SAN DIEGO — Climate activists demonstrated outside Sempra Energy headquarters downtown Monday morning, calling on the Biden Administration to declare a climate emergency and demanding Sempra stop exporting and burning fracked gas.
Activists with San Diego 350 created a large chalk drawing on 8th Avenue near Island. They temporarily blocked traffic from flowing through one lane.
"We broke the 125,000-year-old heat record, seven days in a row," said Scott Kelley, co-director of San Diego 350. He is also a biology professor at SDSU. "Italy was having tornados; we have a heat emergency. One-third of the United States is covered in a heatwave. People are dying because they lie on the sidewalk too long, getting burns."
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, June was the hottest month ever recorded since the agency began keeping records in 1850.
Kelley said humans have a limit for how much heat they can withstand. He said Sempra and SDG&E are part of the problem. He wants the White House to force Sempra to stop exporting and burning fracked gas.
"They don't care about human life," he said. "They don't care about San Diegans. One in four can't pay their bills because these guys charge us the highest rates in the US. They take this money and invest it in a climate bomb."
A spokesperson for SDG&E tells CBS 8 San Diegans are not paying the highest rates in the country. However, San Diego 350 maintains we do, pointing to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website that compares energy price data.
A spokesperson for Sempra released the following statement:
“We deeply respect environmental stewardship and believe there are many paths to a sustainable future for all. To that end, Sempra is investing billions in safe, reliable, and resilient networks to connect consumers to increasingly cleaner energy.”
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