Activists Push Democrats On Climate Change, A New Priority For Party's Base
Democratic National Committee officials rejected a proposal Thursday to hold a presidential primary debate focused only on climate change.
After the party's resolutions committee voted down the proposal, members of the activist group Sunrise Movement interrupted the meeting by standing on their chairs and singing a version of the song "Which Side Are You On?" They then walked out.
Amid a rise in extreme weather events and increasingly dire scientific reports, climate change has already received more attention than in all debates combined in the last presidential election. But Sunrise activists are among those who think it deserves even more.
"The climate crisis is an emergency and we need the DNC to start acting like it," says Nicole Karsch, action lead for the Sunrise Movement in Philadelphia.
At a recent protest the group staged there, a few dozen young people held yellow and black signs calling for a climate debate. Their focus was a building where they thought Pennsylvania's Democratic Party had an office.
Protesters staged a sit-in in the building lobby. Police arrested 11 people and led them out to a van in plastic handcuffs. The group says the activists were released a short time later.