Climate Change

Human-driven climate change is an existential threat to all people. You’ve seen it in California’s droughts and destructive fire seasons. We are on the precipice of climate disaster. Even though California has remained a leader in mitigating climate change, the Federal Government continues to undermine the global effort to reduce carbon emissions and pollution.

Carbon Emissions by Vehicles: We all feel the psychological and time toil of being stuck in traffic, but the insane congestion on our roads is a symptom of American car culture. Simply put, our transportation system was built for cars not people.  EVs are an important tool in the fight but we must emphasize mass transit. To cut one of the largest sources of stress and carbon emissions, we need to transition our society to a sustainable transportation system by:

1. Investing and building mass transit networks for the 21st century by expanding rail and bus coverage
2. Ensuring the timely completion of High Speed Rail in CA to connect the major metropolitan areas of our state
3. Building Smart-Growth communities that limit the need for cars and reduce household carbon footprints

​Transitioning to 100% Clean and Sustainable Energy: With the passage of SB 100, the state has the ambitious goal of transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2045. However, we all know that the rate of change is unfortunately too slow.  26 years from now is far too long a time to wait to transition our energy production, storage, and transmission to a fully sustainable system. 26 years ago, we did not even have popularized EV’s or Smart Phones. To ensure we push ahead as fast as possible for a sustainable energy future we need to:

1. Fund and Incentivize R&D in Advanced Battery Storage to fully take advantage of renewables
2. End Fossil Fuel Extraction (by fracking and convention means) in the State
3. Invest in technologies and systems to replace gas power plants to take our grid off their reliance   
4. Public Ownership of Our Energy Grid
5. Fireproof our grid

Curbing Environmental Pollution: China and Asia no longer being the trash receptacles of the US should be a loud wake up call for our society. A culture of fast consumerism built of environmental exploitation and single-use convenience is unsustainable. Families have little choice but to buy products with wasteful plastics that will last as waste in our environments forever. To ensure environmental justice we need to:

1. Make corporations responsible for their waste by drastically curbing single use containers/wrappings to essential items only
   
2. Transition our society back to a Deposit System, mainly for bottles and food containers, to curb single-use waste
   
3. Invest in improved recycling infrastructure for local municipalities 
   
4. Bring justice for historically underserved communities that have suffered the most from pollution by toxins and emissions