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Students share motivations ahead of Youth Climate Strike

by OrvilleMcfall Posted on March 14, 2019

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Young people around the globe are gearing up for the International Youth Climate Strike on Friday, March 15. Students at tens of thousands of schools are expected to leave their classes and take the streets to demand world leaders act on climate change.

The global movement started last year when Swedish teen Greta Thunberg, who was just nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, began a solo protest calling for climate change action by holding up handmade signs outside her country’s Parliament every Friday. Thunberg’s actions sparked the hashtag #FridaysForFuture — now a worldwide youth climate movement.

Following last month’s massive youth walkouts in Europe, the March 15 Youth Climate Strike will now bring the school-based environmental action stateside. According to the U.S. website for the strike, the students’ demands include a Green New Deal that will prioritize communities most impacted by climate change, a 100 percent renewable energy target by 2030, and comprehensive education on the impacts of climate change.

“It’s important to talk about what climate change does to marginalized communities, and what it could do to your community,” said Isra Hirsi, one of the U.S. co-leaders of the walkout who also happens to be the 16-year-old daughter of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. “I think that’s a really great way to get more people involved.”

As united as Friday’s protests will be in their call for meaningful climate action, the reasons young people have for participating are also grounded in their regions’ unique climate concerns. Grist reached out to Youth Climate Strike organizers around the country to get a sense on why they’re participating and how climate change is impacting their communities.

The following quotes have been edited for clarity and length.

Image courtesy of Aditi Narayanan

Aditi Narayanan, 16 – Phoenix, AZ

I have seen the impact of climate change on my community members, such as extreme heat and lack of trees in urban, more low-income, majority-POC areas in South Phoenix. Extreme heat, lack of water, the use of solar energy, and fracking are all huge issues on the Arizona state legislature’s plate right now.

Solar energy is one I care about most, as Arizona is so capable of using solar energy, but big energy companies are disincentivizing consumers from using solar, and in turn promoting fossil fuels. [Adults here] have had mixed responses, but, disregarding some not-so-nice online comments, most have been nothing but supportive.

Chelsea Li, 18 – Seattle, WA

Here in North Seattle, we definitely are more concerned about the issue compared to other parts of the country. But it’s kind of ironic — we have a fairly privileged perspective. Even though we emit the most greenhouse gases with our lifestyles, we’re not the ones who are most impacted compared to people living on islands that are going to flood or need to be relocated, or climate refugees. I feel like, even though — our community, even in Seattle, does care about the issue, the amount of caring doesn’t match the amount it’s talked about.

Climate change will be brought up in classes, of course, but outside of that, no — it’s weird, to me it’s such a pressing issue! Why isn’t everyone talking about it all the time? I don’t feel like it’s talked about that much. Not only at my school, but outside of that in the greater community either.

Image courtesy of Athena Fain

Athena Fain, 15 – Seattle, WA

These past couple weeks have been spent going to a lot of club meetings, trying to spread the word [about the strike] at my school. I want the strike to be a diverse movement because marginalized people get left out of climate movement, so I’ve been going to the Black Student Union, the Human Rights Club, the Gay-Straight Alliance, and telling them about it.

For me, it’s not just me trying to protect my future, it’s trying to protect my [present]. I’ve been doing climate activism for five years. People in government and people who have power in society, they’re not taking the proper actions. I care about the environment and nature and I love the world around me but the biggest thing I care about is humans. I want us not only to be able to survive but to prosper. If we allow this to continue, that won’t be an option.

Nadja Goldberg, 15 – San Francisco, CA

(Goldberg was one of the students who gathered to ask California Senator Dianne Feinstein to support the Green New Deal. She and the group will be marching from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to Feinstein’s office. She says students plan to put sticky notes on either the politicians’ doors or the doors of the building.)

We were there with a small group of people on a Friday, and now we are coming back with thousands. I hope.

Image courtesy of Virginia Gaffney

Virginia Gaffney, 19 – Austin, TX

Texas summers have been getting progressively warmer every year for longer than my entire lifetime. It’s getting to the point where we’re breaking 110, 115 degrees F during the day. We’re going way too long without rain so everything is evaporating, but then it gets caught in the coastal winds because Texas has a significant coastline. It’s all being pushed away. So there are areas that are getting flooded and areas that have been in a drought for a decade.

