While Lefties in NY Lectured About Environment, Conservatives Cleaned Homeless Camp in LA Til It Was Spotless
While large numbers of liberals gathered in New York City and Washington, D.C., to push for climate change legislation, hundreds of conservatives took it upon themselves to address a growing environmental issue in Los Angeles.
“Conservative activist Scott Presler organized a street clean-up at a homeless camp in Los Angeles on Saturday and estimated that he and his team cleared about 50 tons of trash from the area,” The Daily Caller News Foundation reported.
About 200 volunteers showed up to help in the effort.
Presler’s team was fitted with hazmat suits and heavy-gloves. The group also received instruction on how to avoid exposure to life-threatening diseases, including typhus, typhoid fever and flesh-eating bacteria.
It’s almost 9 a.m. & we’re removing waste from a homeless camp in Los Angeles.
Why is an outsider from Northern Virginia here & not California elected leadership? #LosAngelesCleanup pic.twitter.com/yqW2pxKA3c
— #ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) September 21, 2019
“L.A. is completely different than Baltimore,” Presler told The DCNF. “How crazy is it that it’s 2019 — not the Stone Age — and here we are, having to worry about these kinds of diseases?”
These diseases are associated with the squalid conditions of medieval times.
“In major cities in the U.S., we hear about increasing numbers of encampments and people living in squalor,” Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Those conditions are ideal for increase in vermin like rats.”
The more garbage on the streets, the more rats thrive.
In 2008, 13 people in California were diagnosed with typhus, which is spread by fleas on rats. That number shot up to 167 last year, with 95 percent of the cases in Los Angeles and Orange counties in southern California.
The Atlantic reported in March that part of Los Angeles City Hall downtown was briefly closed after a rat infestation, and the deputy city attorney was diagnosed with typhus.
In an appearance on Fox News last week, Dr. Drew Pinsky argued the environmental hazard caused by LA’s homeless crisis is real and immediate.
“I’ve been saying for months where are the environmentalists,” Pinsky told Fox’s Laura Ingraham. “We have the feces, urine and blood of 60,000 people on our streets when it rains goes directly into the LA River, bypasses the sewage treatment plant, goes directly into the ocean.”
“All year our oceans have been ranked C to F,” he added. “It’s dangerous to be in our oceans. We’re having sea mammals die off.”
Pinsky wanted to know why the environmental activists are not rising up to demand this pressing crisis be addressed.
During a visit to California last week, Trump threatened action by the Environmental Protection Agency unless steps are taken by local governments to address these biohazards.
Presler’s group made amazing progress against LA’s trash in just nine hours on Saturday.
“This is one the the proudest moments in my life,” Presler tweeted.
This is one of the proudest moments of my life.
I’ll never forget the day we cleaned up a homeless camp in LA. #LosAngelesCleanup pic.twitter.com/jTetowuLAu
— #ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) September 21, 2019
Presler also organized cleanup efforts in Newark, New Jersey; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Baltimore.
The activist described the undertaking as “virtue doing” versus “virtue signaling.”
How powerful it is that someone has taken up this mantle and is helping to make the U.S. a safer country.
The Los Angeles cleanup was an act of love. #SundayMorning pic.twitter.com/qF66DXbfc4
— #ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) September 22, 2019
Anyone interested in helping in future cleanups can volunteer at Presler’s website.
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