Pasadena Student Leads the Fight Against Climate Change in Pasadena

Sequoyah High School Senior Ozzy Simpson thought something was off with the school’s learning management system so he took matters into his own hands.

“He spent months interviewing teachers, interviewing teachers at other schools, talking to web developers and you know, whoever [he] needed to talk to, to develop his own learning management system,” said Laura Haney, science department chair at the Sequoyah School. “He built this really great thing that we’re all scrambling to use. He did it entirely outside of school hours. He’s very autodidactic. He just teaches himself everything he needs to know. He’s really, really impressive in that way.”

Now Simpson is taking other matters into his own hands. He will serve as one of the moderator’s at the Youth Climate Action Forum, which kicks off at 5 p.m. tonight at the Jackie Robinson Recreation Center, 1081 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena.

Simpson, along with other students at the Sequoyah School, has led two die-ins at City Hall to help draw attention to climate change.

All four mayoral candidates are scheduled to attend tonight’s event, along with most of the City Council candidates.

Simpson is co-president of the student government at the Sequoyah School. He also serves as the editor in chief on the school’s newspaper. He has operated a web designing business since he was 10. He likes to ski at Lake Tahoe.

“He’s a major, serious problem solver,” said Ozzy’s father Michale, a music producer. “He’s just always showing great patience. He’s always been very, very good with computers he’s just a great kid.”

The idea for the forum started after the Global Climate Strike in September when several people from the Pasadena Complete Streets Coalition reached out to Simpson.

During the Climate Strike, four million people around the world engaged in demonstrations staged to compel political leaders everywhere to take action on climate change.

A reported 2,500 such events were held in cities in 150 countries, according to USA Today. In Germany, 270,000 people rallied in Berlin. In England, 100,000 people turned out in London, and 100,000 rallied in Melbourne, Australia, USA Today reported, adding the event was the biggest climate change protest in history.

As that was going on around the country, young people in Pasadena, including Simpson, were lying silently on the steps of City Hall for 11 minutes, to represent the approximately 11 years the scientific community estimates the world has left to stave off the climate crisis’ most catastrophic effects.

Those effects include higher temperatures that dry out vegetation and soil, creating more wildfire fuel, shorten the rainy season and extend the fire season, shifts to Santa Ana winds, slower jet stream, leading to more California heat waves and high-pressure ridges in the Pacific.

Those ridges deflect from the state some storms that would otherwise bring much-needed moisture.

The students have convinced a handful of candidates to sign a pledge to support a green new deal. The pledge also asks council members and candidates to turn away donations of more than $200 from businesses in the fossil fuel industry and turn down contributions from oil industry executives, although there isn’t a big fossil fuel industry in Pasadena, some candidates have been impressed by his efforts.

“He’s actually meeting candidates,” Hardin said. “He’s writing letters, he’s mobilizing, he’s organizing. That is the epitome of what a lot of us need to be doing, It’s very inspiring and very commendable.”

But that has not moved City Councilmembers. So far no sitting councilmember has signed the pledge, a point that is sure to come up at tonight’s forum.

Simpson has created a form letter designed to convince Mayor Terry Tornek to sign on.

Tornek continues to push the city’s Climate Action Plan which Under the Pasadena Climate Action Plan, the city commits to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels this year, and 40 percent below that level by 2030 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

Under state mandates, utilities get 33 percent in renewable energy by the end of this year. Pasadena plans to procure 60 percent of its power sources from renewable energy by 2030, along with a 75 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as compared to 1990 levels.

In response, Simpson and his fellow students keep showing up at Pasadena City Council meetings calling for an emergency declaration. Last week he told the council he would keep showing up and asking them to uphold their responsibility in combating the climate crisis.

“He doesn’t wait around for other people to do things for him,” Haney said. “He does it himself and he organizes people and he’s good at drawing people to him like. He’s been at forming a team and keeping it together and keeping it productive.”