Texas covers just about every major biome. We have Hill Country, coastal plains, forest, desert, marshland. Because of that [climatic] divide and [with half the state] getting too much rain and the other no rain at all, Texas faces the unique problem of not being able to make any direct action at the legislative level so far because when you tell the Eastern half we need to do something about the drought, they say, ‘What drought?’ And when you tell the Western half of the state, ‘Hey, we need to do something about the flooding, they say, ‘What flooding.’

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Melissa Patterson, 20, Portland, OR

For some students, leaving school for one day is a very taxing ask, so there are some concerns about unexcused absences during the walkout — although, that is what makes the event so powerful. This is a global movement encouraging young people to advocate for a safe future, so in perspective, many young people are eager to miss a day of school to participate. Portland Community College has been receptive to the idea, and local high schools have also been generally cooperative in allowing us to promote the strike.

It has been challenging to get this movement the momentum it deserves in the U.S. In other countries, it has really taken off. Considering the enormous role our country plays in climate change, the success of this event and future events involved with this movement is vital to the future of young generations.

Image courtesy of Shania Hurtado

Shania Hurtado, 16 – Houston, TX

I live in Houston and recently, in 2017, Hurricane Harvey devastated our city. It was a time when my family and my friends were in a state of fear. It was terrible. This is truly why I’m striking. It’s why I’m organizing the strike. It’s something that affects me personally and we have the power to prevent and we should do something about it.

Climate very rarely comes up in the classroom. It’s come up on occasion. Ninety-nine percent of the research I’ve done on climate change, I’ve done on my own. The school system was very lacking. If schools were involved in teaching climate change then we wouldn’t have this doubt and we wouldn’t have this negligence we have today. That’s one of the biggest parts. Education is power.

With that being said, Texas is strong. We are all so very passionate. Especially because Texas has so much oil and gas, it’s important that we acknowledge this. We really believe that we can make this change as long as our voices are united in one single front.

Gudrun Campbell. Image courtesy of Elizabeth Stark.

Gudrun Campbell, 11 – Charlottesville, VA

I’m choosing to participate because time is running out. We have 11 years to save our planet, and it’s the only planet we have. We cannot spend precious time, of which we have too little, in silence. We must fight for our futures if others will not.

The main local issues are stopping the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Mountain Valley Pipeline and divesting from fossil fuels. I think stopping the pipelines is important because it’s a way to combat the fossil fuel industry at a more local level and in an achievable and impactful way. The pipelines have also raised issues of environmental racism.

My parents have been pretty supportive from the start. I think I first started getting into environmental activism when my teacher showed us a video of Greta Thunberg giving a speech. She told a room full of adults that they were acting like children. When I got home I showed the video to my parents, and a few weeks later, my mom showed me an article about Alexandria Villaseñor and the school strike, and I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.’

Sabirah Mahmud

Sabirah Mahmud, 16 – Philadelphia, PA

“It’s really important for every single student in America to have their voice heard. [There are] definitely barriers. People tell us that we can’t change climate change because we’re just kids. Of course, we know we can’t vote but we still have a voice. We still have the ability to stand up for something. We need to stand up for our right to protect our future, and I’m just baffled. It’s often very discouraging.

The strike isn’t just an opportunity to leave school or to walk out, it’s an opportunity to make change. All my life I’ve been asked, ‘What are you going to do in the future? What are you gonna do when you grow up?’ I can’t really think about the future with all this. It’s really ironic. That’s why it’s really important for this to happen, not only just Philadelphia but everywhere. Because we are the young people, the next generation and we need to take action now.”

Image courtesy of Kendall Greene

Kendall Greene, 17 – Atlanta

I’m striking for my future, for the air that I breathe, for the land that my grandparents have been living on, and for the land that my children, I hope, can live on.

I’m really passionate about food and food justice and specifically how marginalized communities are impacted by food and food scarcity and food security (and lack of food security). Just thinking about farmers in Georgia and how they recently dealt with a drought last year and the year before with peaches and pecans. I just don’t know what that looks like long term for farmers and people that rely on that mode of work, being in the South, being in Georgia. I’m really passionate about a lot of the organic farms here and locally-owned farms. I prefer to get my food from farmers markets, and I’m worried about how they’ll be impacted if climate catastrophe is on the way.

The adults in my life have been supportive [of my striking]. My mom has been really supportive. We’re about to go to a talk at a church about the morality of climate change tonight. At my school, they’ve been incredibly supportive — one of my teachers actually introduced this movement to me. I’m the leader of our sustainability group, “The Green Team,” and they’re hosting their own strike during lunch. But I want to connect the whole city of Atlanta at the Capitol.

