Bray, who has her doctorate in psychology, has flipped the switch and began her fight against climate change and is using politics to do it. Bray had an interesting reason for getting involved in politics, specifically in climate change.
“I was living in Australia and a company built 3 liquified natural gas plants right next to the Great Barrier Reef, which would destroy it and all of the wild life that lived within the reef,” Bray said.
After learning about the damage that was being done overseas, Bray wanted to see what was going on at home in the United States. What she found out sparked her interest in climate activism.
“Colorado is a petro state and I had no idea until I decided to research it. And right now we have 65,000 oil and gas wells. Our air has been poisoned,” Bray said.
She explained how the state was not interested in trying to regulate the oil and gas industry. She mentioned how the earth will have two hundred to a billion climate change refugees because of climate catastrophes.
The students who came to the speech were shocked at this depressing statistic and were curious to learn more about what Bray wanted to do to try and reverse climate change.
One student in the crowd asked, “What policies will you try to implement to try to fight climate change?”
Her response was powerful and spoke to many of the students who watched. Bray used her passionate words to explain her platform and her true love for fighting climate change
“It is not right that industry should be allowed to buy politicians. Why should oil and gas industry executives be able to donate to candidates in order to buy their votes?” Bray said.
She also expressed how people have to stop subsidizing the oil and gas industry. There isn’t enough accountability for the oil and gas industry, and said how without the support they receive, the entire industry would fall apart.
Throughout her speech, she noted how she has a voice. She is the underdog candidate as she has no political background, but she believes that she can win because of the passion she has.
Bray is up against 10 other democrats, including powerhouse John Hickenlooper who currently has 60% of democratic voters support. Bray will definitely have to fight to make the cut off in March, but she certainly believes it is possible.
“We need to vote for people who will fight for green energy, who will fight against the oil and gas industry so that a green economy is possible,” Bray states.
She went on to explain how green energy is the right switch for the planet in order to keep it alive. She said there are already thousands of clean energy jobs available and that they will keep coming out with new jobs for the American people.
Diana finished her speech with an important note for people. She said that being optimistic about climate change is hard, but she is hopeful that people will be active and start to take action against climate change.
“No one can tell you what it is that you should do. Find out what stirs you up and get involved with it because that is how we are going to get this planet on the right track,” Bray said.
The MFJS Reporter -- Winter 2020 T-R 