Not on Our Watch
On Saturday, we’ll march with the Peoples Climate Movement and tell Trump we’ve had enough of his anti-environment agenda.
President Trump has used his first 100 days in office to launch the worst assault in history against the commonsense safeguards we all rely on to make our air clean, keep our water safe, and protect our children’s future.
Working with congressional Republicans, he’s taken special aim at the progress we’re making in the fight against climate change, ordering his administration to roll back efforts to clean up our auto tailpipes and dirty power plants, retreat from the promise of millions of new clean energy jobs, and walk away from American climate leadership at home and abroad.
Fortunately, Trump can’t derail our climate and clean energy gains with the stroke of a pen―or the flare of a tweet. Federal environmental standards and rules are grounded in law, sound science, and the public interest. Standing up together for those principles, we can turn back Trump’s reckless assault.
That’s why on Saturday I’ll mark 100 days of this hazard and harm by marching for our future with the Peoples Climate Movement in Washington, D.C. There, and in sister marches in dozens of other cities across the country and around the world, we’ll gather by the thousands to say one thing: not on our watch.
We hope to accomplish three important goals.
First, we’re going to make clear what’s at stake―for our families, our communities, our nation, and the world.
We just finished the hottest year since global record-keeping began in 1880. Of the 17 hottest years on record, 16 have occurred in this century. As we’ve pumped into the air more and more fossil fuel pollution from the world’s factories, power plants, trucks, and cars, we’ve literally changed the chemistry of the global atmosphere. We’ve warmed the planet by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit―about half as much as the science tells us will trigger climate catastrophe worldwide.
We’re already seeing dire results. Rising seas threaten $1.5 trillion worth of homes in coastal communities along the Eastern Seaboard, where sea level is rising three to four times faster than the global average. Croplands are turning to desert in Somalia, China, Kenya, and Kansas. Entire species are dying out at a rate not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Warming waters are killing Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. And, across the United States, rising temperatures are extending the season for disease-breeding mosquitoes and ticks, subjecting our seniors to growing risk of heatstrokes, and driving up the creation of smog and other air pollutants that cause asthma attacks and other respiratory ills.
Each of us is paying a price, but some are bearing a disproportionate burden: low-income communities, people of color, and others struggling on the ragged front lines of growing danger, damage, and loss. And all this, and more, gets much worse unless we reduce the carbon pollution that comes from burning coal, oil, and gas.
Second, we’re going to spotlight the progress we’re making doing just that, and the promise of more gains to come. We’ve cut our nation’s carbon footprint 14 percent since 2005, while our economy has grown 17 percent. The global carbon footprint has been flat for three years in a row, even as the global economy has grown. And China, the world’s largest burner of fossil fuels, has cut its coal use every year since 2013, driving down its carbon emissions, as a share of economic output, more than 28 percent since 2011.
These improvements are taking place at home and abroad because there are cleaner, smarter ways to power our future without imperiling the planet. That’s exactly what the United States, China, India, and more than 130 other countries agreed to in the Paris climate accords, a triumph of American leadership that Trump has put at risk.
Across the United States, we’re investing in efficiency so we can do more with less waste in our workplaces and homes. We’re building, in this country, some of the best all-electric and hybrid cars in the world. And we’re getting more clean power from the wind and sun, which together account for two-thirds of all the new electric generating capacity we’ve installed nationwide over the past two years. This epic transition to clean energy has created three million good-paying, middle-class jobs for American carpenters, electricians, tool and die makers, engineers, technicians, and others nationwide.
That, though, is just the beginning. Economists expect $7 trillion in global clean energy investment over just the next two decades. We’re marching Saturday to make sure American workers are prepared to succeed in this fast-growing global market. That success begins right here at home.
Finally, we’re marching to hold our president to account. Anchoring our future to the dirty fuels of the past is far from making America great. It’s not what this country voted for, and it’s not what the country expects. That’s borne out in a Quinnipiac University poll released this month showing that 76 percent of Americans are concerned about climate change, 68 percent understand we can create jobs by fighting this global scourge, and 62 percent don’t want Trump to weaken efforts to fight climate change.
A hundred days of hazard and harm are a hundred days too many. On Saturday, we’ll put boots―and sneakers―on the ground to tell the president we’ve had enough.
We won’t stand by and watch him surrender our children to the growing dangers of climate change. We won’t sit quietly as he puts polluter profits first―and puts the rest of us at risk. We’ll march for jobs. We’ll march for justice. We’ll march for our common future.
