Summer Lee, Sara Innamorato and community leaders speak at Green New Deal tour in Schenley

About 100 people gathered in Schenley Plaza on Thursday to hear speeches from Congresswoman Summer Lee, Allegheny County Executive Sara Innammorato and several local community leaders who highlighted the need for federal investment in sustainability. 

The rally’s demands included billions of dollars of federal investment in climate justice and oil and gas cleanup, passing Governor Josh Shapiro’s $2.3 million maternal programming allocations, water purification and a commitment to forestry development and Indigenous land stewardship. 

“We are in the midst of our generation’s industrial revolution,” Innamorato said. “And this time, we are going to make sure that that revolution is green and that no one is left behind.” 

Innamorato also emphasized the Green New Deal’s commitment to bringing union jobs to Allegheny County.

“When we make those investments, guess what we do? We create good paying union jobs,” Innamorato said. 

Speaker Vanessa Lynch, who represented the Moms Clean Air Force as their executive director, followed Innamorato with a speech informing the rally of Pittsburgh’s climate issue. 

“Allegheny County is the top 1% of US counties for cancer risk from toxic air pollution,” Lynch said. 

Lynch called for full investment in oil and gas pollution safeguards, creating clean energy union jobs and transitioning to clean renewable power sources in her speech.

“The more we rely on fossil fuels and petrol, the more we repeat the mistakes of the industrial region of the past, and those mistakes are mistakes that our children, and that disproportionately impact communities of color as well as low wealth communities, will all pay the highest price of works,” Lynch said. 

Pomaj-chakmam-yajalaji, of the Onkwehonwe Nation and a member of the Three Rivers Agriculture Land Initiative, advocated on behalf of her local Indigenous community and for policymakers to make a better commitment to environmental stewardship. 

“We demand our rights to discourage, dismantle and discontinue the genocide and destruction of our peoples’ ecosystem, our land and our resources, to restore our land, our air and our water to the vigorous place that it was prior to colonization and prior to colonialism,” Pomaj-chakmam-yajalaji said. 

Pomaj-chakmam-yajalaji called on President Joe Biden and Congress to enact policies that protect people on the front lines of the climate crisis and social injustice. 

“Everyone on our land has the right to clean soil, air and water. Life-sustaining work, healthy society rights are out of reach for many of our people and millions of people in America.” Pomaj-chakmam-yajalaji said. 

Pennsylvania United Spokesperson Gabriel Gray said in a news release handed out to attendees that she believes “clean, accessible water is a fundamental human right.”

“We aspire to create a community where all workers are able to care for themselves and raise their families, sharing in the prosperity generated by economic growth and development,” Gray said.