Climate protesters gather at GOP retreat in Hershey

• Marie Cusick
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  Marie Cusick was the Harrisburg reporter for StateImpact Pennsylvania.

Climate change protesters gathered outside a meeting of national Republican leaders in Hershey today. GOP congressional members from the House and Senate are in town for a three-day conference. Typically each caucus meets separately, but for the first time in a decade they’re holding a joint meeting.

About 50 people attended the protest, which was hosted by the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate outside the Hershey Lodge. The rally featured by speakers from various religions, including the Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist faiths.

“We are here to bring attention to the social injustice of all time: inaction on climate change,” says organizer Lise Van Susteren. “While we know there are many Democratic leaders who are not where they need to be on climate, there are a number of climate deniers and skeptics among the Republican leadership, although that’s changing.”

She praised a number of prominent Republicans in congress who have acknowledged the risks of climate change.

“Senator Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. She’s seeing it,” says Van Susteren. “She knows she can’t deny it anymore.”

The protesters had sent letters to House and Senate Majority Leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell inviting them to attend the rally but didn’t get a response. House and Senate Republican spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the rally.

The Senate is expected to vote on a Keystone XL pipeline bill next week which contains an amendment that will force senators to take a position on climate change. The vast majority of the world’s scientists agree that climate change is caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and poses serious threats to humans and the natural world, but the issue has become highly politicized.

Many of the protesters at the Hershey rally held anti-fracking signs and oppose the recent boom in shale drilling. The Obama administration has been largely supportive of increased domestic natural gas production, although yesterday it announced new regulations (unwelcome by the industry) to drastically cut methane emissions from oil and gas production over the next 10 years.

Among the speakers at the rally was Native American Carlos Whitewolf, Principal Chief of the northern Arawak tribal nation. He was one of eight people recently arrested in Lancaster County protesting a proposed interstate natural gas pipeline.

“Most it is going right through Native American sacred burial sites,” he says of the pipeline route. “They don’t care. They’re running right through it.”

 

 

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