Two climate change activists were arrested in front of Vice President Kamala Harris’ Brentwood home Monday, during the final moments of a Sunrise Movement protest in which more than a dozen activists urged the Democratic presidential nominee to stop promoting fossil fuel drilling and release a detailed climate plan.
The protest came a few weeks after Harris bragged during a debate against former President Donald Trump that the U.S. has “increased domestic gas production to historic levels” under President Joe Biden — and as three wildfires scorch Southern California. Together, the Airport, Bridge and Line fires have burned more than 117,000 acres.
To spotlight the damage wrought by the fossil fueled climate crisis — which scientists say is driving bigger, more extreme fires in California and across the Western U.S. — Sunrise Movement activists brought badly charred couch cushions from a house that burned in the Airport fire, in the Riverside County community of El Cariso Village.
“It was terrifying,” said activist John Henry Williams, who’s from Virginia and visited El Cariso Village on Sunday.
The Sunrise Movement activists started their protest on the side of the road, chanting and making speeches in front of the home shared by Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff. After about 45 minutes, they moved into the middle of the street, using their bodies and the debris from El Cariso Village to slow but not block traffic.
Corina McDonald, who fled Mount Baldy Village to escape the Bridge fire, described the terror of evacuating with her parents and grandfather, who has Alzheimer’s disease, not knowing whether they would have a home to return to.
When she got back, and her family’s house was still there, she cried.
“I want to ask Kamala Harris: What are you going to do? How are you going to show up for us?” McDonald said. “She has endorsed the Green New Deal, but she has done nothing. Actions speak louder than words.”
The Harris campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story.
Harris, though, has a long track record on climate and clean energy.
As vice president, she cast the tie-breaking vote to approve Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, a $370-billion clean energy bill, and helped secure $15 billion to replace lead drinking water pipes across the country. As California’s attorney general, she prosecuted fossil fuel companies for oil spills, among other environmental bona fides.
More recently, though, she’s frustrated some climate activists, particularly the young-skewing Sunrise Movement, as she’s shied away from past climate stances, in an effort to appeal to moderate voters in swing states.
As a senator, for instance, Harris co-sponsored the Green New Deal and called for a ban on the oil and gas drilling technique known as fracking, which is prevalent in Pennsylvania. She now says she wouldn’t ban fracking.
For some climate advocates, Harris’ decision to promote gas drilling at the recent debate was unconscionable — especially when rising temperatures are fueling worsening heat waves, droughts, storm surges, crop failures and more. And when scientists say limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — the target agreed to by almost every nation as part of the Paris climate accord — will require slashing climate pollution more than 40% by 2030.
“I’ve done it the nice way. I have sat in the West Wing,” Williams said Monday, referring to a meeting with one of Biden’s climate advisors, John Podesta, at the White House. “(Now) I’m doing it the mean way. I’m in the street in front of your house. I don’t know what it’s going to take. But I’m not going to lay down. I’m not going to give up.”
The vice president’s positions on climate are still dramatically different than those espoused by Trump.
The former president has repeatedly denied climate science, spread misinformation about renewable energy and pledged to implement a pro-fossil fuel agenda in exchange for campaign support from Big Oil executives.
Harris, by contrast, regularly touts clean energy jobs and the Inflation Reduction Act. Her campaign website says she will “unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis” through work that “advances environmental justice, protects public lands and public health, increases resilience to climate disasters (and) lowers household energy costs.”
The protesters gathered Monday, though, want to hear more from Harris — a lot more.
That’s why, after 45 minutes in front of the vice president’s house, they escalated their action — a decision that would ultimately lead to arrests. A few protesters moved from the side of the road to the middle of the street, dragging the couch from El Cariso Village alongside them. They didn’t block traffic. But they did make it inconvenient for drivers to pass on the two-lane road — especially those with large cars or delivery trucks.
The protest nearly ended with no arrests. But shortly before the activists planned to leave, a United Parcel Service driver almost rammed into one of the lead Sunrise Movement organizers, shouting at her to get out of the way. After that, two police officers approached, dragging the couch off of the road and telling the protesters they needed to move.
Most of the activists did. But two stayed put, holding a banner. As they chanted, officers handcuffed them.
“Harris would rather have me in cuffs led away to the county jail than put forth a climate plan,” Williams said as officers led him away. “(Police) threw those people’s furniture on the side of the road. Their homes are ashes!”
Williams and the other protester were arrested for violating a city code provision that prohibits picketing within 300 feet of targeted residential dwellings and would be charged with a crime, Los Angeles police Officer Jeff Lee said.
And as for the election slightly more than six weeks away?
“We want Trump to lose. Period. And that means Kamala Harris wins,” said Erica Brown, who helped organize the protest Monday. “We are making millions of voter contacts for Kamala Harris, because there’s no scenario in which Trump wins means anything different for these communities from what is already happening.”
But, Brown added, “we’re not going to let up on Harris” if she wins in November.
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