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The following are excerpts from a presentation by Cathleen Williams at the Poor People’s Campaign Forum at Sacramento State, October 16, 2019 sponsored by the Sacramento State’s Center for Race, Immigration, and Social Justice.
SACRAMENTO, CA — I am here on behalf of the Poor People’s Campaign and the Sacramento Climate Coalition.
Just a year ago, fires devoured Paradise, California. The devastation demonstrates that climate change can only be treated as a climate emergency.
No government agency stepped forward to make the massive public investment in housing that was needed to protect tens of thousands of low-income people.
Instead, residents were scattered to the winds—some joining the homeless. So the fires turned into a housing crisis. At every level, government said, “You are on your own. Best of luck.”
I’m here to say that we have the power—especially young people— to transform the structures and immoral policies fueling the climate crisis and the crisis of housing and poverty.
As stated by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, “We are witnessing a movement swearing that America will be born anew in this moment, right in the midst of the deferred dreams and hopes of the poor.”
We understand that this system is destroying the planet as the price for private profit. PG&E triggered the Paradise fires through its criminal neglect—and it spent $10 million in lobbying the state government last year to protect profit.
We can meet these crises with the vision of a green economy that will build millions of houses on a model of cooperation and environmental preservation. Paradise fire displaced just 55,000 people—but the numbers driven from our coastlines will be in the millions.
We need you to vote, to run for political office, to join the action in whatever way you can to make the people’s agenda a reality and save the planet.
Right now, we are joining the launch of a campaign to demand that our own City Council sign on to a Declaration of Climate Emergency that has been prepared by the Sacramento Climate Coalition. Our declaration requires specific actions to address the impacts, including the fire in Paradise with its effects on the poor who became “climate refugees.”
Please join us by signing our petition for the Climate Emergency Declaration and joining our work to bring the Poor People’s Campaign to campus by establishing an on-campus chapter. Email Cathleen@markmerin.com for information.
