ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

The Climate Emergency is Already Here

In 2018, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report warning we had 12 years to avoid climate catastrophe. Our federal government is in the grip of an authoritarian climate denier and we cannot look to Washington for solutions. This changing climate is a disastrous burden on our most vulnerable citizens at a time when income inequality and the shredding of the social safety net have wreaked havoc among working class communities across Los Angeles City and County.

You can see environmental racism everywhere in working class, Latinx and Black neighborhoods across the southern and eastern parts of Los Angeles. Oil fields loom in the background of communities across South LA. Tap water is compromised from Boyle Heights to Bell because of to industrial pollution. Our city government knows this and, at best, doesn’t care.

As Angelenos, we know that our safety as a city is urgently tied to the weather.  We know that, when conditions are right, 40 miles of Santa Monica mountains or the sweeping San Gabriel Mountain Range can erupt in flames. We know that massive fires have raged on these natural borders every year since 2016.

We are increasingly water insecure, and we can no longer count on wet winters to save us from another drought. Stories of day laborers coming to work at houses and properties evacuated by their wealthy owners during the 2019 fires on the Westside of the City highlight the cruelty that runs rampant through the city. Our local government consistently fails to protect its most vulnerable constituents as the climate crisis continues to devastate us all. But, still have time. And we can make things better.

The twin emergencies of housing and climate are rearing their heads across California.

Some former residents of Paradise are still homeless or housing insecure over a year after an out of control wildfire came for their small town. This kind of disaster could easily strike our region as well. If we can’t even house our low income, working class residents without them sliding into homelessness, what will we do with sudden bursts of refugees from the climate catastrophe?

There is room in Los Angeles for everyone as we move to a carbon free future, but this involves a massive shift in our housing, transit, and green space policies. This is in line with the policy goals of a real federal Green New Deal - reflected in bills put forth by Ilhan Omar and Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez - which calls for massive investments in retrofitting existing public housing and, more importantly for Los Angeles County, adding thousands of units of new public housing. We need local leaders with compassion and expertise to help guide this kind of change on a local level.

CAMPAIGNS AND ACTIONS

Enacting a local Green New Deal requires officials in positions of power to believe in the critical emergency we face and have the political courage to throw all of the resources at their disposal at the crisis. It’s an election year, and we’re supporting multiple candidates across the Los Angeles County area who have the bold and progressive vision needed to take on the Los Angeles Climate Crisis. We’ve helped build out and supply the volunteer efforts of many candidates whom our members believe in and have endorsed, including:

Loraine Lundquist, running for City Council Seat, District 12 -  Loraine has bold plans to tackle climate change locally and has a record of fighting back against the interests of oil and gas companies in her own backyard: she took on SoCal Gas over their disastrous handling of the Aliso Canyon Gas blowup in 2015, which still threatens the residents of the Northwest San Fernando Valley with leaks to this day. She has a background as a California State University, Northridge Professor of Science and Sustainability and has both the expertise and vision to help push our local government to do more on housing and homelessness. 

Nithya Raman, Candidate for City Council Seat, District 4 - As a resident of Los Angeles’ dense and central City District 4 and an urban planner by trade, Nithya realizes that the homelessness crisis she sees around her is related to a shortage of housing and also a failure to protect our affordable housing stock from real estate developers and speculation. Nithya has plans to make us more water secure and to shift away from our smog-producing car culture. She knows we need social housing, massive investments in efficient and safe transportation, and a new perspective in how our public officials and agencies design and organize our city. 

Dan Brotman, Candidate for Glendale City Council - Dan helped lead the local pushback against reviving and expanding the gas-powered Grayson Power Plant in Glendale by organizing with his community against the interests of the fossil fuel industry. He wants to bring climate change to the forefront of the policy decisions made by the small, autonomous city of Glendale which occupies a central part of the LA area. This is an exciting opportunity to help push for climate solutions at a hyperlocal level. 

Besides participating in electoral politics to fight and mitigate the climate crisis, we are also aligned with local environmental groups like the Los Angeles hub of the Sunrise Movement and STAND (Standing Together Against Neighborhood Drilling) in their efforts to demand our local government put the interests of our residents above those of fossil fuel corporations or developers.

This coalition-building work has resulted in wins - like the continued pressure on Governor Newsom to shut down Aliso Canyon or the turnout at a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power meeting that secured approval of new, cheap solar power for Los Angeles. Coalition building with impacted frontline communities who face environmental racism across the Southland area remains a priority for Ground Game as we seek to elevate and center those impacted by our twin housing and climate crises.

ALLIES