Activists, Fresno faith leaders talk about need to protect environment after Pope Francis speaks in Bolivia

The need to protect the Earth from pollution and climate change was discussed during a meeting in Fresno organized by activists and faith leaders to echo recent comments from Pope Francis.

Investor and philanthropist Tom Steyer — founder of NextGen Climate, which works to bring climate change to the forefront of American politics — spoke at the meeting at Saint Anthony Mary Claret Catholic Church in southeast Fresno.

More than 200 people gathered Wednesday night for the meeting, which was conducted primarily in Spanish. Headsets were available that provided a live English translation.

“The pope has made climate change the greatest moral question of our time,” Steyer said. “But it is also an economic question and a health question. Generating energy cleanly will have tremendous benefits.”

Steyer said Fresno is on the front lines of climate change, combating pollution, drought, record heat and other health hazards.

“This is a place where economic justice, environmental justice and academic opportunity are all in great demand,” Steyer said of Fresno. “I have been all over the state, but I do think this is a place where my heart really opens up.”

Steyer’s wife, Kat Taylor, also talked about Fresno.

“While visiting Saint Rest Missionary Baptist Church with PICO and Faith in Community organizers, we learned of decades of overlapping attacks on west Fresno and parts beyond by financial incumbents, political corruption and toxic warfare,” Taylor said.

“What a shock to discover that the west Fresno community suffers a 21-year-less life expectancy than north Fresno just one zip code away. But we also learned of the heroic and generous work of people self-organizing to create a better common future.”

Steyer said Fresno has the state’s worst air pollution and asthma rates and that statewide, seven out of 10 Californians are affected by unhealthy air and more than 3 million have asthma.

And in 2014 alone, he said, the drought put more than 17,000 people out of work. The future of farms and farm jobs “is very much at risk.”

To protect the environment in California and to heed Pope Francis’ call, Steyer said, it’s crucial that Senate Bills 32 and 350 are passed, which call for reducing pollution and investing in “clean energy” sources. Steyer asked people to reach out to their legislators to urge lawmakers to support the bills.

Speakers also included a delegation of faith leaders from the central San Joaquin Valley who attended the World Meeting of Popular Movements in Bolivia earlier this month with Pope Francis. The Vatican invited the Valley group through PICO, which includes Faith in the Valley.

Among them was Msgr. Raymond Dreiling, vicar general of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno, who was sitting within feet of the pope as Francis addressed more than 1,500 people, the majority community organizers, during a three-day gathering in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on July 9.

Dreiling said the best quick summary of the message Pope Francis delivered in Bolivia is: “No family without shelter, no field worker without a job, and no worker without rights.”

Dreiling and other participants at Wednesday’s meeting shared in Valley water that Pope Francis blessed in Bolivia. The blessed water was combined with other water and handed out in plastic bottles.

Carmen Medrano, regional organizer for Faith in the Valley, was the other Fresno delegate at the Bolivia gathering with Pope Francis.

Medrano shared a message she said is in line with the pope’s about the agriculture system: “It is a system that accelerates the irresponsibility of productivity. It denies the most basic rights to people. This is against Jesus’ work.”

When profits are valued more than people, she said, “that economy kills.”

The speakers’ remarks came in the wake of a climate summit at the Vatican, where Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday spoke about global warming. Last month, Pope Francis delivered an encyclical that addressed climate change:

“Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods,” Francis said. “It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”

Maura Fabian, a farmworker and sole provider for her three children, helped put a human face to the challenge on Wednesday night.

She said that her work has been greatly reduced as more and more farmers’ crops die due to lack of water.

“This worries me a lot because if there is no water, there are no jobs,” Fabian said. “If there are no jobs, there is no money. … Sometimes I visualize our Valley and imagine it all dry and arid, filled with dust and no trees. So I ask that we bring (challenges facing our environment) to our consciousness so our Valley will not die.”

This story was originally published July 22, 2015 at 8:59 PM with the headline "Activists, Fresno faith leaders talk about need to protect environment after Pope Francis speaks in Bolivia."