Read about the DC Carbon Rebate campaign from our fantastic student Organizing Fellows this summer!
Asthma and My Childhood in DC
Maia Berlow
As a kid growing up in DC, I remember, fairly regularly, friends collapsing during PE class and struggling to breath because the air pollution was triggering their asthma. It was terrifying for me to see my friends like that, but it was so much scarier for them. I remember many days where we could not go outside for recess or PE because the air quality was too bad. The low air quality was bad for our lungs, made it hard to breath and was even worse for people with asthma. 10.4 percent of DC’s residents have asthma as compared to the 9.1 percent nationally (DOH 71). Everyday, 11 people in the United States die from asthma (Asthma MD). Luckily, my friends had access to medicine and good medical care, but not everyone in Washington, DC is so lucky.
Research has shown that air pollution can worsen asthma symptoms (Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America). Air pollution as defined by the EPA is “any visible or invisible particle or gas found in the air that is not part of the natural composition of air.” But DC seems like a fairly clean city; we do not see a lot of smog and we have beautifully clear days. So where is this pollution that is irritating people’s asthma? Like the EPA says, air pollution can be invisible. When we burn fossil fuels to create our energy, nitrogen oxides are added to the air, creating ozone which is then quickly destroyed. This creation and destruction of ozone is part of a natural cycle, but when hydrocarbons — vapors from fossil fuels– are added to the mix, it adds to the creation of ozone and stops the destruction of it, creating unhealthy levels of ozone, increasing air pollution, and increasing asthma.
I want to stop the air pollution in this city that I have grown up in, and this one of the many reasons that I am excited to be working on the DC Carbon Rebate campaign with CCAN. This campaign strives to make polluters pay for the real cost of their actions on climate and health. Right now, fossil fuels are cheaper than renewables for utility companies because they do not reflect the real cost of fossil fuels on people’s well-being and our environment. If you are going to be doing something that harms people, you should be paying for it. The carbon rebate places a fee on each ton of carbon that the utility companies emit, making fossil fuels more expensive, renewables more realistic, and sending a signal that renewables have no extra health costs. Beyond incentivizing utility companies to make good choices for the people they serve, the money from the fee would go directly back to DC residents: the people suffering from utility companies’ wrongful choices. Research shows that low-income residents would benefit the most from this program– a small step towards shrinking the inequalities in this city (Citizens’ Climate Lobby).
Each day that I am out working on this campaign I encounter mothers who say that their three-year-old has asthma and that the medicine is too expensive. I encounter grandmothers who are incapacitated on hot days because the pollution in the air is so bad. And I encounter hundreds of people, ready to say that they have had enough and that it is not alright to pollute this city for free.
To take action today, and let Mayor Bowser know that you will not stand for pollution that harms this city and contributes to climate change worldwide, sign this petition.
Movement-Building with CCAN or, The Awkward Tan Lines Are Worth It
Joanna Wolfgram
For many years, I thought that climate change was an issue that only affected the world on an environmental level. I envisioned in the coming years polluted water sources, dead coral reefs, species extinction, and melting ice. As I grew up, I was taught different ways for individuals to do their part to stop these environmental problems. In sixth grade I was taught about the importance of recycling and composting. In my high school biology class I learned about choosing organic produce. Although all of these lessons were very important, none of them felt particularly extraordinary. Recycling a can did not feel like saving the world, composting seemed like too much trouble, and as a student living at home with my family, which zucchini to buy was a matter I felt better left to my parents.
Then, one day in my freshman year of college, I was avoiding starting a paper in a fashion truly representative of my government and politics major (aka scrolling through world news articles on CNN). Suddenly, a particular article caught my attention. The article discussed how climate change had resulted in a record drought in the middle east, which in turn caused the migration of Syrian farmers into cities to find work as their crops failed. The influx of the farmers worsened political tensions within Syrian cities and, in time, the Syrian Civil War, a war that according to the article has cost 250,000 people their lives, began. Before this moment, I had never considered the possible role climate change could play and already is playing in international and local relations, as well as national security.
Abruptly, I could imagine all the ways climate change could result in more conflict and strife all over the world in the near and distant future. As nonrenewable resources dwindle, the measures countries take to obtain or protect their supplies could become more desperate. Changing landscapes from droughts and rising sea levels could cause more mass migrations of people who have lost their homes and livelihoods. Changing weather patterns could result in food shortages and famines. These are only a few possible scenarios, some of which have already begun to take root in our present day society. With all of these looming possibilities for the future, I decided I wanted to look for organizations trying to make a difference now, to protect the people of the world in the years to come.
Eventually, I stumbled upon a listing for an internship at CCAN. After reading about their many different campaigns, from stopping oil trains in Baltimore to calling for a carbon fee and rebate in Washington D.C., I could tell that this was organization not only committed to stopping global warming, but to protecting people who are vulnerable to the adverse affects of climate change. I sent in my application, and when I was told I had been accepted for the DC Carbon Rebate campaign, I was thrilled. I knew that working to pass this revenue neutral policy would be working towards a renewable energy based economy without leaving low- and middle-income families behind. I was excited to help DC set a national and potentially global precedent by working to get this policy passed. I began my internship wanting to feel like more than just an individual putting a can in a blue bin; I wanted to feel like a part of a movement.
Funny enough, my work at CCAN has made me realize that it takes the combined small actions of individuals to create any kind of movement. Every petition I collect is like adding a new ally to the brigade of those calling for change. Each person who checks the little “I want to volunteer!” box adds to the resources of the campaign, even if they have only a small amount of time to give. And it is these individuals, whose desire to see improvement in the world by supporting a DC carbon Rebate, that make every single awkward tan-line I get while petitioning totally and completely worth it.
