AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from San Francisco, California, throughout the week, the site of this week’s Global Climate Action Summit. Activists held hundreds of protests Saturday in more than 90 countries as part of a worldwide day of protest demanding urgent action to address climate change. Here in San Francisco, up to 30,000 people took part in the Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice march. It’s believed to be the largest climate march ever on the West Coast. The protest came just days before the start of the Global Climate Action Summit being organized by California Governor Jerry Brown. Well, on Saturday, Democracy Now! was in the streets of San Francisco.

THANU YAKUPITIYAGE: My name’s Thanu Yakupitiyage. I’m with 350.org. And today we’re here in San Francisco, the largest anchor march for Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice. Today, we are here ahead of the Global Climate Action Summit to call on Governor Jerry Brown and elected officials at all levels to step up on climate action, phase out fossil fuels and push for a just transition for 100 percent renewables. There’s over 260 events happening in 50 states plus Puerto Rico today and over 900 events in 90 countries. So it’s a massive mobilization across the world.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking about global climate justice. Jerry Brown is holding a summit on this this week. Do you applaud him for this?

THANU YAKUPITIYAGE: We need more than just empty rhetoric, and so it’s not enough that these elected officials from all over the world are just meeting to pat themselves on the back. We’re asking for tangible commitments. And we want to see that out of this summit. And so, this gathering of tens of thousands of people in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands around the world, is really calling for tangible action, in a time where climate impacts are massive.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you want to see here?

THANU YAKUPITIYAGE: We want to see commitments at the Global Climate Action Summit to phase out fossil fuels, and commitments from cities and states across the country to 100 percent renewables, that supports workers and anchors racial and economic justice.

AMY GOODMAN: What about Governor Brown’s reliance on oil in the state of California? For those who don’t have oil in their state or don’t understand California when it comes to oil, explain.

THANU YAKUPITIYAGE: Yeah, absolutely. So, Governor Brown—California is the third-largest producer of oil. This is impacting communities not just in California. For example, we have the Sarayaku from Ecuador here. The oil that is being extracted from Ecuador is refined in California. And so, this is an issue that’s beyond just California. And so, when we call for the phaseout of fossil fuels, this is ultimately about everybody’s health, everybody’s safety, everybody’s ability to live in the communities that they want to live in.

REV. AMBROSE CARROLL SR.: Good morning. My name is Ambrose Carroll. I’m the senior pastor of the Church by the Side of the Road in Berkeley. And I, too, rise for climate, jobs and justice. When it comes to air pollution and climate change, low-income communities, communities of color and other marginalized groups bear a disproportionate burden. Ignoring these truths and sparing our obligation to protect the most vulnerable among us is morally wrong.

For example, black children are 4.5 times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma and 10 times more likely to die from asthma than white children. My 10-year-old son, Ambrose Jr., is playing football this season in the Snoop Dogg league. We live in West Oakland, which is the transportation hub of the region, that leads to and from San Francisco, where our air quality is impacted by pollutants stemming from factories, Bay Area Rapid Transit, ships, trucks, trains, planes and automobiles. Ambrose Jr., you see, struggles with asthma. And so, although he plays, we monitor his Qvar intake, and we watch his play closely. We pray that he and other little children grow out of the condition. And we will march today in order to alleviate their discomfort. We rise today because all sentient beings deserve the right to breathe and because we believe that black life matters.

ANNOUNCER: Our next speaker, Mirian Cisneros, president of the Kichwa people of Sarayaku in Ecuadorean Amazon.

MIRIAN CISNEROS: [translated] I’d like to say thank you to all of the men, women, elders and children who are here. I come from Sarayaku, Amazon, in Ecuador. I want to tell all of you that I come from those forests, rivers, lakes and mountains that have life. I come from there, where the human being and Mother Earth live in harmony. I come from Kawsak Sacha. I come from the Living Forest. I also come from a people who has fought for years and years the threats of oil exploitation. I come from the land where we have defended millions of lives. And today we are here to leave you with our Kawsak Sacha proposal, Living Forest.

