Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi: City Celebrates Environment

In early June, San Francisco hosted the annual celebration of the United Nations World Environmental Day. Mayors from across the globe gathered in our city to sign the Urban Environmental Accords - a set of goals that aim to harness the power of the world's cities in addressing the world's environmental challenges.

It was fitting that this significant meeting was held in San Francisco for two reasons. The first is that Northern California is the cradle of America's environmental movement, a tradition that Mayor Gavin Newsom has continued through his commitment to making San Francisco a livable community and an environmental model for the world's cities.

The second reason is that it was in San Francisco 60 years ago this month that representatives of countries around the world gathered to found the United Nations - an institution that has helped countries address challenges that do not stop at boundaries.

It is my hope that just as the founding of the United Nations ushered in a new era of global cooperation on the world's shared challenges, future generations will celebrate the signing of the Urban Environmental Accords as a new chapter in which the world's cities took on a greater responsibility for stewardship of the world's environment.

With the majority of the world's people now living in cities, and 1 million people moving into cities each week, there is tremendous power and opportunity for progress. In places where national governments either cannot or will not act in a way that makes progress and protects our environment, cities must lead.

San Francisco has experienced an environmental struggle in the Bayview Hunters Point community, where indiscriminate polluting has occurred through the years. As a result of the disproportionate burden of industrial pollution that this community has borne, Bayview Hunters Point has higher than normal rates of childhood asthma and cancer. As we work together to complete the clean and safe transfer of the Hunters Point Shipyard to the City, my top priority will remain ensuring the protection of the health and environment of local residents.

Albert Einstein once said: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

The United Nations Environmental Accords represent new thinking and new ideas that serve as a blueprint for a healthy future for our children, and I look forward to continuing to work with the mayor and people of San Francisco to ensure that change and progress begin here at home.

Nancy Pelosi represents San Francisco in Congress.