Additional reporting by Eve Andrews,  Justine Calma, Teresa Chin, Eric Holthaus, Nathanael Johnson, Naveena Sadasivam, Zoe Sayler, Nikhil Swaminathan, and Claire Thompson.

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Students share motivations ahead of Youth Climate Strike

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In the Green New Deal era, everyone has a climate ‘plan’ (even the right)

by ClaudeBirchell Posted on March 13, 2019

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In a tweet re-upping her support for a Green New Deal, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand pointed out that our political leaders have spent too long ignoring the topic of climate change. “Not one climate change question was asked in the 2016 presidential debates,” she wrote on Monday. “We can’t wait any longer to treat this like the urgent, existential threat it is, and to push bold ideas to transform our economy and save our planet.”

A lot can change in three years. Ever since New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey unveiled the targets of a Green New Deal — a national economic strategy to tackle warming and rising inequality — climate change has become a hot topic in Washington, D.C. Regardless of whether Congress ever passes any future Green New Deal legislation, the buzz around the plan has rocketed climate change near the top of the list of priorities for 2020 Democrats, Gillibrand included, and plopped the issue squarely on the national stage.

But not everyone is gung ho about the green utopia AOC and Markey outlined — a future in which workers are protected by unions, employed in high-paying green jobs, and covered by universal health care. Members of the GOP have not held back their disgust for the proposal. There’s already an endless reel of Fox News clips bashing Democrats for supporting a “socialist plot” to ban cows, airplanes, and everything else that sparks joy in the Republican party.

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Not to be outdone by social-media savvy progressives, a few moderates and right-wingers have come out with their own alternatives. Anything worth writing home about? Let’s take a look.

Michael Bloomberg

Much like his dream of putting a tax on Big Soda, the former Big Apple mayor’s presidential aspirations didn’t quite work out. He recently announced in an op-ed that he won’t enter the race, citing an overly crowded Democratic field as his main reason. His plan, instead, is to keep shoring up an initiative he started with the Sierra Club in 2016: a campaign to retire America’s coal plants called Beyond Coal. He’s also planning a new project called Beyond Carbon, although details on what exactly that entails are still fizzy, err, fuzzy.

Bloomberg took a minute to appraise the Green New Deal in his op-ed, boldly predicting what many others have already surmised: The current Senate will never pass it. “Mother Nature does not wait on our political calendar,”  he wrote, “and neither can we.”

John Kasich

The former governor of Ohio and once-and-maybe future Republican presidential candidate penned an op-ed of his own this week in USA Today. Of the Green New Deal, Kasich wrote, “Many Republicans and even some Democrats fear it would stifle economic growth and kill jobs, set off a massive redistribution of wealth, and dangerously centralize federal government power.”

Kasich makes the case that a more moderate series of market-based approaches will do a better job of tamping down rampant global warming. He calls for reducing methane emissions, continuing subsidies for electric vehicles, incentivizing more natural gas production, and doubling down on cap-and-trade.

Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin

The Alaska Republican and West Virginia Republ … [checks notes] … Democrat collaborated on an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for action on climate change. The senators did not mention the Green New Deal in their call to arms. Instead, they opted to emphasize the importance of bipartisanship in developing climate solutions. “We come from different parties, but we are both avid outdoorsmen and represent states that take great pride in the resources we provide to the nation and to friends and allies around the world,” the duo wrote.

Now, you may be thinking, didn’t Murkowski recently revel in President Trump’s decision to slip a provision into the tax reform bill opening up the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling? And hasn’t Joe Manchin voted anti-environment many times in the not-too-distant past? Correct on both fronts. So it’s not particularly surprising that the op-ed doesn’t offer much in the way of substantive climate solutions beyond the idea of “bipartisanship.”

The senators put their reaching-across-the-aisle plan in action by bashing the Green New Deal together at a global energy conference in Houston on Monday. Manchin said it had “no contents at all.” And Murkowski called the deal “distracting.” Instead, the two senators are laser-focused on a … carbon tax? Nope — in reply to a question posed by Axios’ Amy Harder, they each said they’re not ready to support that market-based solution yet, either.

