The Climate Justice League and the University of Idaho Sustainability Center hosted a walkout to spread awareness of climate issues, with a focus on the Ready For 100 campaign.
RF100 is asking the Moscow City Council to commit to a 100% community-wide clean energy goal by 2045 with an intermediate goal of providing clean electricity by 2035. 450 signatures have been collected for the petition and presented to Moscow City Council on Sept. 20.
“The climate walkout focused specifically on Moscow’s RF100 campaign,” Devin Conway, a senior at Moscow High School, said. “It was started by the Palouse group and the Sierra Club and it is trying to get the City of Moscow to make a 100% community-wide clean energy commitment.”
The walkout preceded Monday, Sept. 27 when Moscow City Council will hold a greenhouse gas emissions workshop. This workshop will have staff present alternatives to address greenhouse gas emissions and programs focusing on climate concerns.
“This means Monday will be a big decider on Moscow’s progress in carbon emission for years to come,” Conway said. “This workshop will help to decide if Moscow will take serious steps in mitigate the effects of climate change or to mirror the legislative inaction that is being seen around the globe.”
Mac Cantrell, a retired biologist from UI, was a guest speaker at the event and spoke about the importance of the action of the younger generation. Cantrell is also a part of the Citizen’s Climate Lobby that advocates for national policies to address climate change.
“Younger people are going to cause legislators to listen more, because they are the voters coming up,” Cantrell said. “Every one of us has to come together no matter where we are politically.”
While Cantrell hasn’t worked with CJL, he has been impressed with the group’s work with RF100.
“When I first heard about this, I thought this wasn’t going to get any traction,” Cantrell said. “They have done such good work it is getting tremendous traction. The city is seriously considering moving forward. Whether they move forward enough or not remains to be seen.”
Simon Smith, a member of CCL, also spoke on the event and the importance of this event.
“At the moment, the youth represent the energy and the ideas, the motivation to get some action,” Smith said. “It’s all our future, however, it is going to impact the young people than the old ones.”
One of the consistent messages for climate change activists throughout the different guest speakers was to persist through pushback.
“That sea change is yet to happen with a lot of people. It shouldn’t matter,” Smith said. “It shouldn’t deter others from pushing and knowing that they’re right. History is on their side. It is inevitable.”
Clara Abplanalp, the event coordinator for the Sustainability Center, helped to plan the event on the university side.
“It meant the world: it was huge. We were worried about turn out cause COVID-19 makes things hard,” Abplanalp said. “Seeing so many students there chanting and walking down Main Street was huge.”
In Abplanalp’s speech, she addressed the suspension of the recycling program that UI once had.
“It’s been suspended since January 2020 and we at the Sustainability Center are fighting to bring it back. It was a financial thing,” Abplanalp said. “A lot of the stuff that being put in the recycling bins were contaminated and it couldn’t be sent to recycling facilities, so it had to be thrown out, which caused a loss in money.”
The Sustainability Center will be releasing a video that focuses on how to recycle and what happened to the recycling program, as well as ways to bring the program back.
Daniel V. Ramirez can be reached at [email protected] or Twitter @DVR_Tweets