Palisadians Gather to Participate in Global Climate Strike

By LILY TINOCO | Reporter

Palisadians gathered in the heart of The Village on Friday, September 23, to participate in a local iteration of a Global Climate Strike.

Starting at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Swarthmore Avenue, activists from Palisades Charter High School, the Green Club, Human Rights Watch Student Task Force and Resilient Palisades marched to bring awareness to the climate crisis.

The community first participated in the Global Climate Strike in September 2019.

“After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the world’s youth are once again marching in the streets, condemning our leaders for the continued rise of global greenhouse gas emissions and demanding that they do far more,” according to the event’s registration page. “Communities across Los Angeles are already suffering from the devastating effects of the climate crisis, from drought, to ravaging fires, to heatwaves. We demand a livable future and real action on climate from our elected officials.”

Éva Milan Engel, a climate activist and junior at Pali High, helped organize this year’s march, as well as the one in 2019.

“I knew this event would not be as well attended as the one I organized in 2019,” Engel said to the Palisadian-Post. “I feel like people need to have a lot of hype around an issue to get excited about it.

“In 2019, Greta [Thunberg] shined the spotlight on the climate crisis, and she energized the world. Unfortunately, even with her efforts and that of people in this country who tried to get the Green New Deal passed, we’ve fallen short of our climate goals.”

Engel shared that she feels it is easy to “stay home and act like it’s someone else’s problem”: “It takes more effort to get involved and insist that our political leaders put us on the right track to combat the climate crisis, but it’s necessary.”

Los Angeles Mayoral Candidate Rick Caruso was approached by participants during Friday’s Climate Strike. As developer of Palisades Village, Caruso spoke of the ways the project recycles its water, is the first LEED Gold-certified ground-up business district in the state of California and how “we should be pushing everybody to be doing the right thing for our environment.”

“You guys making noise and bringing it to people’s attention is so important,” he said. “That’s why I want to be your mayor.”

When asked how he would address these issues as mayor, Caruso spoke of his “Climate Plan” that is in the works.

“We need to recycle more water … we need to change our power plants to hydrogen … plant more trees,” he said.

“I hope it wasn’t just a political stunt,” Engel shared. “I hope [Caruso] and … Karen Bass are actually willing to put people over profit. I’m tired of people who are in positions of power doing what’s in their short-term financial or political benefit. This issue is important to me because if our political leaders don’t prioritize an aggressive climate agenda, then today’s young people, like me, will spend their whole lives trying to somehow live on an increasingly uninhabitable earth.”