Climate Change

Human-caused climate change is throwing global ecological systems out of balance and is connected to every single issue we work on as an environmental organization, from public health to wildlife protection. Coastal areas are already experiencing the effects of climate change and marine ecosystems are in distress, with warmer and more acidic waters resulting from the ocean absorbing unnatural amounts of carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere. Climate change is truly an existential crisis of global proportions, characterized by a long-term trend of warming, increasing severe weather events such as droughts and floods, wildfires, and rapid acidification of our oceans which have absorbed a huge amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

We pay for these effects in many ways, and will continue to do so with future generations bearing a disproportionate burden for the harm caused by generations of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Our current course of continued reliance on (and subsidization of) the fossil fuel industry is unsustainable and unjust. We must also acknowledge and address the climate impacts of industrialized agriculture and specifically animal agriculture.

Elected and appointed governmental officials have a fiduciary duty to protect the resources we depend on for life, and leaders of business and industry have power to make a difference for our shared resources, for better or worse. The United States has a critical leadership role to play in the years and decades ahead, and we should encourage our representatives at all levels to work toward policies that address the causes and effects of climate change in meaningful ways. Find and call your representatives today: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials.

Our Children’s Earth Foundation has worked to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change while also putting our health at risk. We have challenged dirty coal plants, fossil fuel refineries, diesel buses, and megafarms that previously enjoyed legal exemptions allowing them to emit volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere. More recently, we are focusing on supporting youth leadership in the climate movement.

In all our efforts, we push for maximum long-term protections for public health, air quality, and environmental justice. See below for summaries of OCE’s cases and activities related to climate. Many of our air quality and public health cases also provide a climate benefit; more on those cases is available on our AIR QUALITY page. A full list of OCE’s cases can be found here.

Diesel engine exhaust is carcinogenic and contains Nitrogen Oxides (NOx), which are linked to lung conditions including asthma. Premature deaths linked to NOx and other chemicals in dirty diesel have occurred all over the world for generations. Children are particularly susceptible to the negative health effects of diesel fumes. Diesel exhaust contains tiny particles of toxic metals and chemicals that can become lodged in the lungs, and can even penetrate the lungs and enter the blood stream.

Way back in 2001, OCE challenged the Bay Area Air Quality Management District over a rule which would have allowed a tenfold increase in carcinogenic emissions from diesel generators used intermittently for backup sources of energy. As a result of our lawsuit, the Air District rescinded the rule and proposed a vastly improved set of rules to regulate emissions from new and modified sources of air toxics. We achieved greater governmental transparency and improved rules regulating sources of air toxics for communities in San Francisco and surrounding areas.

Then, OCE turned to the issue of diesel buses throughout California, which more than a million kids rely on for daily transportation. California’s Proposition 65 requires businesses to disclose toxic chemicals in the products they purchase and the pollution they release into the environment. Prop 65 focuses on chemicals that have been clearly shown to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm. Diesel fumes from idling bus engines seep into the passenger area of buses and expose kids to a concentrated cloud of toxicity. Idling diesel buses are particularly horrendous, as kids often have no choice but to sit and wait on the bus while being exposed to dangerous pollution that can have direct health consequences, and the buses needlessly increase their greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.

OCE partnered with Environmental Law Foundation and Communities for a Better Environment to reduce diesel exhaust emissions from school buses throughout California. Our lawsuits targeted ten companies that operated the majority of the school buses in the state. The case settlements required that thousands of the dirtiest buses would be replaced or retrofitted to protect children’s health and comply with clean air laws. For buses that were not yet retrofitted, our case settlement required disclosure per Prop 65 in the form of large and conspicuous placards on each bus. The largest company among the defendants, Laidlaw Transit, eventually agreed to settlement terms totaling $34.9 million—a record for a Proposition 65 case—to cover the needed retrofits, buy new buses, and to compensate the plaintiff organizations for attorneys’ fees.

