Students from University of South Florida are taking a bus to Tallahassee to join hundreds of others at a climate protest tomorrow. WMNF’s Josh Holton reports, young environmental and energy justice advocates from the Panhandle to the Keys will rally ahead of an Earth Advocacy Day to urge legislators to protect our area from the impacts of a warming planet.
Earth Advocacy Day aims to empower young Floridians to take action on climate change and environmental justice by engaging directly with their lawmakers. Helping organize the bus heading out from Tampa is Peyton Hooey, the digital communications for the CLEO institute. That stands for Climate Leadership Engagement Opportunities. She says that rising seas, high temperatures and devastating storms are driving them to bring these issues to the capital.
“We’re advocating and supporting a pause act, which would put a pause on residential utility disconnections that impact working class families in Florida. When there’s extreme heat, when people are experiencing these extreme weather patterns and their utilities are disconnected, families suffer, right? People go without air conditioning in Florida, and experiencing that hot sun. And we want to make sure that we keep our communities safe.”
These issues and more will be considered during the legislative session which started Tuesday. The event is organized by a coalition of organizations, also including Youth Action Fund, Engage Miami, the Sunrise Movement, and Florida Student Power.
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