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Our Event Sponsors

A huge thank you to Ample Hills Creamery,  CitiBike, City Winery, Fairway, HERE Arts Center, Insomnia Cookies, Le Grand Rénovateur, Orbit Books, Six Point Brewery, Strand Bookstore, The Tank, Viking Books.

Meet our Master of Ceremony

PETERSON TOSCANO's unique personal journey led him into performance art. After spending 17 years and over $30,000 on three continents attempting to de-gay himself through gay conversion therapy, he came to his senses and came out a quirky queer Quaker concerned with human rights and comedy. His work playfully explores the serious worlds of gender, sexuality, religion, and climate change. The host of Citizens’ Climate Radio, and curator of ClimateStew.com, Peterson also performs live one-person comedies including,  Doin’ Time in the Homo No Mo Halfway House, Does This Apocalypse Make Me Look Fat? and A Queer Response to Climate Change—What Would Walt Whitman Do? His new film, Transfigurations—Transgressing Gender in the Bible, tells the stories of gender non-conforming bible characters. 

Meet our Experts

SONALI MCDERMID is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at New York University. She holds a Ph.D. (2011), and M. Phil. (2011) and an M.A. (2009) from the Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, specializing in Atmospheric Science and Climatology. She holds a B.A. in Physics from NYU (2006). Sonali’s research focuses on understanding interactions between climate change and variability, land-use, and agriculture, with an eye towards identifying and quantifying important feedbacks and uncertainties. She has recently undertaken a number of climate-agroecosystem assessments to quantify the impact of agriculture on global and regional environments, and how climate variability and change impacts food security and livelihoods. Her work strives to identify and contextualize the role of environmental preservation in food and nutrition security, particularly in the South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Previously, Sonali was a NASA Post-Doctoral researcher at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. Her work has appeared in Climate Dynamics, Paleoceanography, Global Change Biology, and Anthropocene, and she presents annually at major conferences and scientific meetings.

KATIE WALSH works at CDP, an international nonprofit organization that focuses investors, companies and cities on taking urgent climate action by measuring and understanding their environmental impact. She works with more than 150 cities and states/regions in the United States and Canada. Katie oversaw the launch of CDP’s “Matchmaker” to accelerate financing climate action projects in global cities. Katie is a NYC chapter lead for Women Investing in a Sustainable Economy and is a co-founder of Sustain the Vote, engaging political candidates to champion climate action. She has worked in the Philadelphia’s Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, the Energy Foundation in China, the U.S. Department of Energy and completed a Fulbright in Taiwan. Katie holds an MA in Urban Planning and an MA in International Energy/Environmental Policy from Tufts University and the Fletcher School.

EDGAR WESTERHOF is Arcadis’ National Director for Flood Risk and Resiliency - North America. Edgar is a water consultant with 18 years of experience in integrated urban water management. He has a deep understanding of urban and industrial flood proofing concepts, infrastructure planning and design, sustainable urban water management and waterfront development and international water management concepts. Edgar was leading the ARCADIS participation in the international HUD Rebuild by Design competition, including the winning BIG U – Waterfront Resiliency Plan of Manhattan. Edgar functions as the climate change adaptation specialist regarding integrated and multi-layered coastal waterfront and urban water management strategies. He bridges the understanding on water management between the Netherlands and the US and plays a key role in the identification and implementation of Arcadis’ local and international flood proofing expertise. As the Flood Risk & Resiliency Lead, Edgar is the Rockefeller Foundation 100RC participation lead and involved in strategic initiatives regarding climate change adaptation and water resiliency concepts. Edgar functions as Arcadis press spokesperson in the NL and US.