The Bay Area Youth Climate Summit

Bio: Hi guys! My name is Ben Rich and I am a junior at Terra Nova High School. I am passionate about making a positive change in my community whether that's through environmental action, volunteering or helping create opportunities for my peers around me. In this blog I'll be documenting my experience in the Bay Area Climate Summit and the progression of my CAP( Climate Action Plan).

Freshly screen printed patches hang to dry on a clothesline in Dolores Park On January 19th, 2026, climate activists — from elementary schoolers to retirees — gathered for the second annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Climate Rally hosted by the Bay Area Youth Climate Summit (BAYCS).

On Saturday, November 15th, BAYCS and the SF Environment Department hosted their first Green Careers Fair. ~150 people attended, exploring not only their future job options but also what it truly means for a job to be a green career. Through the event, attendees gained a new perspective on green careers as an industry, and how every sector has a green path that all workers can take.

What exactly does it take for a climate-related policy to reach the mayor’s office? To find its way into our laws and legislature? To become a part of our spending habits, housing search or daily commute? For many of the proposed policies currently circulating among the ranks of government in California and the Bay Area, you can ask an employee of SPUR.

Clementina Martinez-Masarweh is a first generation Mexican-American climate activist and artist focused on bringing awareness and change in the areas of textile waste, microplastics, and pollution to the fashion world. Having started her career in the fast-fashion industry, she has seen first-hand the harmful effects waste has on the environment and communities.

Next week, on November 5, the nation will come together for one of the most important days of the year: Election Day. As voters mail-in their ballots, flock to polling stations, and sit by their TVs anxiously awaiting election results, the fate of the next four years — and the future — hangs in the balance. Election Day has had the country in a frenzy for over a year as politicians, the media, and voters scramble to understand what issues matter to the American people the most.

Homero Gomez Gonzalez was a Mexican environmental activist and agricultural engineer who, in advocating for the preservation of the monarch reserves in Michoacan, Mexico, was murdered. If you are lucky, you may have come across a monarch butterfly or a flock of this species during the fall. The monarchs are small, milkweed butterflies that are a part of the Nymphalidae family.

As everyone is probably aware, cities don’t appear out of thin air. People didn’t wake up one day to skyscrapers and sidewalks, buses and the constant buzz of people and activity. All elements of a city are meticulously planned and drawn out. This is the process of urban planning–the design and overseeing of a city's structure and processes. It  sets up the bus systems, the placement of parks, buildings, streets, and sidewalks, and regulates historical and green spaces.

Picture this: you are an American teenager. You hang out with your friends and eat whatever comes your way, because you have no dietary or religious restrictions and don’t have to cook. So when you go to McDonald's, you eat that hamburger, because whatever, right? You might think this situation is unlikely – after all, most teens understand the impact of food on climate change. But often understanding doesn’t translate into action, and we can’t ignore the fact that 73% of the world is omnivorous.

Air pollutants can mess with DNA methylation, which can cause health problems. As pollution is most commonly seen in neighborhoods that are inhabited by majority BIPOC communities, it raises the question of how certain demographics of people are more prone to developing complications with DNA methylation and what can be done to subsidize the issue.