Ernest Moniz and Andy Karsner

By contrast, a CNBC commentary co-written by Moniz, who served as secretary of energy under Obama, and Karsner, who was George W. Bush’s assistant secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, offers a slew of solutions. The authors propose a “Green Real Deal,” which prioritizes innovation, the need for region-specific climate solutions, and low-carbon technologies — including an increased reliance on natural gas and nuclear. (Editor’s note: Andy Karsner is a managing partner at Emerson Collective, one of Grist’s funders.)

“The mission is clear: Action is urgently needed to set and follow high-impact pathways to a low-carbon future,” Moniz and Karsner wrote on Monday. “We must, however, strive for a broader public consensus that respects local differences and allows all citizens equal opportunity to build a prosperous, fair, safe,and secure low-carbon future.”

John Barrasso

The Wyoming senator and chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works — who has labeled the Green New Deal “a raw deal” — published an op-ed in USA Today calling for more investment in nuclear and carbon-capture technologies. In it, he quoted an exorbitant price tag for the Green New Deal that, according to Politico, was effectively pulled from thin air by a conservative think tank. Barrasso also called the proposal “a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin, weakening our economy and making us dependent on foreign energy.” Tell us how you really feel, buddy.

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In the Green New Deal era, everyone has a climate ‘plan’ (even the right)

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The world lost environmental leaders on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

by MaynardChristie Posted on March 12, 2019

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The world lost environmental leaders on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

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Trump’s ‘Budget for a better America’ means worse climate change

by UCNMatthia Posted on March 11, 2019

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It’s budget day, and, well, oy vey. President Trump unveiled his “Budget for a Better America” Monday — and it’s giving everyone a serious case of déjà vu.

To the surprise of no one, Trump’s proposed budget would take an ax to many domestic programs — $650 million in programs and activities compared to current funding levels — including several environmental and energy-related activities. The total cost of programs that would be slashed is in the billions, but much of it is countered by a major boost to national security spending.

After Congress told Trump he couldn’t have for $5.7 billion to build his wall, he’s gone and asked for $8.6 billion for a barricade on the U.S.-Mexico border. (The art of the deal, folks!)

Here’s just some of what’s outlined in Trump’s proposal:

A 31 percent reduction in spending at the Environmental Protection Agency. Slashing the agency’s budget keeps his promises on the campaign trail to cut back on enforcement actions that hurt the bottom line of the fossil fuel industry.
The Department of Energy would see an 11 percent decrease from current funding, to $31.7 billion. That smaller budget would mean cuts to the DOE’s well-known innovation arm, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, which is instrumental in developing world-class energy technology needed to help curb climate change.
The Interior Department — now under the helm of newly-minted director (and oil lobbyist) David Bernhardt — would see a 14 percent cut, to $12.5 billion.
A repeal of the tax credit for electric vehicles
Selling off the Washington Aqueduct, which provides water to the metro D.C. area.
Privatizing federally owned transmission lines

On the plus side, lawmakers have declined to enact most of Trump’s previous funding requests. Now that Democrats are in the majority in the House, it’s even more likely this budget is going nowhere.

“This budget is the Republican approach to governing in a nutshell: Cut taxes for the super-rich and then, when it’s time to fund national priorities, lecture us about tightening our belts,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona, in a statement. “If you think environment conservation is an unaffordable luxury, you’ll love this plan. This isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, it’s dead on arrival in Congress, and printing it was a waste of time.”

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Trump’s ‘Budget for a better America’ means worse climate change

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The World Without Us – Alan Weisman

by Myrna Posted on March 9, 2019

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The World Without Us

Alan Weisman

Genre: Environment

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: July 10, 2007

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Seller: Macmillan


A penetrating, page-turning tour of a post-human Earth In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us.In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe. The World Without Us reveals how, just days after humans disappear, floods in New York's subways would start eroding the city's foundations, and how, as the world's cities crumble, asphalt jungles would give way to real ones. It describes the distinct ways that organic and chemically treated farms would revert to wild, how billions more birds would flourish, and how cockroaches in unheated cities would perish without us. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders from rabbis to the Dali Lama, and paleontologists—who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna like giant sloths that stood taller than mammoths—Weisman illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us. From places already devoid of humans (a last fragment of primeval European forest; the Korean DMZ; Chernobyl), Weisman reveals Earth's tremendous capacity for self-healing. As he shows which human devastations are indelible, and which examples of our highest art and culture would endure longest, Weisman's narrative ultimately drives toward a radical but persuasive solution that needn't depend on our demise. It is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and in posing an irresistible concept with both gravity and a highly readable touch, it looks deeply at our effects on the planet in a way that no other book has.

