Join us on January 25: Grandparenting in the Era of Climate Change with Guest Speaker Regina Pally

Join us on January 25:

Grandparenting in the Era of Climate Change

with Guest Speaker Regina Pally

On Thursday January 25,2023 Regina Pally will be interviewed by Climate Action Santa Monica’s Executive Director and Steering Committee Member Laurene Von Klan. Regina will be discussing the importance of Grandparents is in the life of their grandkids and to include her own personal experience and how the people who take care of children help kids manage the stress and anxiety of Climate Change.

Biography of Regina Pally:

Regina Pally is retired from private practice as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and currently engaged in helping the community. She is author of “The Reflective Parent: How to do less and relate more with your kids,” which emphasizes that building and maintaining a strong parent-child relationship is the single most important thing a parent can do for their child. She is Founder of Center for Reflective Communities (CRC), which provides training and educational workshops designed to help parents and other care providers build strong relationships with children by enhancing their capacity to be reflective. Reflective capacity is the uniquely human ability that enables us to make sense of what is going on inside another person and inside ourselves. Regina maintains that being reflective in our relationships with children, leads to greater empathy, understanding, and acceptance and less stress, anger, and aggression, all of which ultimately promotes healthier child development. Regina has 3 adult children, 7 grandchildren and lives with her husband in Santa Monica.

Santa Monica Bay Natural History Tour | December 17

Join us Sunday, December 17 at 9am as we ride along the Santa Monica Beach bicycle trail. We will explore the natural forces and processes that have shaped and are still shaping our coastline. It is a magical science mystery tour that spans millions of years and includes stories about how geology, coastal geomorphology, weather and climate, oceanography, and human impacts have conspired to sculpt some of southern California’s most iconic landscapes.

Join author and Earth Science Professor Emeritus William Selby on this bring or rent your own bike event that should last about three hours.

We start at 9am next to Hot Dog on a Stick near the original Muscle Beach, just “south” of SM Pier. Bring friends, family, and questions to this Everything You Wanted to Know about Nature and Landscapes on the Santa Monica Coast but were Afraid to Ask adventure.  

Climate Literacy in Schools

Climate Literacy in Schools


By Nancy Sanchez


Photo from Santa Monica Daily Press of Team Marine. Credit: Santa Monica High School

On November 2nd Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s Board (SMMUSD) approved a climate literacy resolution proposed by Santa Monica High School’s Team Marine. The resolution by Team Marine requested “age appropriate discussions” in elementary schools while advancing the criteria for deeper discussions of climate issues in secondary schools, as quoted by Santa Monica Daily Press. The Team Marine proposal focused on allowing District teachers to provide hands-on learning with students by having guest speakers, environmental films and various research projects. By students gaining an environmental education in school they can create their own climate actions in their lives and their community.

Past CASM Climate Corps member Maya Williams, who is also a part of  Team Marine, participated in the push for Climate Literacy. She had this to say about Climate Literacy and future plans. “I think for a long time, climate literacy has been somewhat neglected within the climate movement because of the lack of instant gratification: we can calculate and track the immediate changes in emissions when a corporation or entity shifts from fossil fuels to clean energy, for example, but it’s a bit more difficult to measure the impact of educating our students on the topic of the climate crisis and the subsequent ripple effects of their climate education. But knowledge is power, and as a member of Team Marine, I’ve consistently been able to see how students that are informed on the climate crisis tend to be more motivated to take climate action and become civically engaged citizens out of concern for their communities and their planet. Nobody is going to get involved in a cause that they know nothing about, and so if our goal is to have students and young people that are more engaged not only in the climate movement, but also in the fight to create a better world, we need to start allocating the time and resources that are necessary to make climate literacy a priority in our classrooms.”

Nancy Sanchez, one of CASM’s Climate Job Corps fellows, offers this perspective: “As an environmental anthropologist, I believe climate literacy in schools is essential for students to understand their relationship to nature by addressing hands-on learning that can be applied to the world around them. Students should have an understanding of basic climate concepts and apply them to their own lives. This is just the first step of many to educate the current and next generation to mitigate climate change.”

RECORDING: Understanding the Santa Monica Beach Dunes Adaption Project Presentation

Understanding the Santa Monica Beach Dunes Adaption Project Presentation



November’s SAMOCAN is shore to bring excitement!

On Thursday, November 16th, the Santa Monica Climate Action Network welcomed Featured Speaker, Alexandra Tower, Coastal Adaptation Director for The Bay Foundation.  Alex discussed the success of the Beach Dunes Restoration pilot project and proposals to create additional wildlife habitat and protection from rising seas.  Nico Predock (Sustainability Analyst) from the City of Santa Monica, provided the City’s perspective and plans.  Jasmine Contreras, one of CASM’s Climate Fellows, spoke about beach grooming and provide ideas and information for adapting the way we manage the beach.

