On Capitol Hill, Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Congressmember Jamaal Bowman of New York have introduced the Green New Deal for Public Schools Act, a $1.6 trillion initiative to eliminate all carbon pollution from schools. Bowman, who is a former school principal, spoke outside the Capitol on Thursday.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman: “Schools without windows — I know, I have worked in them — without windows, and burning fossil fuels constantly, with toxins all throughout the air, where kids — we’re asking kids, our most precious and vulnerable resource, to go learn in these spaces. That’s what we’re asking them to do. So, while we are asking them to go to a place to be nurtured and loved and educated, we are also harming and killing them at the same time. So the Green New Deal for Public Schools is a response to this crisis.”