Speaker: Monica Huertas, Executive Director, The People's Pot Authority
How (and why) are you taking action on climate change solutions in, for, and with your community?
Monica Huertas: I'm taking action in my neighborhood. By doing it old school, keeping it simple, door knocking. And asking folks how do they feel about the state of our community, how do they feel about the impacts that the fossil fuel industries have on our neighborhood, and so I'm door knocking it, knocking, keeping it simple and taking action because simply nobody else is gonna care about my community the way I care about my community. We are the change that we want to see.
Describe a moment when you felt the real-world impact of your work in climate solutions.
Monica Huertas: One time after weeks and weeks of door knocking and getting community together, we finally had a big hearing to see if this expansion of a liquefied, uh, natural liquefied propane gas was going to be allowed in our community and When we shut it down and. They said no, this company cannot build an expansion for this toxic facility. We were so exhilarated and that made me so happy because it was like, wow, all these days of door knocking and organizing folks and hearing the testimonies of asthma and asthma exasperation in the neighborhood or the children missing school, and then. You know, you lose sleep because you hear this and then we go to the hearing and we win and they can't do the expansion. It's like, oh yes, we could keep going. Let's shut the next big thing down.
Who or what inspires/inspired you to care about climate change and climate solutions?
Monica Huertas: The people who inspire me the most are my kids, all 6 of them. Yes, the other my biggest inspiration, the one that has been hospitalized about 10 times with asthma exasperation, the one that was lead poisoned, even though he was breastfed completely, but he was getting it through me through breast milk because the water was polluted and I didn't know. Those are the ones that inspired me to. Get out there, door knock, gather community members and. Knowing that I'm not alone, that also inspires me because when I don't knock and when we go out there and talk about these issues, we quickly realized that we're not alone and so all my neighbors and everybody's children, they're also inspiration to me.