We are here in this huge march, brothers and sisters, from throughout the planet, because we have understood that we must leave fossil fuels underground, both in the Amazon forest as well as in the whole world. We are also here because we want the world to know that indigenous communities like ours, Sarayaku, possess innovative solutions, such as our own proposal of Kawsak Sacha, a permanent protection of all forests and life in our ancestral lands. The world requires just and noble solutions, such as this one, to confront climate change. And also we ask for respect for our indigenous rights, self-determination and our autonomy. In this way, we can guarantee the life of humanity and to live in peace.

CHIEF NINAWA HUNI KUI: [translated] My name is Ninawa. I’m from the Huni Kui people, and I am from the Brazilian Amazon in the state of Acre. I’m here to unite with other indigenous peoples and the peoples of the world, because we’re here to defend rights. The governments are going to hold a summit to decide the future of the world and the future of our peoples. Their vision of the future is just about profits, making money. And they make money by polluting and destroying this world. So I’m here to bring the voice of the Amazon rainforest to this discussion.

ANNOUNCER: Our next speaker is Rudy Gonzalez, the executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council.

RUDY GONZALEZ: So, in California and in the union movement, we know that climate change is real. I’m going to say that again. Climate change is real. I represent over 140 unions and 100,000 union workers in San Francisco. And in California, we’ve seen the real impact, the fires in Carr—the Carr Fire. Our firefighters and our electrical workers are on the front lines. And recently we’ve even seen some of them go to work and not come home to their families. They and members of the community have lost their lives to this very real threat. And we’re at a crossroads here, because, after the fires, we know that it’s our construction workers, ironworkers and steelworkers and carpenters and electrical workers who will rebuild our local economies and our communities. So when we talk about standing together to fight for climate, justice and jobs, we have to talk about that old principle of solidarity. We have to stand together on these issues.

I can tell you that the big corporations are trying the same tactic on us, as a large community, as they do to union workers every day. They offer a false choice. They say choose between better wages or better working conditions, or choose between secure retirement or affordable healthcare. And in the union world, we say no to that choice. We deserve all those things. And in the same way, we deserve a clean and peaceful planet for our generation and for future generations, and we deserve good union jobs. We can have good jobs and a clean planet.

AMY GOODMAN: Voices from Saturday’s Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice march. We’ll go back to the streets of San Francisco in 30 seconds.

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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we broadcast from San Francisco, California, for the whole week, the site of this week’s Global Climate Action Summit. We go back to the streets of San Francisco now to voices from Saturday’s Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice march.

PROTESTER: Long live Standing Rock!

PROTESTERS: Long live Standing Rock!

PROTESTER: Long live Standing Rock!

PROTESTERS: Long live Standing Rock!

JUAN FLORES: My name is Juan Flores. I’m with the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment. I’m a community organizer. We are located in Kern County, Delano, which for many years has been the city of the fight for farmworkers’ movement. And now we’re doing an environmental justice movement. It’s very significant. We are in the district of Kevin McCarthy, who is almost like Donald Trump’s puppy in the White House. So it’s very significant. It’s a man that has a lot of power, but he does not have the will to protect our people. So that’s why we’re here today, to march, to make our voices be heard, so he can see that this is a bigger movement and that this movement could very well be coming to his district one of these days.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about what’s happened in Kern County.

JUAN FLORES: Kern County is the epicenter for oil extraction and hydraulic fracturing, one of the most extreme methods of extracting oil. Ninety-eight percent of the permits in the state of California for hydraulic fracturing happen in Kern County, and specifically in communities that their demographics are on a very disadvantaged side. They’re low-income communities and communities of color. Most of them are monolingual. And when they try to defend themselves, they actually can’t fight back, just by the fact that they don’t speak English. So, it’s very important that we’re here.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, you just enjoyed what you consider a great victory. What was that?

JUAN FLORES: Yes. Arvin, a small community at the south end of Kern County, has put the toughest oil regulations that are on the law right now, currently, on the state of California. No new wells can come to the city without properly being far away enough from residences. That’s about 350 feet away from residents. Not even the state of California has that buffer zone. So, little space, the state of California thinks that communities don’t deserve it.

