By Candidate Marcy Winograd

Participating in 350 Day, October 24, 2009, members of Progressive Democrats of the Santa Monica Mountains and Los Angeles spelled out 3-5-0 with their bicycles before riding from Santa Monica to Manhattan Beach with Congressional candidate Marcy Winograd (CA-CD36). PDA chapters participated in a worldwide day of action to stop global warming and support the upcoming climate conference
in Copenhagen next December. Before biking down the coast through the 36th congressional district, Winograd spoke to a crowd gathered at Crescent Bay Park in Santa Monica. Below are
excerpts from her speech:

I am proud to participate in the 350 day of action, in which we call on world nations to set global standards for reducing carbon emissions.

In order to do this, we need nations to work together at the Copenhagen climate conference next December, when discussion will concern the responsibility of more industrialized countries, those responsible for emitting disproportionate amounts of carbon, to address the dire consequences experienced by less industrialized nations facing receding shorelines, displacement of people and towns, drought, rising sea levels, floods, even famine.

Though parts of Africa and Australia may suffer the consequences first —those of us in southern California are not immune, either. We must protect our coastal cities—Santa Monica, Venice, Marina del Rey, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa, Redondo—from rising sea levels that threaten the future of our shores.

While it is possible to reverse the global warming trend, we know we cannot do it alone, one person at a time. It will take a global effort, with the U.S. at the forefront, and it will require us to do something the environmental movement has yet to embrace: calculate the carbon footprint of perpetual war and occupation. Flying 160,000 troops to Iraq or 70,000 troops to Afghanistan burns a lot of fuel, emits tremendous carbon—not to mention the carbon footprint of having to rebuild nations, from having to pour new concrete, after dropping bomb after bomb, leveling homes, whole cities, leaving a path of destruction that invites war profiteers to exploit human suffering. This is not sustainable. The military knows that, for it recently requested an energy audit of its bases in Afghanistan. Yes, it is time to put the environmental, peace, and labor movements in the same room—because it is difficult, if not impossible, to speak to each other, to solve problems, when you are lodged in separate rooms with walls that block the sound of collective change.

Part of this effort requires a recognition that the earth belongs to us all, not to this or that corporation—and that it is time to become signatories to important international treaties—Law of the Sea, the Moon Treaty, The Outer Space Treaty—agreements which declare that the resources of sea and space belong not to a corporation or a colonizer, but to all of humankind.

On earth, we have work to do—and we need to put America back to work. We need a Green New Deal that invests in both public and private works projects; installing a million solar panels on roof tops; developing wind farms; building rapid transit; repairing our aging infrastructure—ports, levees, bridges. Let the environmental, peace, and labor movements coalesce around a demand for full employment in a new Green economy.

We are at the tipping point.

It’s up to us.