The League of Women Voters of Diablo Valley, 350 Contra Costa and the Contra Costa County Library presented a special webinar, Thinking About Our Post-Pandemic World: Ensuring a Just Recovery for Contra Costa County. This panel discussion took place Thursday, May 28 from 3:00-4:00 via Zoom. Go to https://youtu.be/RuDlis4JHo4 to see the video of the panel discussion. A recording of the discussion is also available on the Contra Costa County Library Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ccclib, or on the Library's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/theccclib. 

Description of the Topic and Panelists:

The COVID-19 pandemic and related economic crisis are unfolding as our country continues to face a deepening climate emergency and extreme inequality that this moment lays bare. While we face the immediate crisis of dealing with COVID-19 in our lives and communities, we also need to be thinking of answers to questions on the longer-term challenges, such as:

■ How can local communities in Contra Costa prepare and support a recovery that accelerates moving toward a healthier, more equitable and clean-energy future?

■ How do we ensure that the communities most vulnerable and impacted by COVID-19 participate in and are a key part of the recovery?

■ What can we do, as leaders and community members, to support transformative solutions to our social, environmental and economic challenges?

Panelists who will discuss this important topic:

◇ Beth Sawin, a biologist with a PhD from MIT, is Co-Founder and Co-Director of the internationally recognized think tank, Climate Interactive. She is an expert on solutions that address climate change while also improving health, well-being, equity, and economic vitality and originated the term “multisolving” to describe such win-win solutions. Dr Sawin is in demand as a speaker and publishes widely, from the Stanford Social Innovation Review to U.S. News. She led the scientific team that offered the first assessment of the sufficiency of country pledges to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2008.

◇ Cynthia Mahoney is a physician educator who lives in Danville. She taught and practiced medicine at Stanford and holds the title of Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine (ret). Dr. Mahoney serves as an Advocate for The Medical Societies Consortium on Climate and Health, is a leader with Citizen’s Climate Lobby and is a cofounder of Climate Health Now – doctors and health professionals in California who "recognize climate change as the public health and equity emergency of our lifetimes”.

◇ Supervisor Diane Burgis is serving her first term on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, representing the largest of the five districts, covering Antioch, Bethel Island, Brentwood, Byron, Discovery Bay, Knightsen, and Oakley in East Contra Costa County and Blackhawk, Diablo and Tassajara Valley in the southern portion of the district. Her priorities include preservation of the county’s agricultural core, transportation infrastructure, timely emergency response and effective, efficient delivery of services.

◇ Mariana Moore serves as Director of the Ensuring Opportunity to End Poverty in Contra Costa, a cross-sector initiative bringing collective focus to eliminating poverty in our community. Prior to this, Mariana served as director of the Human Services Alliance of Contra Costa, a coalition of community-based organizations that work in partnership with the local government to meet the needs of low-income residents. Her background includes consulting in strategic counsel, facilitation, and capacity building services to social sector groups and coalitions.