the company responsible, has a terrible environmental track record, and this pipeline would violate several treaties with the Ojibwe people and cross 200 bodies of water.

In February Lakota youth from the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River tribal nations ran over 93 miles back to the Oceti Sakowin Camp site to call on President Biden to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The youth are asking for everyone who stood with Standing Rock four years ago to join this call. In this video, artists and activists respond to a call from Indigenous leaders to be in solidarity with the Water Protectors by blocking an entire city block in downtown Oakland and painting a large street mural with the words: STOP LINE 3 & DAPL - BUILD BACK FOSSIL FREE.

This action is part of “Build Back Fossil Free,” the solution-ary push on the Biden Harris Administration to end the era of fossil fuel production, and protect communities reeling from the climate and COVID-19 crises.

Ken Babbs

Thank you Ken Babbs for sharing your Merry Prankster vibe and wisdom with EarthDaySF!

Diamond Dave

Following opening ceremony by Jorge Molina, for a decade of EarthDaySF festivals, Diamond Dave brings the volunteers together hand-in-hand in a Rainbow Gathering style circle. 

"Cast a wide net
Find the common thread
Let life flourish.

Don’t panic, just keep it organic!"

One of the highlights of every EarthDaySF has been the sustainable fashion show... upcycled, fair trade, consciously sustainable and organic. Thank you Sandra Hanns and the SFSFW Models! Please enjoy this slideshow of sustainable and upcycle designers: Atousa, Cristina Cree, Mia Maree. Jewelry by Eva Gergely. Makeup by Celia Molina and Ana Celia Quiroz.

Welcome to the Sustainable Chef’s Zone! Recognizing that California is in a second year of drought, we call attention to the vast majority of water usage — agriculture.

Alfalfa for export to the dairy and cattle industry overseas uses far more water than the total water use of every human in California.

Shifting consumer investment away from inefficient commodities prioritizes water conservation, human health and climate protection.

San Francisco Veg Society

Join the San Francisco Veg Society on Saturday April 24th, 2021, 12 to 5 pm for a live zoom event and enjoy fabulous, nutritious and sustainable recipes using only local, vegan, small business produced ingredients. To join, send your RSVP to events@sfvs.org.

Tamiko Gardner will start off the program with an overview on how to transition to a plant based lifestyle!

Featured chefs:

Nina CurtisInstagram:
@botanicalchef

Reina MontenegroInstagram:
@chef.reina

Jillian LoveInstagram:
@chefjillianlove

Stephanie BoscoInstagram:
@thesuperfoodgoddess

SPONSOR

Sponsorship is available at a variety of levels for EarthDaySF2022. For a full sponsorship packet, contact us!

VEND and Volunteer

If you'd like to volunteer or vend for our next street festival in April 2022, contact us! IF YOU ARE A VENDOR IMPACTED BY THE CANCELLATION OF EARTHDAYSF2020, YOU HAVE PRIORITY REGISTRATION UNTIL JULY 10,2021.

Earth Day 2022 Sponsors

Safe Sand Company, is a San Francisco based small business, delivering safety-tested sandbox playsand to schools and families since 2001.  Safe Sand Company is proud to celebrate it's tenth year as EarthDaySF sponsor.

Energy Upgrade California is proud to join Earth Day San Francisco in the fight for a greener, more sustainable environment. Energy Upgrade California is a statewide initiative committed to uniting organizations and communities in saving energy and increasing energy efficiency. Join us at energyupgradeca.org/the-movement and do your part for our state's future. Find out more!

The Meaning Of Earth Day

Celebrating Earth Day reminds us to appreciate the natural integrity of the planet and our duty to protect it for future generations. This global annual event calls attention to the need for people to make peace with nature to tackle climate, pollution and biodiversity emergencies.

The Earth Pledge:

I pledge allegiance to the EARTH
on which I live
and to all her creatures large and small
and to her water, air and soil.
One world, one people... undivided...
with food, shelter and health,
peace and freedom,
love and justice,
for ALL.

Earth Day Facts

• On January 28, 1969, an offshore oil drill caused a horrific oil spill devastating Southern California beaches and wildlife and drawing worldwide attention to the risks caused by the petrochemical industry.
• April 22, 1970, sponsored by Senator Gaylord Nelson, the first Earth Day was recognized. There was no EPA, no Clean Air Act, no Clean Water Act—but there was an uprising all over the country to call attention to the need to regulate corporate impacts on the earth.
• Earth Day has always been a teach-in, but can take many forms including: festivals, conferences, clean ups, teach ins, walk outs, sit-ins, artivism actions, speak outs, publications and other expressions.
• One especially notable Earth Day included the signing of the Paris Agreement, on Earth Day 2016, during the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
• EarthDaySF began in 2011, produced by Douglas Kolberg and fiscally sponsored by the National Organization for Women San Francisco Chapter. The event opened with a press conference about the Fukushima radioactive fallout. Dolores Huerta spoke commemorating Cesar Chavez and encouraging the annual event to continue this important work.
• Each year since, EarthDaySF.org has been produced by a devoted team led by Douglas Kolberg, fiscally sponsored by local nonprofits.
• EarthDaySF 2021 is grateful to be fiscally sponsored by the Green City Project, a perfect mission match building community around sustainability.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Most people in the US can expect that they were born with dozens or more endocrine disrupting industrial chemicals already in their bloodstreams.  Microplastics have polluted much of the food and water supply.  Currently climate change is happening at a much faster rate than many anticipated, and the science is clear that human contributions to climate change are so significant as to define this era as the anthropocene.  According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, limiting global warming would require 'rapid and far-reaching' transitions in land, energy, industry, buildings, transport, and cities. Many of these transitions have already begun, but tremendous political will is required to make the dramatic changes required to protect future generations from irreversible harm.

You can make large and small decisions to make an impact.  Environmental protection begins with each of us, but culminates in unified action:

• Inform yourself of the facts. If you want to take action: get educated, listen carefully to everyone from elders to youth, be open to the wisdom of those who do or do not look like you, be persuasive, be conscious, think for yourself, know what you’re talking about and working toward, pay attention, partner with like-minded people and groups, start your own group if you can't find one.
• Inform others of what you’ve learned. In medicine, there’s a saying, “Each one, teach one.” Talk about toxins in indoor and outdoor environments, toxins in the food, air and water, climate change, biodiversity and other earth related concerns with friends and family, community, workplaces and governances. Explain patiently. Write a blog or op-ed. Share on social media. Demand political representatives to choose humanity and the planet over corporate greed in legislation. If you can't find a political representative worthy of support, run for office.
• Vote with your voice and vote with your dollars. Treat every dollar spent like an investment in the world you want. Buy organic. Buy local. Buy small business. Buy sustainable. Buy compostable. Buy conscious. Buy fair trade. Choosing sustainable also means refusing what you understand to be harmful. Boycott bad corporate behavior. Reject marketing manipulations. Donate to environmental causes with your dollars, your time and your attention.

For more ideas, check out our partner Earth Day Network’s Climate Change User’s Guide.