Last Saturday, the Sierra Club partnered with the Southwest Workers Union, Climate Action SA, and Deceleration.news to host a community conversation on how environmental justice principles can help build a more equitable San Antonio. As speakers emphasized throughout the two-hour-plus forum, responding in a just way to colliding crises being amplified by the climate crisis and the coronavirus pandemic requires leadership rising from the grassroots.
“A recovery plan that is capable of meeting the challenges of today’s many colliding crises must center the needs of those most exposed to the violence of accelerating extreme weather, exclusionary and racist city planning, and public health threats like COVID-19,” said Greg Harman, the Sierra Club's San Antonio-based organizer.
The Community Forum for a Just Climate/COVID-19 Recovery in San Antonio explored community-based solutions around the struggle for equitable water, energy, and food systems; racism, public health, and policing; just employment; and housing security. Speakers included local organizers such as Diana Lopez at Southwest Workers Union; energy and sustainability experts such as Cris Eugster, COO at CPS Energy, and Doug Melnick, chief sustainability officer for the City; as well as organizers from New Jersey's Ironbound Community Corp. and Kari Fulton of the DC-based Climate Justice Alliance. Poets, writers, and musicians joined, as well, including a reading from Deceleration's Marisol Cortez, reading from her novel “Luz at Midnight,” coming out next month with FlowerSong Press (https://www.flowersongpress.com/books-1/p/luzatmidnight). We're pretty sure this is the first climate-change novel to be set in San Antonio and South Texas.
You can view the full Community Forum for a Just Climate/COVID-19 Recovery on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/NoxHFZvIqvk
The forum grew out of an Open Letter originating within Climate Action SA receiving the support of 23 community organizations that has called for:
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End the Policy of Utility Disconnections for Most Vulnerable Families--Permanently
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Prioritize home improvement and rooftop solar (and jobs) in historically neglected communities.
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No Rate Increases Until Our Utility Rate Structure is Fair
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Develop Community-Driven Resource Planning
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Shut Down the Spruce Coal Plant by 2030
Read the Open Letter here.