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The World Without Us – Alan Weisman

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What’s the catch? With seafood, it’s often a mystery.

by TracyHosking Posted on March 7, 2019

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That last time you ordered the sea bass, odds are you got some other denizen of the deep — maybe an endangered species. In a report out Thursday, the advocacy organization Oceana suggests that fish fraud is rampant. That, in tandem with climate change, poses a dangerous threat to the world’s food supply

Over the course of a monthslong investigation, Oceana took 449 samples of seafood from restaurants, grocery stores, and markets, then sequenced their DNA to see what species they really were. One in every five fish tested had been mislabeled. More than half of the fish called “sea bass” were something else, often Nile perch, or giant tilapia. A third of the fish on the menu labelled “Alaskan halibut” — a thriving fishery — was Atlantic halibut, a species struggling to recover from overfishing.

“To guarantee that we still have fish in the future, we need to make sure that the seafood we are eating is properly labeled,” said Kimberly Warner, senior scientist at Oceana.” “Without that transparency we can’t tell if it is legally attained, implicated in human rights abuses, or safe,”

It’s one of two major threats to the world’s seafood supply, a vital source of nutrition for half the world’s population. Thanks to climate change warming the oceans, the amount of fish people could sustainably catch is now 1.4 million metric tons less than it was in 1930, according to a recent study. The mislabeling monkeyshines make the problem worse, thwarting efforts to police overfishing, and protect vulnerable fish stocks.

In an effort to clamp down on fraudulent labelling last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration started monitoring imports of 13 species of fish, including bluefin tuna, abalone, and dolphinfish. But the Oceana testing shows that fraud still abounds where the government isn’t looking.

The flimflam schemes allows miscreants to hide rule breaking and environmental damage, and it also hurts regular eaters, Warner said.

“Diners in the Great Lakes region are thinking they are getting a freshly caught local species,” she said, “and instead they are getting something that’s been shipped halfway around the world.”

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What’s the catch? With seafood, it’s often a mystery.

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Our planet just set a scary new carbon dioxide record

by FredricKasper Posted on March 6, 2019

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Our planet’s level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a new, jarring record last month. Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced on Tuesday that February’s average carbon dioxide measurement was 411.66 parts per million as measured in Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

Since humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions were at an all-time high last year, a new record was expected. What was shocking was that it occurred so early in the year: Earth’s carbon dioxide levels typically peak in May, when the vast northern forests of North America and Asia are just beginning to green up. Setting a new record in February is “rare,” according to Scripps.

“In most years, the previous maximum is surpassed in March or April. The February record breaking is a measure of just how fast CO2 has been rising in the past months,” said Scripps CO2 Group Director Ralph Keeling, in a statement. The suddenness of this year’s record is the result of “the combination of weak El Nino conditions and unprecedented emissions from fossil-fuel burning,” according to Keeling.

This year’s carbon dioxide level is expected to peak around 415 parts per million in May.

There hasn’t been this much carbon dioxide in our planet’s atmosphere since before cars started clogging the roads a century ago, before agriculture was developed 10,000 years ago, and before modern humans evolved more than a million years ago. We have reached not only a new phase of civilizational history, but a new phase of our species’ history.

In recent years, the rise in the planet’s carbon dioxide levels has picked up speed. That’s in line with scientists’ predictions of a planet creeping toward dangerous and irreversible tipping points, and highlights the dangers of collective foot-dragging on shifting to a carbon-free economy.

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Our planet just set a scary new carbon dioxide record

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The latest Democratic contender is all climate all the time

by Del6306210 Posted on March 1, 2019

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Washington Governor Jay Inslee announced he was running for president on Friday from the warehouse of a solar company in South Seattle — a historically diverse area of the Pacific Northwestern hub.

The event was more press conference, less political rally, and almost strikingly devoid of bells and whistles — especially compared to the splashy announcements held by other presidential hopefuls, like Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Attendees followed the sound of chatter behind A&R Solar’s street-front office to a work yard out back, where the sun beat down on stacks of solar panel building materials. Journalists, Seattle-area politicians, A&R employees, and a few politically inclined citizens crowded onto the warehouse floor, where Inslee, positioned in front of a solar array, spoke for around 30 minutes about the issue he’s building his campaign around.

“We have one chance to defeat climate change, and it is right now,” he said. “It is my belief that when you have one chance, you take it.”

