The following is a press release from an organization unaffiliated with Voice of OC. The views expressed here are not those of Voice of OC.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Robert Weeks
Tel: (949) 228-9991
October 30, 2016
PRESS RELEASE
Climate Change & Responsible Leadership for Orange County
Ari Grayson, PhD
Suzanne Savary, PhD
Southern California’s legendary beaches are home to Orange County’s world-renowned Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, and Huntington Beach. These three iconic communities host over 23 million visitors a year, almost 6 times more people than Yosemite National Park. Disturbingly, we now find our beaches and coastal communities in danger – from rising sea levels. This has been linked to global climate problems now exacerbated by greenhouse gases from poorly planned industrial activities. This summer was the hottest worldwide ever recorded, with last year coming in as second hottest. How does this affect us? Like other U.S. coastal communities, rising sea levels are hitting residential areas and streets, with even modest storms now causing flooding on Balboa Island in Newport Beach.
Within a generation, many of California’s beaches will be eroded and gone. The cost of relocating homes, businesses, and infrastructure could easily be tens of billions of dollars.
Greenhouse gas-driven climate change sounds distant and vague, but it’s not. We can easily make sensible changes while stimulating our economy and creating good-paying jobs. It’s not rocket science, just plain economic sense. Incredibly, our U.S. Congressman, Dana Rohrabacher, and our State Senator, John Moorlach, refuse to act while greenhouse gases also affect our health with toxic smog and acid rain. Air quality is linked to childhood disabilities like asthma and autism and acid rain harms fish, birds, soil, and agriculture. Rohrabacher says global climate change is “a liberal fabrication to get funding for research and part of a worldwide plan to control our lives,” even though he represents people whose homes lie in harm’s way and Moorlach recently attacked a Senate bill that would reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions, dismissing the need to do so.
We can begin by creating industry support for clean, renewable energy technologies and stimulating the jobs of the future. California can and should lead the world in the manufacture and the use of green technologies. Green technology is a global opportunity for innovation and new business creation and will create the well-paying jobs we need to keep our economy strong.
Lacking vision and political willpower, incumbents Rohrabacher and Moorlach are unable to do what needs to be done and plan accordingly. The political climate needs a change too – from their old-school, big-money denial politics. We deserve better representation than these two men are capable of providing. It’s time citizens vote the incumbents out – before it’s too late.
Dr. Ari Grayson is running for California’s 37th Senate District. He has worked for 25 years as a consultant for the Mayo Clinic, hospitals, schools, and as an educator. Ari has received 15 awards for his work creating energy efficient, cost saving, and healthy environments.
Dr. Suzanne Joyce Savary is running for California’s 48th U.S. Congressional District. She worked with Dr. Carl Sagan as his VP of Marketing and she taught management and communications in the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.
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