Our Chicago: Protecting the environment, addressing climate change, global warming
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Warmer temperatures, rising lake levels and extreme weather are just some of the effects of climate change seen in Chicago.
Ahead of Earth Day this Thursday, people in Chicago continue their efforts to protect the environment and address climate change.
WATCH: Our Chicago Part 1
Dejah Powell is an organizer with Sunrise Movement, a youth movement working to stop climate change while also creating jobs. Powell said the climate crisis is happening right now and there is an economic system that is perpetuating this crisis.
"We live in a system that enacts violence upon people, upon communities, and would rather protect money over people and the environment and the communities," Powell said.
WATCH: Our Chicago Part 2
Plant Chicago on the Southwest Side works to create local circular economies. That is where the waste stream from one process becomes the input for another. Jonathan Pereira, executive director of Plant Chicago said there are finite resources but the economic system is based on infinite extraction of new resources.
"There will come a time, there already is, where we don't have certain resources to use, so when you think about business operations in the future, we really need to think about how your input or whatever manufacturing your creating or growing is coming from some other industry, some other process or industries," Pereira said.