AMY GOODMAN: And how did you score this victory?

JUAN FLORES: Well, you know what? With a lot of community power, people’s power. They went out. They have been at it for four years. They made sure they win, that they exercise the right to vote, that they put the right people into the council—young, progressive women and men of color, that have taken on to the leadership of environmental justice. And finally, this year, they came out with this new ordinance.

PROTESTERS: We are the people! Two, a little bit louder! Three, we want justice for our people! One, we are the people!

MIYA YOSHITANI: My name is Miya Yoshitani. I’m the executive director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, based in Oakland, California. We organize with low-income immigrant and refugee communities around the intersection of race, poverty and pollution.

AMY GOODMAN: Race, poverty and pollution—can you break that down and specifically talk about the communities you work with and what they’re confronting?

MIYA YOSHITANI: Sure. We’re talking about communities who have economic conditions that are combined with direct pollution from polluting industries like the Chevron refinery. So, the Laotian refugee community that we’ve been organizing in, in Richmond, California, for 20 years, they face some of the worst economic conditions and the worst polluted air in the state. And so, this results in people who not only don’t have political power, but they have asthma at higher rates, cancer, all kinds of pulmonary and heart disease. And they are also being impacted by climate change right now. So these are the folks who climate change—that we always say climate change is a threat multiplier. So, folks who are already living in poverty, without access to clean and healthy homes, a good workplace and good living-wage jobs, they’re also going to be impacted even more by climate change.

NAJARI SMITH: So, my name is Najari Smith. I’m the founding executive director of Rich City Rides, based in Richmond, California.

AMY GOODMAN: You live in one of—in the shadow of one of the largest refineries in this country, the Chevron refinery, that—a famous fire a number of years ago. Can you talk about what you’re doing around Chevron?

NAJARI SMITH: So, my neighbor has cancer. My mentor, who’s staying with me now, has cancer. He has been displaced out of his home. This is in Richmond, California, in the shadow of that refinery. We can’t depend on the refinery to change things. It’s been there for years, and it has done nothing to help the people or save the planet or alleviate the devastation to our environment. We, as community members, have had to be the resilient ones, to come up with these answers to the problems that are being pressed on us.

AMY GOODMAN: You were recently arrested?

NAJARI SMITH: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: So explain what happened to you? How did you get arrested? What were you doing?

NAJARI SMITH: For doing the same civic rides that I do—that we do every Sunday in Richmond. We had a sound bike, that we—well, the community calls it the music bike. We use it to advertise the rides that we do. We were rolling around, and we were doing our black unity ride against racism, in memory—it was a healing ride for Nia Wilson, who was killed at the MacArthur BART station.

AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking about the subway station here in the Bay Area.

NAJARI SMITH: That’s correct.

AMY GOODMAN: And she was killed by?

NAJARI SMITH: She was murdered at that station by a transient white guy. She was 18 years old. Her throat was slashed. So, in response, the organizations that I work with, three black-led bicycle organizations, came together to have a healing ride in her memory. We had a moment of silence at the MacArthur BART station. We did our—the ride that we do every month. We do monthly rides on First Fridays. And as we made it to First Friday, the event—the largest, loudest celebration in the Bay Area, monthly one—that’s where I was arrested.

AMY GOODMAN: For?

NAJARI SMITH: For playing music from the music bike that I use to advertise our rides, the music bike that has been welcomed by the community. We get waves. People come outside. They feel safe. They want to know what’s going on. They want to know how they can be a part of it. And for that, I was criminalized.

DORIA ROBINSON: My name is Doria Robinson. I’m a third-generation Richmond resident. I’m also the executive director of Urban Tilth and a member of Our Power Richmond Coalition. So, I’m out here today just to make sure our voices are going to be heard, voices from people who literally live on the front lines. Like, I grew up five blocks from the refinery. I’ve been through three, you know, big fires that I’ve seen, that I know. And, you know, leading up to this event, we did a lot of teach-ins in our community with our youth that we work with, the people and everything, actually talking about, telling them, really almost for the first time for a lot of them, what cap and trade is, and to be sitting a few blocks from a refinery and to learn for the first time how your health is being bought and sold, you know?

