National Climate Crisis Day of Action, Washington DC, March 20th 2007

Climate Crisis National Day of Action

On March 20th, 13 members of the NYHS civics class headed down to Washington DC to participate in day of action around climate change and environmental policy. The experience was a combination educational rally and lobbying effort. We drove down on a bus with 25 other Brooklyn residents and met up with 2000 more folks on the west lawn of the Capitol building. At the two-hour rally, we heard from various speakers, including both legislators and community activists. Representative Henry Waxman outlined his Safe Climate Act which requires an 80% reduction in global warming pollutants below 1990 levels by 2050. This legislation revolves around "cap and trade", a system which allows polluters to buy and sell pollution rights under strict limits set by federal regulators. We also heard about the need to pass legislation to ensure that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is permanently protected from all development, including drilling for oil and natural gas.

After the rally we headed over to the Russell Senate office building to drop our policy agenda with Senator Clinton and Senator Schumer’s Environmental Legislative Assistant, both of whom were very receptive to our concerns. Then from 3:00 to 4:00, we met with Representative Nydia Velazquez of New York’s 12th district for a discussion of environmental policy and the concerns of Bushwick youth. Representative Velazquez and her Legislative Director addressed the students concerns over lack of congressional on global warming. She assured us that she would be cosigning on a cap and trade bill and would also work to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We discussed issues of social and economic justice relevant to our local Bushwick community, as well as the need to hold corporate polluters of New York City’s waterways accountable. The lobbying session concluded with a discussion of students’ college acceptances and the challenge of college financing. Please see below for a copy of the students’ letter thanking the representative and summarizing the day’s lobbying effort.

Participating Students:
Jennifer Lamberty
Alex Carrasco
Maria Elizabeth Hernandez
Jose Melendez
Denisse Duran
Alfonso Ventura
Yoscar Ogando
Lariza Gomez
Daniel Lopez Timothy Romero Angelica Velez Ali Akbar
Victor Torres



March 21, 2007

Dear Representative Velazquez,

On behalf of the entire New York Harbor School, we would like to thank you for your enthusiasm and willingness to meet with members of our senior civics class yesterday during our day of legislative action on climate change and environmental policy. You showed us an extraordinary level of generosity and attention to our issues and we thank you for it.

All of us felt that our meeting was extremely productive. It’s quite clear that your legislative agenda on climate change and environmental policy is strongly aligned with our community’s needs and goals. As a group of young people from inner city New York, we believe strongly that corporations and other polluting entities should be pursued and held fully accountable for the full costs of environmental cleanup, as well as for the resulting long-term health and quality of life problems.

On the federal level, we ask you to support any and all legislation that seeks proactive solutions to our country’s environmental crisis. For us this includes Waxman’s reintroduction of the Safe Climate Act, which will establish a necessary 80% reduction in global warming pollution below 1990 levels. We also support the Markey-Ramstad Udall-Eisenhower Artic Wilderness Act (HR 39) to permanently protect one of America’s greatest wilderness areas.

As students in the midst of a changing educational system, we strongly believe that our public schools should be required to teach sustainability and incorporate sustainable design practices and renewable energy initiatives into the academic curriculum and the physical plant of the building in which they reside. We ask you to take the lead on this effort to require schools to teach and practice sound environmental policy. We feel this issue should have equal if not greater standing in the framework of No Child Left Behind.

In the local Bushwick Community, we admire your strong support of grassroots social and economic justice movements. Hearing about your personal convictions and support of these initiatives yesterday inspired and reassured us that we have an outstanding ally in our nation’s capitol. As we mentioned yesterday, the Harbor School will be moving to Governor’s Island but by no means plans to lose its grounding in the Bushwick and surrounding Brooklyn Communities. We pledge to ensure that our new recruitment policy gives preference to students from these communities. During our remaining time in Brooklyn, we aim to strengthen our local environmental and economic initiatives. This includes, amongst many other community based programs at NYHS, our senior internship program, in which students work 8 hours per week in professional organizations throughout the city, a financial literacy education partnership with the Brooklyn Community Federal Credit Union, and the “Renewable Fuels in the Schools” Biodiesel Program.

We look forward to the opportunity to discuss the further progress of our initiatives and your legislative efforts. The civics class aims to take another full-day lobbying trip to Washington before the year’s end, at which time we hope to meet again with you or your Legislative Director. Thanks again for taking the time to meet with us yesterday and making our trip to Washington so valuable.