THE CLIMATE CRISIS: Ad Spotlights How Every Part of the Country Faces ‘One Emergency’
Climate Power Education Fund in partnership with Potential Energy Coalition captures the code red climate emergency facing America & the world.
Washington, D.C. — This week, Climate Power Education Fund and Potential Energy took to tv & digital screens to release a powerful ad that captures how every part of the country is under ‘one emergency.’ The ad is running during the same day as artists, celebrities, and influencers joined together to launch a #codered initiative to call attention to the emergency.
“This is our moment. As a country all of us are facing one emergency,” said Climate Power executive director Lori Lodes. “It’s time to take bold action that will lift up American families while saving us from catastrophe by passing policies to create clean energy jobs, build a more just and equitable economy, and slash pollution.”
“The video splices together different extreme weather events from different parts of the country, underscoring that the traumatic wildfires, heat waves, drought, hurricanes, and floods devastating communities all connect back to the climate crisis this country, and the world, is experiencing,” PEC’s Chief Creative Officer Casey Rand.
Recently, 20 national environmental, public health, and climate advocacy groups released a ‘Climate Test’ laying out how lawmakers can create millions of good-paying, clean energy jobs that American workers can raise their families on and that keep their children and grandchildren safe from climate change. In a letter, the groups outlined the key categories of investments—including funding levels and associated predicted emissions reductions—that are critical to slashing emissions in half by 2030.
In 2021, no region of America has been spared from the climate crisis. Here is a snapshot of how it is currently impacting the country:
- 22,857 daily maximum temperatures have been broken in the U.S. this year (1,591 in the past week alone), in the past 3 months more than 1 in 3 Americans have experienced a climate disaster.
- Communities from the Gulf Coast to the North East are still reeling in the wake of Hurricane Ida’s devastation. In the West 5,609,865 acres have been burned in 44,740 wildfires so far this year, including California’s largest single wildfire ever, the Dixie Fire. More than 123,000 people in Texas still do not have electricity because of Tropical Storm Nicholas.
- Hopi farmers in Arizona face the possibility of seeing no corn harvest—a vital feature of their culture and religion—due to drought.