Rhea Suh, the President of the Natural Resources Defense Council insists that women matter and they can’t be shy about fighting for what matters to them.
What mattes to her is that “her daughter inherits a world where a healthy environment is a basic right for all of us,” Suh stated, at the Women’s march on Washington on Saturday.
“It matters for all of us, no matter where we live, what we look like, how much money we make, or how we vote,” Ruh explained, stating that “we need to fight for a different kind of world.”
“A world, where the rights of communities and tribal nations are held first, not last, and polluters come second. A world where we don’t have to worry about a mosquito bite when we are pregnant or that our children will come down with asthma because of dirty air. A world where young people rise up to tackle the greatest single threat to your generation, climate change. That is the world we are marching for today because right now we are facing a government that is putting polluters first and the rest of us at risk.”
She explained that Flint, Michigan was a perfect example of what she was talking about:
“An entire town, poisoned by a governor who took a page out of the Trump playbook. Poisoned by a government looking to cut corners. Poisoned by leaders who valued their bottom line more than the health of their citizens. Poisoned by officials who still haven’t owned up to the damage they have done.”
“Make no mistake. If this new Congress and this new administration had their way, we could see thousands of more communities suffer the same fate, because look, that’s what anti-government, anti environmental, anti science, pro polluter rhetoric boils down to,” Ruh added.
Ruh was adamant that although things my look hopeless to individuals, there is always something we can do.
“We are still a democracy and we should never forget that our country was created by individuals who stood up for what they believed in. That’s what happened nearly 50 years ago, when our rivers were catching on fire and our cities were drenched in smog. Americans poured on to the street to demand that our government ensure we had clean air, clean water and a clean community. Those earth-day marches led to a generation’s worth of environmental progress that has improved and literally saved the lives of millions. It is proof that people engaging in our democracy can lead to real change.”
She compared that with the March on Washington’s turnout.
“One woman turns in to one march, turns in to an entire movement. That is a powerful thing and it means that as strong and as mean and as tough as this administration thinks it is, we will always be stronger and even if it doesn’t feel that way, this president works for us. So lets prove that our natural world belongs to no single individual, that clean water has no political party, that no corporation owns clean air and let’s never forget that one person, one rally, one march, one movement can make all the difference in the world,” she concluded.