OCE is among a coalition of environmental groups, community groups, and legal experts challenging air pollution permits at wood pellet manufacturing facilities throughout the southeastern United States. These facilities are among the largest in the world; they produce wood pellets for export to Europe, which are used in pellet burning stoves. The wood pellet industry has grown more than 10-fold in the past decade.

Biomass is considered part of the mix of “renewable” energy sources due to a loophole in the European Union’s accounting system that is based on the notion that biomass can be carbon neutral because trees grow back and absorb carbon as they grow. But burning wood pellets emits large amounts of greenhouse gases and replanted trees take many decades to grow enough to absorb as much carbon dioxide as the industry emits, and not all the saplings survive. Additionally, the manufacturing process is extremely dirty.

Wood pellet plants emit dangerous amounts of volatile organic chemicals into the air, befouling nearby communities and putting public health in serious jeopardy. Because these plants are always located in rural areas, mostly in the southeast United States and often adjacent to small towns, if is extremely difficult for residents to take effective action at the state level, particularly when the state regulatory agencies are used to promoting industry and ignoring public health concerns.

This is an ongoing campaign. Read more at https://www.ocefoundation.org/biomass.

CAMPAIGNING AGAINST OIL BURNING "PEAKER" PLANTS

In 2001, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and U.S. EPA entered into a backroom agreement with Mirant Potrero Power Company to provide power from “peaker” units that exceeded hourly operational limits allowed by law. Peaker units burn oil, making them extremely dirty generators of energy in terms of pollution output. These units are designed to operate only during peak demand, and are equipped with little or no pollution control. Pollution from peakers poses serious health risks to people who live and work in surrounding areas.

Typically, peakers at Mirant’s Potrero power plant operated 200-300 hours per year, but in 2001 some of the peakers operated for more than 875 hours. Along with Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates and Communities for a Better Environment, OCE sued Mirant and other defendants to stop illegal peaker use and force Mirant to install pollution controls for extended use. We also pointed out that the air district violated California’s environmental review law by excluding the public from the planning process and failing to conduct thorough reviews of the environmental impacts of the expanded peaker operation. The City and County of San Francisco also joined the suit. Shortly after filing suit, OCE reached a settlement under which Mirant agreed to stop exceeding the permit limits at the dirty peaker units and to pay $100,000 into a mitigation fund for projects benefiting air quality in Southeast San Francisco.

The growing youth-led movement for action on climate change is a force to be reckoned with. Young people are right to point out that the impacts of the climate crisis will increase in severity in the future, impacting them and future generations more than others.

Children and future generations will bear the human impacts of climate change, but the ecosystem impacts are already severe. We are in the midst of an extinction event, with 1 million animal and plant species are currently threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history [report].

The situation is urgent. It is a crisis. See below for key reports on the impacts of climate change and policy recommendations for preventing worst-case-scenarios in the future.

The following are youth-led organizations that are actively engaged in litigation, policy advocacy, and public education efforts related to climate change:

Like so many organizations, individuals, businesses, states, nations, and other entities, OCE is extremely concerned about the current course of the U.S. government with regard to climate change and environmental policies. OCE is a non-political, non-partisan organization. Healthy children and an inhabitable planet are not political or partisan issues. There is only one major political party in the world which denies the overwhelming scientific consensus regarding human impacts on the global climate. Unfortunately, that political party is located in the United States of America.

OCE has participated and will continue participating in public protests aimed at raising awareness and putting government officials on notice that We The People demand and expect action to protect our climate, our ecosystems, our water, our air, our health, and our children's futures.

The U.S. has a critical leadership role to play in the years and decades ahead. Please encourage your representatives at all levels to work toward policies to address the causes and effects of climate change in meaningful ways.

KEY REPORTS

United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [website]

2018: Global Warming of 1.5° Celsius

2019: The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate

2019: Climate Change and Land

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) [website]

2019: Economic and Policy Analysis of Climate Change

2019: Livestock and the Environment

Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) [website]

2017-2019: Assessment Reports on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services