More than a dozen Arizona youth met with Rep. Adelita Grijalva and Ward 5 Council member Selina Barajas in Tucson to share how extreme heat affects their lives and to advocate for long-term climate solutions.
TUCSON — On a sweltering Tuesday afternoon, more than a dozen Arizona youth gathered at El Pueblo Activity Center on Tucson’s south side to tell elected officials what climate change feels like in their daily lives. The conversation, hosted by the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, gave students a platform to describe how extreme heat affects their families, schools, and neighborhoods — and to demand action that goes beyond quick fixes.
Rep. Adelita Grijalva and Ward 5 Council member Selina Barajas listened as students shared personal stories. “This conversation cannot wait for people my age and older to figure it out,” Grijalva said. “Because you’re the ones that are going to be living with the consequences every single day.”
Barajas pointed to a correlation between low voter turnout in Ward 5 and climate inequities like poorer air quality and less tree shade. “I want this area to be the greenest area,” she said. “I want this area to have the highest voter turnout.”
Heat hits home for students
For Carmen De Backer, 16, co-lead of the Tucson team of the Arizona Youth Climate Coalition, the fight is personal. Growing up in a community where neighbors struggled to keep their AC on, she now works with Tucson Unified School District’s Climate Action and Sustainability team to push for policy changes.
“I feel I would be doing an injustice to my community, I’d be doing an injustice to my family, if I wasn’t fighting,” De Backer said.
Azulayde Romero, a junior at South Ridge High School in Phoenix, described watching her 62-year-old father, a landscaper, work in dangerous heat from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. “Seeing him it’s upsetting,” she said. “I want to do something about it.” Through a Mi Familia en Acción fellowship, Romero and her team educated neighbors about tree shade inequities on Phoenix’s southwest side and helped them register for a Salt River Project workshop that provides free trees.
Students push for policy change
Sofia Garcia, a senior at Canyon del Oro High School and co-lead of the Tucson youth team, highlighted a policy report titled “Distributed Capacity Procurement” that the coalition drafted and presented to the city’s Commission on Climate Saving Energy. The group spent months analyzing Tucson Electric Power reports and gathering community input. “We’re the ones inheriting the environment,” Garcia said. “We’re the ones that are going to have to deal with these long-term effects for generations to come.”
Gabriel Sadza, a sophomore at University High School, recalled practicing marching band in a 95-degree gym with no AC. “This shouldn’t be how we live here in Tucson. We need to adapt,” he said. He also remembered a cross country practice in second grade when the temperature topped 100 degrees. “I was so dehydrated, and at that age, I didn’t know what was happening to me,” he said.
Grijalva acknowledged that long-term solutions require federal action, but said “you have people in power that don’t believe that what’s happening to our climate is a real thing.” She committed to holding monthly conversations on climate solutions, and students say they intend to hold her to that promise.