March 1, 2014

Dear Climate Decision Makers and Legislative Representatives,
 
Thank you, California elected officials at the state, regional, and local level, for making our state a national example in the fight against climate change.

However, ensuring climate stability, launching an alternative clean energy economy, and protecting earth resources and ecological biodiversity will require our political and legislative leaders to implement even more drastic policy changes. With climate scientists’ dire predictions coming true faster than forecasted and California facing a future of heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and sea level rise, we must rapidly transition away from exploration, production, transportation, and consumption of climate-damaging fuels that pollute our land, water, ocean, and air.

On March 1, 2014, a diverse community of individuals and groups comprising the Southern California Climate Action Coalition 350 and ## (to be filled in) regional partners, will help kick off the Great March for Climate Action. Thousands are projected to join the mobilized mass movement starting in the Port of Los Angeles, with hundreds continuing to march 3,000 miles to Washington D.C. to deliver the message that we need immediate legislative and executive action to solve the climate crisis.

To demonstrate the political will for a healthy planet, we prioritize these urgent climate-change-focused requests of local, state and global level elected decision makers:

• I demand that you, our representative, set a goal of a carbon-free economy based on clean, renewable energy, without fossil fuels in utility-provided energy and transportation, and set a date and timeline to accomplish it with minimum social disruption.

• I demand that you, our representative, establish a more ambitious program for energy efficiency and conservation, reducing overall energy consumption by 20% by 2020, at the same time expanding our renewable energy portfolio to 40% by 2020. In addition, the LA Department of Water and Power should be required to achieve 1,200 MW of local solar power by 2020.

• I demand that you, our representative, ensure the next scoping plan for California’s AB-32 [Global Warming Solutions Act] is strong, with attention toward environmental justice concerns, and that it fulfills the intentions of the legislation.

• I demand that you, our representative, institute rising fees on all use of dirty fuels to offset the significant costs incurred to our health, our climate, and our ecosystems.

• I demand that you, our representative, impose an immediate moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing, acidization, and gravel packing in oil and gas development, and the cessation of tar sands transportation and refining to protect public health, water supplies, air quality, agriculture, and private properties in California.

• I demand that you, our representative, reject multinational trade agreements that weaken environmental and public interest protections. We must support trade that prioritizes equal protection for the poor, people of color, and indigenous communities.

Acting locally and thinking globally, I ask you to implement the above initiatives to protect human health and ensure ecological and economic sustainability in California and beyond.
 

Sincerely,

A Concerned Citizen and supporter of the California Contingent - Great March for Climate Action 2014