Student organization advocates for climate change awareness, action

While most lively chatter at Town and Country after school comes from swaths of students, it was hard not to overhear one particular group on a Friday afternoon: a team of students from around Palo Alto, preparing for a climate change rally occurring in less than one month.

e students, leaders and members of the Palo Alto Student Climate Coalition, worked with City Council and city sta members to organize a rally advocating for equitable electri cation and for Palo Alto to end the ow of gas.

In relation to the rally, PASCC’s co-founder and head of outreach, Julia Zeitlin, who is also a junior at Castilleja School, said her team has gotten the support of the Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo and the mayors of Palo Alto and East Palo Alto, all of whom will speak at the rally on Saturday, April 21 at Palo Alto City Hall.

Zeitlin said the goal of the rally was not solely to promote Earth Day, like their rally last year with over 200 attendees, but to encourage City Council members to follow through on their climate-oriented promises. “ ere is a lot of support and general enthusiasm about climate (from City Council), but I think our role is to hone in on that and ensure that the city stays committed to its goals,” Zeitlin said. “We have a really collaborative relationship, but we are also trying to push them in di erent ways to achieve their goals.” ese goals include the 80 by 30 goal, the city’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by 2030, and the S-CAP, Palo Alto’s main climate legislation, which would reduce 60% of emissions through electri cation.

In addition, Zeitlin said the outreach team has helped canvas for the city’s heat pump water heater program, helped residents electrify in a more cost-e cient way, and formed a public

PASCC/USED WITH PERMISSION e Palo Alto Student Climate Coalition organized an April 2022 Earth Day rally to encourage City Council to meet its climate goals. “Hopefully, with this (year’s) rally, we can push electri cation” Cofounder Katie Rue said. there is a lot of politics and bureaucracy behind it,” Rue said. “Hopefully, with this rally, we can push electri cation.”

PASCC/USED WITH PERMISSION

Activists walk past Nobu Hotel on Hamilton Ave. in downtown Palo Alto on Friday, April 22, 2022

“Reaching the S-CAP goal is de nitely an ambitious one,” Hopkins said. “But our team is so dedicated, and we have received (such) an overwhelming amount of support and enthusiasm from city council and city sta members that we can expect tangible results.”

Gunn senior and PASCC co-founder Katie said the team’s rally also hopes to mitigate political roadblocks to following through.

“We have spoken with a lot of city sta -adjacent folks, and there are many ways to make this transition (to electri cation) possible, but

Zeitlin, who understands that students may be overwhelmed with the wide scope of climate change to get involved with the movement, hopes the rally will show community members ways to get involved on a local scale. ere is some discouragement and almost apathy toward climate change because it feels so large-scale,” Zeitlin said. “Something special (PASCC) can do is take a piece of (climate change) and tell students there is something they can do locally, which has a big impact on the community and creates a sort of ripple e ect.”

In terms of impact, the team worked with the heat pump water heater program and the SCAP program to help pass their pieces of legislation, which they ultimately were.

To further PASCC’s climate endeavors, Rue said she acknowledges Palo Alto’s wealth allows for civic participation in climate change but argues that abetting the issue begins with viewing it as an intersectional problem.

“It’s a privilege for us to think about climate change and the existential threat it poses to us because we have all of our basic needs satis ed,” Rue said. “ ere are so many people in this world who do not have their needs met, so climate change needs to be viewed as this intersectional issue that a ects the economy and people in disproportionate ways because it does.”

Zeitlin also said municipalities placing climate change on the back burner in the name of pressing issues will reap disastrous e ects in the long run.

“ e economic fallout of not prioritizing climate change now will be much worse ve or 10 years from now than if we invested money into this issue and started thinking of longterm solutions we can begin implementing now,” Zeitlin said. “Yes, short-term issues are very important, but we need to also understand that climate change is not just a long-term issue, it’s happening right now.”

With this urgency, and PASCC’s support from City Council and sta members, the team has not faced any major roadblock in their rally preparation, according to Zeitlin. However, with participation from Gunn and Castilleja, Paly’s input with the team and local legislation has remained stagnant. Rue said PASCC has only recently onboarded new members from Paly, causing her to encourage Paly students to seek out new avenues of engaging with the movement.

“Even if Paly students don’t have time to get involved or show up to the rally, I think we all should be thinking of the intersectionality between (the) climate and our own interests,” Rue said. ough the rally is expected to receive lots of community and political support, Zeitlin said she hopes it leaves rally participants with a central thought.

“We have a lot of motivation, but it’s not enough,” Zeitlin said. “We need to reach a point where, as a community, we are willing to step up and say, ‘I’m going to