Events

Please save the dates below and register for our upcoming events, and share widely with your networks! bit.ly/CleanAirEvents and linktr.ee/cleanairwny

Upcoming Events

Note – we recognize that the following two events are scheduled in conflict, but unfortunately both were planned separately and neither can be rescheduled.

  • September General Meeting – Witness to Injustice (Blanket Exercise) : Wednesday September 23, 5-8pm at Trinity Church, 371 Delaware Ave, Buffalo, NY 14202
    • You can register here.
    • For our September General Meeting, Clean Air will be hosting the “Witness to Injustice: Unraveling Historic Native and US Relations”  interactive group exercise, aka the Blanket Exercise. This is a participatory education event to raise awareness of the history of the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the part of the world now known as the United States. Through the use of meaningful quotes, and blankets that represent part of Turtle Island (the Western Hemisphere), we explore this shared history that most people rarely learn in traditional settings. We engage in a conversation about the European colonization of Turtle Island in order to deepen our understanding of the denial of Indigenous peoples’ nationhood throughout U.S. History.
  • Coalition for Economic Justice Annual Banquet: Wednesday September 23, 5:30-8pm
  • Love Canal at 50 – a Panel on Watchdog Press and Corporate Accountability: Thursday October 1, 6-8pm, doors at 5:30pm, Niagara Arts and Cultural Center 1201 Pine Ave Niagara Falls, please click here to register.
    • Fifty years ago, on October 3, 1976, Michael Brown of the Niagara Gazette first broke the news of a growing concern in the LaSalle community of Niagara Falls – strange chemicals bubbling to the surface and leaking into the basements of people’s homes.
    • Within a couple of years, this initial local beat reporting became an international story about corporate malfeasance, a failure by governmental officials to hold polluters accountable, working class organizing, and subsequent changes to the law, including the passage of The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), aka the Superfund Act.
    • Watchdog journalism and organizing are two parallel but related paths to hold corporations and others in power accountable – and both fields are currently facing repression.
    • In this panel discussion, we will feature a discussion between veteran journalists who covered the original Love Canal crisis, as well as current journalists who today cover environmental polluters, and we will dig in about the importance of watchdog and beat journalism for corporate accountability, as well as how the field has shifted in the past 50 years, for both the better and the worse.
    • The panel will include veteran WIVB reporter Richard Newberg, who will screen some archival interviews with Love Canal organizers and Michael Brown, and current journalists Dale Shoemaker, Mackenzie Schuman, and Dan Tevlock. Mr. Newberg’s interviews are courtesy of RICH NEWBERG/MOMENTS IN TIME VIDEO, INC. and TOM VETTER/TVRE PRODUCTIONS.
    • This event is the first in a series that will be held over the next several years to celebrate the work of the original Love Canal organizers, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their efforts, and to examine how to build off of their work for the next 50 years. If you are interested in learning more about this effort, please visit the webpage here – https://www.cacwny.org/campaigns/love-canal-at-50-lca50/

 

Clean Air’s Events Accessibility Policies

Clean Air strives to make all of our events as accessible as we can within our ability. Many of our members have been directly harmed by polluters and live with related health conditions, and we ask all participants of our events to be mindful of how we can collectively protect our community health. If there are ways in which you believe we can improve our event accessibility, especially if you have specific, actionable requests or resources to share, please let us know.

  • Unless there are technical limitations, such as a lack of wifi at a venue or a hands-on nature for a training, our events are hybrid.
    • During winter months, when respiratory diseases circulate the most and weather is the most erratic, we switch to online-only events.
  • We provide food and beverages at all of our in-person events.
  • With pre-registration, we offer free childcare, translation, and interpretation services during our in-person events. We need to contract for these services, so please pre-register at least a week prior.
  • We provide and encourage wearing masks at all our in-person events, and seek well ventilated spaces.
  • We know sound quality has been an issue at some of our events – we plan to purchase a better portable PA in the near future. If you are having trouble hearing at our events, we encourage signaling to speakers by doing a “raise the roof” hand sign. Live captioning is also available on Zoom, and for hybrid events we activate this function on the screen where we project our slides.
  • We conduct an accessibility check to see how accessible the space is for people who use mobility devices – because we try to have meetings within communities, some spaces might not yet be fully accessible, but we will note those limitations in the description.
    • Trinity Church at 371 Delaware Ave in downtown Buffalo is where we hold most of our events – there is a lift in the courtyard atrium entrance from the street level, and an elevator to the second floor meeting rooms and banquet hall. Bathrooms at Trinity are not yet fully accessible, but there is space to navigate most wheelchairs.
  • We seek venues that are accessible by bike and public transit in addition to driving, and that have accessible parking, and time our events to end while bus services are still available.