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Inslee is hoping to set himself apart from the increasingly crowded 2020 Democratic field by running as the climate change candidate. “There is no other issue that touches so much of what we care about,” Inslee told the raucous crowd of roughly 100 people. “It’s just as much a matter of equity as it is a matter of ecology.”

By using climate as a lens for approaching issues that might hot closer to home for many voters — like health care, jobs, education — Inslee is positioning his platform to appeal beyond just the environmentally-inclined. “Climate change is not more important than the economy,” he said, noting that his focus on climate doesn’t make him a single-issue candidate. “It is the economy.”

His track record as Washington’s progressive, climate-oriented governor could help him galvanize support for his presidential bid. “If America wants to see a Washington that actually works,” Inslee said, “look West to Washington state.”

Case in point, as he made his announcement, the Washington state senate voted to approve clean energy legislation proposed by the governor. The bill will eliminate natural gas and coal from the state’s energy mix by 2045. A few hours after he left the stage, a second of his climate bills, a proposal to reduce hydrofluorocarbons — a group of especially powerful industrial greenhouse gases — passed the House 55 to 39. Still, Inslee has supported multiple failed efforts to pass a carbon tax in Washington, including a ballot measure that voters rejected this past November.

In his remarks, Inslee made reference to the Green New Deal — a plan to deal with warming and jumpstart the economy that is popular among progressives and a clutch of high-profile 2020 candidates — as evidence that climate is becoming a household issue. “Americans are calling for this,” he said. “Americans are mobilizing across the country.”

But the governor did not explicitly endorse the proposal. Instead, he unveiled a four-pronged plan to tackle rising temperatures that has a great deal in common with the Green New Deal resolution introduced into Congress earlier this month by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey last month.

  1. Power the economy with “100 percent clean, renewable, and carbon-free energy.” The governor did not say when such a goal would be accomplished or whether more controversial clean energy sources, like nuclear or hydro, are included in his vision of a green America.
  2. Create millions of jobs in green industries. Inslee laid out the outline of a green jobs plan that takes advantage of what each state has to offer. “We are going to build electric cars in Michigan, build and install wind turbines in Iowa,” he said, “and solar right here in Washington state.”
  3. Justice and inclusion. Communities of color are often on the frontlines of climate change and are frequently left out of the picture by politicians, Inslee said, adding, “Everyone benefits from new jobs and investment.”
  4. No more subsidies for fossil fuels. “I have a message for the oil and gas interests,” Inslee said, setting up one of the morning’s biggest applause lines. “That gravy train is over.”

Inslee pledged not to take any money from the fossil fuel industry throughout his campaign, and he upped the ante for his prospective presidency: “Not one nickel of taxpayer dollars will go toward subsidizing oil and gas.”

The Democrat, who until recently was chair of the Democratic Governors Association, took a break from climate change to discuss paid family leave, health care, taking on the NRA, and legalizing marijuana nationwide. But he quickly came back to his climate platform.

While the governor’s unyielding emphasis on climate change might be a turn-off for some, those who came to hear him speak seemed enthusiastic about his laser-focused platform. “I think it’s a great idea,” said Kim Mead, head of the Washington Education Association, an 82,000-member teachers union. “It’s something we haven’t been paying enough attention to, and it’s something that’s the future for our kids, too.”

Inslee’s bear-hugging of climate has won him the support of Charlie Lapham, the 28-year-old director of communications at the Martin Luther King County Labor Council. “There are a lot of candidates in the Democratic field supporting climate,” he said. “They say it’s this issue that’s going to threaten our existence, but then it’s their number-four or five priority.”

Jesse Anderson, a 34-year-old project engineer at A&R Solar, hasn’t quite made up his mind if he’s supporting Inslee for president, but he likes a lot of what he hears. “I feel like he supports the cause for the industry that I work for,” he said.

Still, Anderson isn’t quite on the same page as Inslee about climate change being the number one priority for the nation. That sentiment is among the biggest challenges to the Washington governor’s candidacy, in addition to low name recognition and the fact that he’s executive of one of the deepest of blue states.

“There’s a lot of priorities,” Anderson said. “I think it’s definitely up there.”

For Inslee, obviously, nothing else comes close to stopping climate change. To wit, as those assembled made their way out of the warehouse and onto the street, a man quipped about the governor’s speech: “It sure was easy to figure out what his priorities were.”

