South Bay students hold rally to end fossil fuels: Here's a look at Bay Area Earth Day events
PALO ALTO, Calif. (KGO) -- Young activists are calling for climate action. The Palo Alto Student Climate Coalition helped organized a rally on Friday that is part of a global youth-led movement to end fossil fuels.
High school senior Julia Zeitlin was one of the organizers.
"I think I see that this is reality, I think it's really easy to get brought down by climate apathy," Zeitlin said.
Zeitlin said pushing city leaders to "go greener" faster is one of the greatest ways to combat that apathy.
"I think we're in a really unique political and climate moment right now," Zeitlin said.
She added a lot more members of her generation are starting to think more on what they consume.
"I personally am vegan, and I'm excited to share the environmental benefits that reducing your meat consumption, your dairy consumption can have on the planet," Zeitlin said.
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Keshav Narang with Acterra Student Ambassador Program spoke about the corporate impact.
"The tobacco industry is a consumer of over 3 billion gallons of gas a year that's as much as the state of Missouri," Narang said.
Organizations like Palo Alto Forward shared their advocacy on building housing in transit areas can help reduce the amount of driving.
Amie Ashton is the Executive Director of Palo Alto Forward.
"I think where we're lagging is in the speed in the understanding of how important it is to build housing locally. We have a lot of backlash of people who don't want housing and so our organization works to build the voices that do care and the voices that - I think that's not a bad idea I think it's a good idea," Ashton said.
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Earth Day is Monday but events will be happening all weekend long throughout the Bay Area.
Lynn Adams, President of the organization Pacific Beach Coalition, says that each year- the group focuses on a different species to honor Earth Day. This year - it's whales.
"It gives us a focus, it connects us to the species so we care a little more about it and we will reduce our single use plastic because we know that it's helping the whale," Adams said.
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On Saturday, the organization will host Whalefest from 10:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m. at Linda Mar State Beach in Pacifica.
"These majestic species are so special and they contribute greatly to the health of the ocean," Adams said.
Last year, volunteers with Pacific Beach Coalition removed 44,000 pounds of trash along the coast from Daly City to Half Moon Bay including more than 200 cigarette butts.
Adams said cigarette butts is the most littered object.
Lynn Adams said you don't need to come to the beach to help the ocean.
"Lets make a commitment to not forget our shopping bag, let's take our shopping bag, let's bring our coffee cup, let's bring our spoon and our fork and reduce the plastic that we're using," Adam said.
Earth Day Shoreline Cleanup 2024 will be held Saturday at 2777 Middle Harbor Road in Oakland from 9 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
2024 San Francisco Earth Day Festival will be held Sunday from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. at The New Farm.
Earth Day Festival will be held in Palo Alto at Rinconada Library from 1 p.m. -4 p.m.
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