Earth day

Last weekend, we flooded our streets and campuses with our voices and votes. Tens of thousands of young people along with the Sunrise Movement, Fridays for Future US, and Reclaim Earth Day, in more than 200 actions nationwide, are demanding bold action because billions of lives are under threat, and we need our leaders to act like it.

We call on President Joe Biden to stop approving new fossil fuel projects and declare a climate emergency that takes meaningful action to end the era of fossil fuels and invest in environmental justice. Bold climate action is long overdue, and we are running out of time. Every moment our president wastes, every new fossil fuel project he approves, magnifies the environmental and social disasters the world is already facing. The climate crisis exacerbates all other crises – it’s the most pressing of our time.

The US is burning on the West Coast, flooding on the East Coast, and baking in the South. Yet oil and gas production has surged to record highs under Biden. We now produce more fossil fuels than any other country in the world. Just this month, Biden has approved dozens of new oil and gas projects that lock us into 30 more years of oil and gas, and will poison the air and water of communities living near the projects. From the petrochemical corridor “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana to neighborhood drilling in Los Angeles to flooded Miami, frontline communities are bearing the brunt of fossil fuel pollution and the climate crisis. Despite communities’ groundbreaking activism, fossil fuel companies and puppet politicians are doing everything in their power to keep us hooked on oil.

But we’re not falling for it. We know that renewables are the cheapest source of electricity on the market and that fossil fuels must be phased out. When our institutions have been corrupted by oil influence, we need direct action from the highest level: a Climate Emergency Declaration. The time has passed for incremental action.

Last weekend, thousands of young people in three national days of action called on President Biden to use his executive powers to act decisively. On Friday, April 19, thousands of high school students walked out of their classes and onto the streets as a part of the Fridays For Future global day of action; over the weekend, Sunrise Movement activists held teach-ins at congressional offices across the country; and on April 22, college students at over 100 institutions rallied across campuses to Reclaim Earth Day. Across more than 200 different cities and campuses, thousands of students and young voters made their voices heard.

We’re turning up the pressure because it’s time that President Biden stop approving fossil fuel projects and take action to protect our communities and our futures. By declaring a climate emergency using the National Emergencies Act (NEA), Biden would unlock critical authorities to phase out fossil fuels and protect our communities from the climate crisis – including the ability to reinstate a crude oil export ban and stop investments in fossil fuel projects abroad.

Excerpted: ‘The Climate Youth Movement’s Earth Day Message to Biden’.

Courtesy: Commondreams.org