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The latest Democratic contender is all climate all the time

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4 black women leaders on climate, justice, and the green ‘Promised Land’

by CharoleXSH Posted on February 27, 2019

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Black leaders have long been pioneers in protecting communities and the environment — from Harriet Tubman, who in the mid-1800s used her knowledge of the natural world to guide escaped slaves north, to landfill protesters in Warren County, North Carolina in 1982 who galvanized the modern environmental justice movement. Yet despite these contributions to the larger green movement, black activists and scholars are not always given their due.

It’s well documented that black neighborhoods and other communities of color are disproportionately affected by a changing climate, amplifying existing disparities related to race, gender, and class. And while environmental justice advocates have been active on the grassroots level for many years, resolutions like the Green New Deal are now shining a national spotlight on the need for a more socially holistic, dare we say “woke,” approach to shaping climate policy.

Grist’s Justice Desk reporters spoke with four leading black activists and scholars in the environmental movement about what this moment means for their communities:

Adrienne Hollis, Lead Climate Justice Analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists
Jacqueline Patterson, Director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program
Leslie Fields, Director- Environmental Justice and Community Partnerships at the Sierra Club
Mary Annaïse Heglar, Director Of Publications at the Natural Resources Defense Council

This discussion has been edited for clarity and length.

Grist: What does environmental justice mean to you? How does identity inform your work?

Adrienne: Environmental justice means protecting everyone; Minorities [and] communities of color have traditionally been disproportionately impacted by environmental threats [but have] traditionally had no voice in the environmental arena. I’m from Mobile, Alabama. I grew up in the shadow of paper mills during a time when there were certain places we as black people couldn’t go — certain beaches were off limits to us and the like. I bring that perspective to my work.

Mary: To me, environmental justice is just plain justice. I can’t imagine a type of justice that doesn’t include the environment. As a black woman from the Deep South, I’m drawn to tell the stories of the most vulnerable communities because I was very aware that if someone else is suffering, that’s not far away from me. If it’s not your problem now it will be at some point.

Leslie: I really love E.J. because you can be a kid, you can be a grandmama, an abuela, a professional person — anybody can do it. That makes it messy and complicated but that’s also what makes really beautiful: anybody can get involved to preserve their natural and cultural environment. The people in their communities, they know what they’re doing. We try really hard to do what we can to support them and they have the solutions on the ground. The problem is when they don’t get to lead.

Grist: Climate is increasingly on the national radar, including its justice lens. What are some of the challenges and successes you’re seeing at this moment?

Jacqueline: I am inspired by some of the work that’s happening at the local level connecting various social justice issues with environmental issues. The NAACP [along with groups Positive Impact and GRID Alternatives] worked with the Department of Corrections to do training in solar installation for folks while they were incarcerated. That resulted in people having skills to be placed in jobs as they came out of incarceration.

Leslie: There are so many communities [where issues] just keep piling on like Cancer Alley or Houston Ship Channel or down on the border. It’s all globalized. The impacts are very severe and then climate disruption is the threat multiplier, exacerbates all inequalities. What’s annoying with the mainstream environmental groups is that they have the privilege of not worrying about these other things because they’ve already got their good housing, they’ve already got good representation, they already got their good jobs.

Mary: I think that part of the problem with the environmental movement is it thinks of itself as a silo [from other movements]. I think of it as different heads of the same dragon. We need to build a more inclusive [environmental] movement that allows black people to bring their whole selves to the movement. So if I’m going to join the environmental movement, I need to be able to talk about Black Lives Matter. I need to be able to talk about reproductive rights. We need to be able to talk about all these other things that come to the forefront for me as a whole human being.

Adrienne: One of the big problems that I see is funding. There’s very little to no money going to groups that are trying to protect vulnerable communities.

Grist: Mary, your article “Sorry, Y’all, but Climate Change Ain’t the First Existential Threat” really stuck with us. Can you say more about why you wrote this article now?

Mary: I was reading Martin Luther King and I saw like all of these parallels because I now see the world through climate-colored glasses. To me, the parallels are blinding.

Jacqueline: This is all part of the same dispossession, displacement, exploitation pattern that is happening with black and brown peoples, indigenous peoples, and the earth itself. I think making all those ties [in the article] was brilliant. We really do need to continue to hammer home that racism [as well as] the exploitation of the earth [are] part and parcel of the same dominating forces.

Mary: I’m also encouraged by the youth activists, the strikers all over the world, as well as the women of color in Congress right now because they are not taking any prisoners on their way to get climate action. I love it.