AMY GOODMAN: Explain how it relates to cap and trade, and what cap and trade is.

DORIA ROBINSON: Right. So—

AMY GOODMAN: Do a little teach-in here for the world.

DORIA ROBINSON: So, as I understand it, cap and trade, buying and selling on the carbon markets, you know, companies, corporations, who are polluters, are allowed to buy carbon credits so that they can continue to pollute in the places that they’re polluting. And because of some recent rules, we can’t put a cap on how much pollution that is, because of what Jerry Brown and everyone in the state government here did. And so, that means that people can buy the right to basically pollute and injure our health, right? Like, we’re sacrificed for their gain. We don’t get anything for it, you know? They build their wealth and their empires. Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And how does the Chevron refinery impact Richmond, for people who aren’t familiar? You said, “Oh, we already had three fires.” Many people don’t even know what you’re talking about.

DORIA ROBINSON: Right. So, the Chevron refinery had a whole history of explosions and just negligence of maintenance at their facilities. They’ve been cited. They’re there for a hundred years, so they have been entrenched. They influence our politics. They flood the politics with money. They flood nonprofits and other organizations to make sure that they’re kind of silenced and they won’t speak out when things are not right. And they are the single biggest point source of polluter, emitter of greenhouse gases in the state of California—you know, five blocks from my house, growing up.

AMY GOODMAN: What happened in the 2012 fire? How many people were injured?

DORIA ROBINSON: So, I think it was over 15,000 people were sent to the local hospitals. I was at my house. And, you know, now I live 12 blocks from the refinery. And I could literally stand on my porch and see the flames from my house, blocks and blocks away. It was that big. The whole sky went black. You could see the black cloud from San Francisco, which is 15, 20 miles away. And it just covered everything—you know, this big, black, ominous cloud—until the sky was dark. And the sirens were going off.

And literally that day—you know, we are an urban agriculture organization, and we’re out trying to revitalize communities, to get people out of their houses, from behind their bars, and invest in health and try to, you know, deal with some of the other issues that are facing our community. And that day, we had just finished working with 40 youth in our summer apprentice program, all summer, to grow all this food. And that black cloud went across and dropped the noxious chemicals on every single thing we had done with them all summer. And it just like hit them like a brick.

REBECCA MACARRO: Míiyuyam. Notúungup Rebecca Macarro. I’m from Southern California. I’m from the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians. We call ourselves Payómkawichum.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what your sign says?

REBECCA MACARRO: It says, “No Bayou Bridge Pipeline!” I just came from the swamp. Cherri Foytlin and a bunch of really dedicated folks are fighting the Bayou Bridge pipeline in Louisiana.

MARK TILSEN: My name is Mark Tilsen. I’m Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge. Bayou Bridge pipeline is currently being constructed through the Atchafalaya Basin. L’eau Est La Vie Camp has been fighting the pipeline. And this is actually the same fight from North Dakota. This is still the Dakota Access pipeline. The pipeline fight is now in the bayous. It’s no longer at Standing Rock. But we’re still—there are people, indigenous-led resistance movement, still fighting the pipeline all the way down in the swamps and the bayous of Louisiana. And ETP is up to their old tricks. Energy Transfer Partners is still—they bought out the local police as their own private security force.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain the anti-protest law that was just enacted?

MARK TILSEN: This is one of the—in Louisiana, there’s a series—it’s the latest in a series of ALEC-sponsored bills that is now in effect, that essentially says that protesting these pipelines is now critical infrastructure, so people are hitting with felony charges, outrageous fines, escalated bail money. This is the front line of the latest series of ALEC bills down in Louisiana.

LINDA SIXFEATHERS: So, my name is Linda Sixfeathers. That’s my family name. My ancestor was Wiyaka Sapke, which means Sixfeathers. And I’m from the Oglala Lakotas Tribe in South Dakota. And I’m here today because of the missing and murdered indigenous women across the Americas. That’s from the Canadians, Turtle Island, United States, Central America, South America, Mexico and the Pacific Islands. When a person of color, women, go missing, the authorities don’t do anything to find them. They always give an excuse that, “Oh, they’re on a drunk, or they’re just run away someplace.” But that’s not true. We have found out through the process of non-investigations from the authorities that these women are part of being human-trafficked, sex trafficking, and as well as just being murdered and not looked for. So I’m here representing them to call awareness that these women need to be looked for.

