Hello Camarillo City Council,
I’m Natalie Johnston, a resident of Fillmore, and I ask you to please consider how crucial bills like the Polluters Pay Bill are for the health and safety of California residents.
I was only 11 years old the first time that I experienced pain so intense that I vomited and started to lose consciousness. Horrifically, it resurfaced nearly every month for another 14 years before my fifth physician finally diagnosed me with endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome at age 25. I underwent surgery less than three weeks later in which my surgeon found and removed diseased tissue from all over my abdominal ligaments and internal organs.
While this procedure helped, it’s not a cure, and there’s a high chance that I will need additional treatments in the future. As recently as last Friday, I was substitute teaching at a local middle school when the pain struck so suddenly and sharply that I had just enough time to lay down on the floor before my vision went black.
For reference, endometriosis is graded on a scale of 1-4, and my case is only a stage 2. Others who have the same condition as me are going through so much worse than what I've endured.
If that weren’t enough, I also have asthma, a connective tissue disorder, and a chronic sinus condition that two surgeries have failed to remediate. While it’s extremely difficult to pinpoint an exact cause for these kinds of chronic illnesses, we have published data that directly link fossil fuel pollution to hormone disruption, reproductive illnesses, metabolic disorders, respiratory illnesses, learning disabilities, organ disease, dementia, and cancer, and that’s only naming only a few. Further, it’s not a coincidence that low income communities and people of color are significantly more likely to be impacted by pollution.
Some people will argue that we need fossil fuels, insisting that they’re essential for human progress. They’re not. 200 years ago, humans used candles to light their homes at night. Then we switched to gas lamps. 100 years later, we switched from gas lamps to electric light bulbs.
Why? Because technological advancements led to safer, less expensive, and overall better
products than what we had previously. Now we’re at the same precipice. Fossil fuels are antiquated. Renewable energy is cheaper, safer, more reliable, and ready to go right now, as soon as big oil gets out of the way.
A world exists in which we can all get free, indefinite energy from the sun and the wind and geothermal vents. But as soon as that day comes, fossil fuel companies will no longer be able to rake in 2.7 trillion of our dollars each year, directly profiting off the health, safety, and wellness of communities like Ventura County and Camarillo. That’s why the fossil fuel industry is desperately attempting to cling to that control. This vote will allow us to claim our freedom from the dependence they’ve forced upon us and take control over our community's health and ensure that generations of families are protected from harmful pollution and corporate greed
When it comes down to it, this choice is simple: do we allow a small handful of billionaires to continue raking in record profits while we’re left to choke on polluted air, drink contaminated water, and consume toxins in our food and household products? Or do we stand up for our wellbeing and declare that we’ve had enough? It’s far past time to shut off the faucet and make the fossil fuel industry clean up the mess that they've made. We need to make polluters pay.
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Natalie Johnston
805-727-6157