"Green Cities: Where the Future Lives"

The world comes to San Francisco for World Environment Day

Wednesday - Sunday, June 1 - 5.

The United Nations' World Environment Day, celebrated every year on June 5 in more than 100 countries, is marked with a week-long gathering of governments, organizations, and business leaders to focus on improving our environment. San Francisco, birthplace of the United Nations, will be the first city in North America to host the global celebration.

This year's theme recognizes that for the first time in human history the majority of the world's population lives in urbanized areas. This year's event will establish universal benchmarks of urban environmental progress and the tools needed to achieve these targets. The mayors of the world's 100 largest cities will formalize this roadmap in the form of the San Francisco Urban Environmental Accords, to be signed in closing ceremonies June 5.

The Sierra Club is a proud sponsor of the 2005 World Environment Day and is organizing a variety of events during it. By showing leadership on international environmental issues, the Bay Area can rekindle international optimism in America's commitment to the environment. In the face of the Bush administration's hostility to international cooperation and multilateralism, this is an opportunity to reinforce the importance of the United Nations in helping to resolve global challenges, environmental and otherwise.

Help welcome the world and embrace all that the 2005 World Environment Day has to offer - community-wide symposia, seminars, an environmental film festival, arts programming, experiential educational activities, eco-tours, and many other events.

Below is a sampling of Sierra Club-sponsored events. For more details and other events when confirmed, go to www.sierraclub.org/wed or call the Bay Chapter Office at (510) 848-0800.

To see the entire week of official events (numerous and diverse) or to read the Urban Accords, go to www.wed2005.org

"Green City Visions: Rebuilding the City to Save the Environment"

Tuesday, May 31, 9:30 am to 6 pm, Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside Drive, Oakland.

This one-day conference will introduce ideas and propose solutions for how we can restructure our human habitat in the face of climate change and biodiversity collapse. With Carl Pope, Randy Hayes, Richard Heinberg, Michel Gelobter (Redefining Progress), Van Jones, and many others. $50 general admission, $30 students and seniors.

Smart Growth Urban Outing

Thursday, June 2.

Tour North Beach and Telegraph Hill, one of San Francisco's Most Livable Neighborhoods. This smart-growth city walking tour will explore why San Francisco's Northeast is thriving as one of the city's oldest, densest, and most diverse areas.

"Nature in the City"

Friday, June 3, 3:30 - 5 pm, Metreon Center, 101 Fourth Street, San Francisco.

Nature in the city?

Since, for the first time in history, more people now live in urban areas than in the countryside, cities have become increasingly important to the global cause of biodiversity conservation. With their dense populations and cultural diversity, cities are critical for healing the human connection with nature. Cities like San Francisco, where natural places still exist, present ideal opportunities to connect modern urban folk with wild nature "in their own backyard".

The Nature in the City Symposium will promote urban nature conservation and restoration in the world's cities. Public education, community partnership and stewardship, collaboration, government funding, scientific data collection and policy analysis, and advocacy are all integral to successful management of urban natural resources.

The symposium will directly address the importance of nature in urban centers and how, in a social and political context, to protect and restore natural habitats and biodiversity for the benefit of the ecosystem, wildlife, and people. The symposium will inform and inspire leaders of city governments throughout the world, including those in our own nation, to go home and implement the Urban Nature portion of the Urban Environmental Accords. Speakers are to include city leaders from around the world as well as other experts on urban biodiversity.

Sponsored by the Nature in the City Committee, including the Sierra Club.

For more details see www.wed2005.org or call (510) 848-0800.

Luncheon forum at the Commonwealth Club

Friday, June 3, the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco.

A panel discussion about transportation, to be recorded for radio broadcast. Learn how innovative mayors around the world are solving urban transportation challenges.