LOA NIUMEITOLU: Malo e lelei. My name is Loa Niumeitolu. I’m from Tonga, and I’m here—I’m also from the Pacific Islands, the great Southern Pacific. And I’m here with the Pacific Islander contingent. Moana Nui ej adwoj Lamoran. The Pacific Ocean is our homeland.

AMY GOODMAN: And why are you here? What statement are you making?

LOA NIUMEITOLU: You know, when you talk about climate change to us, Amy, we feel it in our gut, because our gut is our homeland. And we can feel that rupture. We can feel that tearing with our land, with the climate. So that’s why we’re here, because we’re on the front lines. I mean, we’re here because we can feel the call.

SAMANTHA MARLEY BARNETT: I’m Samantha Barnett. I’m from the island of Guam. And I’m here to protest against like U.S. military contamination and testing of our waters and use of our land. We’re here to advocate for an independent Guahan and a free and decolonized Oceania.

AMY GOODMAN: Your sign says?

SAMANTHA MARLEY BARNETT: My sign says, “Decolonize, demilitarize and defend Oceania.”

AMY GOODMAN: And what is Oceania?

SAMANTHA MARLEY BARNETT: It’s a grouping of islands in the Pacific. And we’re the indigenous people from those islands.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you Chamorro?

SAMANTHA MARLEY BARNETT: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: What can you tell us about Guam and what’s happening there now?

SAMANTHA MARLEY BARNETT: Yeah, so Guam is a current colony of the U.S., and right now our people are advocating for our right for freedom. So, we’re a part of the group Independent Guahan, and right now we’re really just trying to organize our community against like a massive U.S. military buildup that’s being planned.

AMY GOODMAN: There is major military bases on Guam.

SAMANTHA MARLEY BARNETT: Right, and there’s a lot of training and testing happening in our waters and in our land right now. One of our sacred spots is called Litekyan, and the U.S. military is planning on building a live-fire training range there, which would poison our main aquifer. So it’s literally poisoning our people and our water.

ADRIAN LEONG: My name is Adrian Leong. I’m with the Chinese Progressive Association. So, rice is traditionally cultivated on flooded paddies, and that emits a lot of methane. And there’s been some innovation, genetically modified rice, that will make it possible for dry seeding. And Microsoft, in 2017, has already bought carbon offsets from rice farmers in Arkansas, Mississippi and California. And we are very worried, as Chinese and as Asian contingent, that our staple crop, rice, will become modified in this way. And we see what happened with biofuels, what happened with other crops that have become modified, is people lose control of these crops that are central to our lifestyles.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what you mean by Microsoft bought this.

ADRIAN LEONG: So, Microsoft bought carbon offset credits from a voluntary market. And what that means is that they can keep polluting, powering up their data centers, by saying that we have offset that pollution by helping these farmers to dry-seed the rice.

PROTESTER: Rise up! Rise up! Tell me what you need, what you really need!

PROTESTERS: Justice!

PROTESTER: How we gonna get it?

PROTESTERS: People power!

PROTESTER: How we gonna get it?

PROTESTERS: People power!

KIRAN OOMMEN: I’m Kiran Oommen. I’m 21 years old. And I’m here to show solidarity with Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice and the California movement for a just transition to end fossil fuel production.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you involved with a lawsuit?

KIRAN OOMMEN: I am indeed. I’m a plaintiff on Juliana v. U.S.

AMY GOODMAN: And what is that?

KIRAN OOMMEN: Juliana v. U.S. is 21 youth suing the federal government, claiming that the actions they have taken over the last 60-some years to contribute and support the fossil fuel industry and cause global warming is a breach of our Constitution and is harming our constitutional rights to life, liberty and property.

AMY GOODMAN: When did this lawsuit start? How old were you?

