San Diego climate advocates rallied in City Heights Thursday to encourage federal officials to do more to support legislation that aims to control climate change.
They said the latest United Nations climate report is a dire warning about the future and bold action is needed now to keep the worst climate change scenarios from happening.
Local advocates joined activists across the nation to urge congressmen in both houses to support the president’s $3.5 trillion spending plan. That measure includes money for projects left out of the senate approved bipartisan infrastructure plan.
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“Not only will this bill improve lives for working families,” said Georgette Gomez, a community organizer and former San Diego City Council President. “It will enable us to seriously address the existential threat of climate change.”
Advocates called on the region’s democratic congress members to vote for the measure when it comes up for a vote in the house of representatives.
“I am calling on our local democratic leaders,” said Karinna Gonzalez with Hammond Climate Solutions. "Representatives Juan Vargas, Scott Peters, Sara Jacobs and Mike Levin to deliver on your campaign promises and give our communities the much-needed investments that they not only deserve but desperately need."
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The massive federal investment would focus on a number of initiatives that would help San Diego’s under served neighborhoods and help slow the planet’s warming.
The budget calls for a major investment in electric vehicles and the charging infrastructure which supports the change from fossil fuel vehicles. The spending plan would pay for the removal of lead pipes in inner city homes. And federal blueprint would put money into expanding public transportation.
“It should include these things, not because they would be nice to have,” said Sean Elo-Rivera, a San Diego City Councilmember. “It is because who bears the brunt of climate change is our most vulnerable neighbors. Which include many people in city heights where we are today and throughout district nine an all of San Diego.”
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The climate advocates say it is past time to take action.
“We are in a climate emergency,” said Jacob Babauta, San Diego Urban Sustainability Coalition. “And we will not have a liveable future without bold climate action. Working class brown and black communities are the ones hit first and worst by the crisis.”
The event was part of the Seal The Deal national day of action organized by the Green New Deal Network.
All of the local groups represented are part of the San Diego Green New Deal Alliance.
