Garamendi attends Green New Deal town hall gathering

By Joey Voss,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Rep. John Garamendi spoke at a town hall event on Feb. 19 at the Veterans Memorial Center. The event was intended to persuade Garamendi to sign the Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal is a hot topic currently in Congress that is proposing various economic programs to address climate change.

“What we are trying to do is have Garamendi endorse the Green New Deal resolution,” Harpreet Shina said. “He may be afraid that by endorsing a resolution like the Green new Deal it would be looked at as too far left and he would be labeled as a socialist.”

Shina and others believe that Garamendi would sign the deal if it was not for political pressure.

“He is afraid that it will cost him votes in the next election,” Shina said. “We don’t so, we think anyone that votes yes on this will win votes in the election.”

“The basic idea is that climate scientists all agree that unless we act now we might not be able to halt climate change,” said Seth Sanders, a Davis resident and professor at UC Davis.

Sanders, along with over one hundred Davis residents, came to the event Tuesday night with varying degrees of disapproval of Garamendi’s attitude towards the issue of climate change.

“My question is, are we really doing anything about climate change or are we not?” one town hall member said. “We are effectively doing nothing.”

Garamendi mentioned a variety of topics that related to the Green New Deal. “The laws that are in place in California are in fact driving down California’s emissions,” Garamendi said. “It has not been an easy fight over the years, but additional progress has been made in recent years.”

Garamendi explained how he has been fighting this for years even before he was in Congress. “We underestimated the amount of warming that would take place,” Garamendi said. “We did however expect this to happen but not to the degree it is now.”

Senior Kayla Trowbridge was the lone Davis High student at the event. She spoke out multiple times expressing her opinions about the issue to the congressman. “Tanks and weapons don’t run on fairy dust they run on fossil fuels,” Trowbridge said.

“I felt that his attitude towards my question was one that would completely allianate me as a voter,” Trowbridge said. “He didn’t give any concrete legislation that he was planning on enacting, which made me concerned as a voter.”

Both Garamendi and his critics believe that immediate action needs to be taken for the climate. With that being said, after this town hall, agreement between the two sides may be challenging to achieve.