KIRAN OOMMEN: I was 18 when I filed as a plaintiff. When we first filed the lawsuit, it was the spring of 2015.

AMY GOODMAN: You were suing President Obama at the time?

KIRAN OOMMEN: We were. We were suing the Obama administration. But now we’re suing the Trump administration. But the focus is not on the president. The focus is on the whole system that has prioritized money and the fossil fuel industry over the fundamental rights of the people.

PROTESTERS: One, we are the people! Two, a little bit louder! Three, we want justice for our people! One, we are the people!

WALTER RILEY: Walter Riley. I’m out here because we have to have everybody mobilizing. And I’m with the Thousand Grandmothers. My wife is a part of that. And I’ve been trying to make the fight with everybody else that has to mobilize to fight climate—

AMY GOODMAN: Now, I know another Riley very well: Boots Riley.

WALTER RILEY: You know Boots Riley.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you any relation to him?

WALTER RILEY: I’m his father.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did you teach him?

WALTER RILEY: I taught him to fight. I taught him to organize. I taught him to be a part of the movement for change. And I taught him to have respect for labor and political organizing for change.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering what you think about his film by that very title, Sorry to Bother You.

WALTER RILEY: I think it’s an absolutely wonderful film. And I think it’s something totally unique, as many people are saying. I think it’s unique not simply because of the techniques that are involved, but because of the story that he’s telling. And he’s telling a story of class struggle, of fighting racism, and understanding the nature of who we are, living in a society dominated by corporations that want to profit from our labor, steal our souls and destroy our planet. And the only way that we can fight back is organizing. And that’s a very important aspect of the film. The other aspect of the film, that it’s a film for everybody around class struggles, the importance of what it means living in this world as people. And so happens that the people in it are black.

MUSTAFA ALI: I’m Mustafa Santiago Ali with the Hip Hop Caucus. I work on environment, climate and also revitalizing vulnerable communities. And I’m here for climate jobs and justice today, understanding that we have to take a holistic approach to being able to address the issues that are happening both in our country to our most vulnerable communities, but across the planet. And it’s great to see so many committed artists and grassroots leaders—I’ve seen some business folks, as well—all coming together to say that we can rise, we can make the change that’s necessary to address climate change issues.

AMY GOODMAN: You worked at the EPA for a couple decades. Is that right? You were the first person to publicly quit the Trump administration. Why then? And what do you think has happened to the EPA since?

MUSTAFA ALI: Well, I left because they were very honest about what they were planning on doing, and I knew that the things that they were doing around air pollution and water pollution were going to be damaging to all communities, but especially our most vulnerable communities. And then, when I also saw the various proposals to eliminate science and to weaken climate-related activities, I knew that I couldn’t be a part of that. I knew the communities that I had served for over two decades had worked diligently to be able to get things in place, to enforcement—to make sure that enforcement was happening in their communities.

And what we see now is that inside of the Environmental Protection Agency, we see chaos. We see folks are moving forward on things like the affordable care—whatever it’s called now, clean energy. They have a different name for it. We call it the dirty power plan. We know that that’s going to have huge impacts. They say 1,400 lives are going to be lost. We know those are conservative figures. More lives are actually going to be lost. We see that science continues to be weakened inside of the agency. We see that they continue to try and eliminate programs that are so necessary to protect all communities, but especially our most vulnerable communities. So they continue to try to move forward in this dirty fossil fuel agenda. But luckily, we have a number of people who are pushing back, who are standing up. People are going to use their vote to make sure that folks on Capitol Hill are held accountable, and making sure that they are putting pressure on the Environmental Protection Agency.

PROTESTERS: The people gonna rise like the water! We’re gonna calm this crisis down! I hear the voice of my great-granddaughter saying “Keep it in the ground!”

AMY GOODMAN: Voices from Saturday’s Rise for Climate, Jobs and Justice march here in San Francisco. It’s believed up to 30,000 people attended. Special thanks to John Hamilton, Carla Wills, Ariel Boone and Libby Rainey. We’ll be broadcasting from San Francisco throughout the week, covering the Global Climate Action Summit and all the events surrounding it. This is Democracy Now! Back in 30 seconds.