Leslie: We have to find balance and we have to take care of ourselves for the long haul. I’m optimistic about all these great young people who are gonna take us to the Promised Land. We got you to the mountaintop, you all got to take us to the Promised Land, speaking of Martin Luther King Jr.

Adrienne: I do have hope that, well, I didn’t think they were gonna take us all the way to the Promised Land but I’m glad that there are fresh voices and they are being heard. Unless things change (and I hope they do) — they’re going to be in this fight for a long time even after the older among us are gone.

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4 black women leaders on climate, justice, and the green ‘Promised Land’

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6 Ways You Can Help Endangered Species (Starting with a Call to Your Governor)

by EldonXLCNwqut Posted on February 26, 2019

Extinction is a natural phenomenon. Thank goodness. Unless you’re a six-year-old kid, chances are you’re relieved that dinosaurs no longer roam the earth.

But scientists estimate we’re losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the normal rate. To put that in perspective, the normal rate is one to five species per year.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, our planet is now in the midst of its sixth mass extinction of plants and animals. It might be hard to imagine, but were it not for a landmark decision in 1973, the situation could be even more dire.

Unfortunately, the Endangered Species Act ?which boasts a 99 percent success rate? is under political threat.?That means things could get worse really quickly.?We need to band together to help protect endangered species in whatever way we can.

Urging your governor to stand up for the Act?is one way to?help,?and there are lots of other things you can do to make a difference to the planet and its inhabitants.

How to Help Endangered Species

The sad reality is that 99 percent of currently threatened species are at risk as a result of human activity. On the bright side, this means we have the power to?turn the tide on extinction by changing our behavior.

A somewhat idealistic outlook, I’ll agree, but imagine if everyone made?a few simple changes to the way they lived.

Don’t panic, I’m not suggesting an off-the-grid Luddite existence. I love outrageously overpriced coffee as much as the next person.

What we need to do?is look beyond our immediate reality?and consider?that our actions and choices impact the world around us. It may not always be apparent when you’re rushing to work, dropping off kids and chasing deadlines, but we’re all connected.

These are things we should all do to protect endangered species. If we don’t, it won’t just be at the expense of the animals. The food on our plates is at risk too.

Image?Credit: Net Credit

1. Call Your Governor

Call or email your state’s governor and urge them to?stand up for the Endangered Species Act. Earthjustice has a form that makes it easy to send a quick email voicing your support. Never called an elected official before? This handy guide can help you get ready.

2. Learn about Endangered Species in Your Area

Endangered animals don’t only exist in far-flung places, like the Amazon Rainforest or Indonesia. Habitat loss, poaching and pollution affect hundreds of species in the USA, too. Take the time to learn about the wildlife, birds, fish and plants in your area.

Sometimes grasping the proximity of a problem?can help spur us into action. When you know your lifestyle choices have a direct impact on the wildlife in your area, you’ll be less inclined to opt for convenience.

3. Nurture Your Backyard Ecosystem

Find out how you can help the ecosystem in your own backyard thrive. Plant an environmentally friendly garden, use natural pest control methods. Capture rainwater for irrigation purposes. Favor plants over lawn. Do everything you can to make a place pollinators want to hang out.

4. Stop Using Plastic

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. produces 32 million tons of plastic waste a year. No wonder 700 marine species are at risk of extinction because of plastic. Ditch the convenience of single-use plastic and opt instead for more sustainable alternatives.

5. Buy Local

Large-scale food production invariably uses agricultural practices that are harmful to the environment. One easy lifestyle change you can make right now is to support local farmers. Even if they’re not certified organic, their practices will be a lot better for the planet.

6. Slow Down When Driving

Urbanisation has forced a lot of animals into built-up areas. Along with their natural predators, these guys?now also have to be on the lookout out for human hazards, like cars. Drive the speed limit, and you’ll have a better chance of stopping in time.

When you see signs warning you of endangered animals crossing, pay even closer attention.?Remember, they need to get where they’re going just as much as you do.

Take Action

Small changes can add up, but we also need large-scale action to protect endangered species.?Join over 104,000 supporters and sign and share? petition demanding that Congress take bipartisan action to protect endangered species.

If?you want to make a difference on an issue you find deeply troubling, you too can create a Care2 petition, and use this handy guide to get started. You?ll find Care2?s vibrant community of activists ready to step up and help you.

?

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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6 Ways You Can Help Endangered Species (Starting with a Call to Your Governor)

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