In mid-September, dozens of climate activists, including many community members from the Gulf South, gathered in Washington, D.C. for two days of action. They spent one day at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On the next day, they took a “Petrostate Tour” of some of the most powerful promoters of fossil fuels—the American Petroleum Institute, the American Gas Association, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and Venture Global, the company responsible for building two enormous liquefied natural gas, or LNG, export terminals in Cameron Parish, Louisiana.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus joined the Petrostate Tour and interviewed Armon Alex, co-founder and co-director of the Gulf of Mexico Youth Climate Summit, a group of 800 young people from all around the gulf — from Mexico to the U.S. and the Caribbean — working to protect the Gulf region through education, advocacy and direct action.
Alex was born and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas on the Gulf Coast, where the city’s natural beauty sharply contrasts with six massive fossil fuel refineries which increase the risk of respiratory illnesses and cancers among residents there. Here he describes the origins of the Gulf Youth Climate Summit and its mission.
ARMON ALEX: That was started because there was a lack of youth and a lack of women and a lack of people of color in academic and scientific spaces. And what we recognize is when you have that lack of representation, perspective is lost. Absolutely. It is well documented in science that there’s such a thing as bias science. From a perspective, you simply don’t approach a problem in the same way as you would someone with differing perspective and lived experience.
I’m here because my community for far too long, like many others in the U.S. Gulf South — Texas, Alabama, Louisiana — have continued to be dubbed as “sacrifice zones” by oil and gas executives, by politicians who bend the knee to oil and gas money through PACs, etc. and through lobbying efforts. And enough is enough. We’ve far too long seen way too many of our loved ones quite literally die because of the direct impacts to their health from living next door. And all we want at the end of the day is to live a healthy life so that we can see our grandchildren grow, so that we can see our brothers and our sisters grow. Our family members smile at the dining room table. And it’s unfortunate that the Gulf South, as much as it is a place of resilience, is also a place where blood is in the water. And so that’s why I’m here in D.C. with so many incredible others, comrades and allies here.
MELINDA TUHUS: The Trump administration is going all out. Basically, he promised before the election, if the fossil fuel industry gave him a billion dollars, he would deliver for them, and he’s doing that in a big way, really promoting as much as possible, fast-tracking everything to do with fossil fuels and de-tracking anything to do with renewables. What do you want to see happen? What do you think could happen that would benefit your community in the current situation?
ARMON ALEX: From my point of view living in the Gulf South, we know that any growth for industry quite literally delivers death with it. When this current administration decides that they want to go full throttle on expanding and creating more profit for these gritty billionaires and oil and gas CEOs, we know that that means we will continue to see in an exponential fashion the passing of our loved ones due to the impacts that fossil fuels have in our communities.
I think that this also serves as a moment in which we are seeing our communities band together to push back against this authoritarian regime that we’re facing right now. We are helping our family, our friends, people from across the world, our neighbors gain this consciousness about it’s not a left or right issue, but rather a top-heavy to working class people issue. Beyond that, we know that still at the end of the day, the Trump administration is going to expand oil and gas.
We need to do and continue to organize our communities to push back. That is at our local levels, that’s at our state levels and our federal levels. Of course, he’s going to do everything that he can at the federal level. States like mine, like Texas, when you have a governor like ours, or rather in Florida or Louisiana, they’re going to continue to push these sacrifice zones. It’s quite unfortunate. Residents of Texas can’t even rely on our state environmental agency because it’s a rubberstamp for oil and gas permits, so that’s an unreliable place to go. But nevertheless, we should still engage in those spaces so that it is well documented across time that our communities continue to undergo the worst impacts just for some profits.
On a local level, there’s also work that can be done. We saw this in the first administration where a lot of the things that he was pushing from the federal level had an opportunity to be delayed and have some defense on local levels because it was up to them to institute some of those things.
As it relates to oil and gas expansion on the local level, there is needed cooperation from local cities to be able to push those things forward. And so whether we are here in D.C. or there at a city council meeting in your city, our ability to be able to use our voice and speak up to push back is tangible. When we engage in this kind of defense as a revolutionary act of defiance, we are also in the process of strengthening our muscles to continue this fight and we’re bringing in others. There’s been plenty of people that have said in the past where there are people, there is power.
Follow Gulf of Mexico Youth Climate Summit on Facebook @gomyouthclimate; on Instagram @gomyouthclimate; and on LinkedIn @gomyouthclimate.
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