LCEA Action at PG&E for the Climate Strike

On September 20th, tens of thousands of youth activists and adult allies marched through downtown San Francisco as part of the Climate Strike Week of Action, making a series of stops at relevant locations along the way.  Marchers started at the Federal Building, where they urged Speaker Nancy Pelosi to embrace climate action and a Green New Deal, continuing on to Bank of America, Senator Feinstein’s office, Amazon Go, BlackRock, PG&E HQ, ICE, and finally ending at the Embarcadero to listen to speakers and explore a “Resiliency Village.”

 

The No PG&E Bailout Coalition was asked by Youth vs the Apocalypse to organize an action at the PG&E stop for the marchers to witness. LCEA with help from East Bay and San Francisco DSA folks, and Matt Jones from San Bruno, designed a human puppet show. Puppet masters G and E pulled the strings of Governor Newsom and the California Legislature, feeding them loads of money, in order to get a Bailout Bill. Meanwhile, P squeezed "the People" for money, while a poor PG&E worker collected the money and received almost nothing in return. In the end, the angry people joined the disgusted PG&E worker, chased away all the corrupt executives and elected officials and replaced PG&E with Clean Power to the People! The skit was repeated several times as groups of marchers broke off from the march and cheered them on with guided chants of “PG&E, no more greed!  We should own our Energy!”

 

Climate Strike week activities continued on September 25, with direct action in the financial district of San Francisco. That day included huge murals painted along  two entire blocks of Montgomery St , and several banks were shut down by blockading participants.  

 

The week of action concluded with a youth-led protest outside of Chevron headquarters in San Ramon.  Several hundred youth and allies blocked the main entrance to the Chevron campus, backed by hand-made oil derricks and holding signs and banners.  Similarly to the financial district occupation on the 25th, the event in San Ramon had a wonderful supportive and communal vibe, with participants handing out food and water, singing songs, and child-minding as a community.