The world is running out of options to implement the sweeping changes to slow Earth’s warming, but protesters continue because of their remaining hope that humanity can and will shift course.
Although she could not vote in the last election, Minden volunteered with the Sunrise Movement’s get-out-the-vote efforts, including sending handwritten postcards to persuade voters in swing states to cast their ballots for Joe Biden and phone banking for Democrats such as Cori Bush in Missouri, Jamaal Bowman in New York, and Raphael G. Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia.
She is disappointed more significant climate legislation has not been enacted and will be among those demanding Biden, end all fossil fuel projects and subsidies, and guarantee the immediate transition to renewable energy. She thinks back to her hometown in Santa Clara County, Calif., and the days she needed to wipe ash off the car before driving to work or how fires destroyed the places she loved to visit for camping trips.
“My generation did a lot to get him elected and to get Democrats in power. Right now, we’re really frustrated. We’re angry,” Minden said. “It seems like we’re hurling towards doom a lot of the time.”On the local level, activists are holding a rally in Franklin Square at 7:30 a.m. and hoping to persuade the D.C. Council to end the city’s reliance on gas by 2032.