Photo / Sunrise Movement Bay Area
California, indeed the whole west coast, has been suffering from a triple whammy of health and environmental conditions: drought, extreme heat, and fires with smoky skies. Add COVID-19 and we can be neither inside nor outside. The temperature reached 121 degrees in Woodland hills and 130 in Death Valley. Wildfires have already burned over four million acres of California this year, making this year’s blazes the most widespread on record. A Stanford professor predicted there would be at least 1,200 additional deaths and 4,800 ER visits in California from wildfire smoke between August 1 and September 10.
Many environmental organizations, including the youth-led Sunrise Movement Bay Area, want California Governor Newsom to use his executive authority to stop all new oil and gas permitting. In September, protesters rallied at the California State Capitol demanding Newsom take action on climate change and racial justice.
Sunrise Movement says: “California is one of the biggest oil-producing states in the nation, while CO2 emissions from oil and gas extraction fuel the unprecedented heatwaves that started these fires in the first place. Meanwhile, as millions of Californians are sheltering in place next to toxic gas and oil drilling sites, @gavinnewsom has continued to issue new permits for fracking and drilling during the pandemic. So much of what we’ve experienced this year are the exact impacts that climate scientists have been warning us about for decades. . . We CANNOT afford four more years of Trump and a Congress that fails to act in the interests of its people. If you have been feeling helpless and overwhelmed, you are not alone. But you don’t have to act alone either. As a movement of young people, there is still time to change the course we’re on. Our movement will not give up. We will not stop fighting for climate justice. Fight with us: vote.sunrisemovement.org”