More About the Featured Speaker:

Alex was born and raised in a southern Californian coastal community, which may explain why she is a life-long advocate of the ocean and coastal environments. With a Master’s degree in Marine Ecology and a PhD in Coastal Dune Plant Physiological Ecology from UCLA, Alex has a keen interest in applying the breadth of her expertise to current environmental issues. Alex works at the interface of education, ecological research and hands-on ecological restoration. She has served in leadership positions for several institutions, and currently serves as a Commissioner on the City of Santa Monica’s Commission on Sustainability, Environmental Justice and the Environment. Alex lives in Santa Monica with her husband and teenage son.

RECORDING: SAMOCAN EVENT What Have our Climate Job Corps Members Been Doing?

RECORDING: SAMOCAN EVENT What Have our Climate Job Corps Members Been Doing?



As a part of CASM’s CJC Nancy Sanchez and Mario Melgarejo have been working on two projects structured around their interests in sustainability by collecting data to document how to move forward. Nancy’s project focused on Zero Waste and the 2019 Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance which seeks to encourage food establishments to have marine degradable food service ware. Mario’s project focused on the trends of different modes of transportation taken by the SAMOHI students.

Share your comments on the Broadway Protected Bike Lane Project!

The City of Santa Monica wants your input! The City has created a simple, interactive tool to collect feedback about improvements to Broadway. The comment period is open from October 17 to November 27, 2023. Use the following link Broadway Protected Bike Lane Project – Feedback Map to submit your input.

This project will see improvements to the bike lanes on Broadway between 5th and 26th streets. It is included in the 2020 Bike Action Plan Amendment’s five-year vision, and intersects with many other protected bikeways included in the plan.

CASM recognizes the importance of safe and extensive bike infrastructure, as well as any measures that helps make the city less dependent on automobiles. The city’s 2022 greenhouse gas inventory showed that 68.5% of carbon emissions in Santa Monica come from vehicles. While total vehicle emissions fell by 19% between 2019 and 2022, the City still has a long way to go to achieve an 80% reduction (below 1990 levels) in total greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, as outlined in the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan. As of 2022, the city has achieved a 48 percent reduction in carbon emissions from 1990 levels.

RECORDING: SAMOCAN with Dana Nuccitelli from Citizen’s Climate Lobby

RECORDING: SAMOCAN with Dana Nuccitelli from Citizen’s Climate Lobby



On October 19, 2023, SAMOCAN hosted Dana Nuccitelli, the Research Coordinator for Citizens Climate Lobby.  Dana is an environmental scientist and climate journalist with a Master’s Degree in physics. He has written about climate change since 2010 for Skeptical Science, for The Guardian from 2013 to 2018, and since 2018 for Yale Climate Connections. In 2015 he published the book ‘Climatology versus Pseudoscience’, and he has also authored ten peer-reviewed climate studies, including a 2013 paper that found a 97% consensus among peer-reviewed climate science research that humans are the primary cause of global warming. With Dana’s experience he will be discussing what National Permitting Reform is and why it will help us reach our climate goals.

More about the speaker:

Dana joined CCL’s staff in 2021 after 9 years as a volunteer with its Sacramento chapter. During that time, he gave dozens of presentations all around California about climate change impacts like wildfires and droughts, and policy solutions like carbon fee and dividend. Dana has also led CCL’s Science Policy Team since 2017. In his free time, Dana enjoys playing tennis and spending time with his dogs. In recognition of his climate journalism and education work, Dana won the prestigious SEAL Environmental Journalism Award in 2022 and the National Center for Science Education Friend of the Planet Award in 2016.

Meet our Steering Committee

Meet our Steering Committee



Laurene Von Klan

Meet our Steering Committee: Laurene Von Klan Executive Director and Steering Committee Member! Growing up in cities, Laurene saw a lot of urban grit and pollution. As a teen,…

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Kent Strumpell

Meet our Steering Committee: Kent Strumpell In the mid 90s, Kent drove a primitive electric vehicle that only went 40 miles on a good day.  Nonetheless, it still served…

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Judy Abdo

Meet our Steering Committee: Judy Abdo Judy Abdo is a founding member of Climate Action Santa Monica. However, Judy Abdo’s experience and accomplishments show her wide reaching commitment to…

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RECORDING: SAMOCAN Event with Michael Schneider

RECORDING: SAMOCAN Event with Michael Schneider



On September 21st SAMOCAN hosted Michael Schneider, a native-born Angeleno, who started Streets For All to change LA’s built environment from being car-centric to being multi-modal. Michael walked us through his story and what led him to start Streets For All. Michael focused on the impact Streets For All is having on the transportation revolution in Los Angeles and how to get involved to change the city for good. This presentation was recorded and is available to view in the video embedded above.

Share your comments on how to improve bike connections in these Westside Mobility Projects!

Share your comments on how to improve bike connections in these Westside Mobility Projects!

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) is partnering with Council District 11 to plan a network of four bikeways connecting Westside neighborhoods and adjacent cities. The bike routes will feature traffic calming measures to make them comfortable for riders of all ages and abilities.


Share your thoughts for a chance to win a FREE bicycle! You’re invited to join LADOT at a community event for a chance to participate. For more information on the project and ways to participate, please visit LADOTWestsideMobility.com