With the wildfires sparking concerns over climate change, a coalition of protestors on Tuesday sought to highlight the parallel between fossil fuel investment and California’s environmental health.

The Pasadena Job Center served as a rallying location for around 50 people collectively affiliated with California Common Good (CCG), Fossil Free California, and the Sierra Club, including residents who survived the fire and those whose pension fund is controlled by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS.

Pensioners and union members are concerns over billions invested in fossil fuel and oil companies by CalPERS — the nation’s largest public pension fund.

Jono Shaffer, an organizer with CCG, said that last year CalPERS pledged to put 20% of all their investment assets toward climate-solution investments.

“There’s been very little transparency and disclosure in what they’re investing in,” Shaffer said.

“When we tried to find out what those investments were, we couldn’t get any information,” he said, despite legal requirements that the company reveal its investments to pensioners within a 28-day period of the request.

“They have a duty to release the information to the public so they can be transparent,” Shaffer said. “We initially asked for the information last summer.”

Meanwhile, Shaffer said, they know that $4 billion is invested by CalPERS in “big oil,” including ExxonMobil Corporation, Chevron Corp., Marathon Oil, and Valero Energy. “Basically every major oil company in the world,” he said.

“We’re here in Pasadena because obviously the fires that ravaged Altadena-Palisades last month were obviously the result of climate change,” he said. “CalPERS and the other big pension funds should not invest in any of these big polluting companies.”

CalPERS officials acknowledge the risks of climate change. But the goal is not to move away from companies in which it invests, but rather to engage them on the issue.

“The devastation caused by recent Southern California wildfires was both historic and heartbreaking,” said John Myers, chief of the CalPERS Office of Public Affairs. “CalPERS believes it can have the most impact in addressing the dangers of climate change by continuing to engage with the leadership of the companies in which it invests. As shareholders, we can hold energy companies accountable and invest in technologies that will pave the way toward a low-carbon future.

“Divesting from entire sectors of the global economy, however, would only silence our collective voice as less motivated investors take our place. It also would conflict with our fiduciary duty to achieve the investment returns needed to fulfill our obligations to CalPERS members and their beneficiaries.”

Shaffer stressed that not only were fossil fuel investments unsustainable, the negative effects of climate change, over time, are going to adversely impact the economy to the tune of trillions of dollars.

“I’m really tired of pension and my health plan both being invested in fossil fuels,” said Denise Robb, a professor at Pierce College, who was among the speakers at the rally. “They’re the largest pensions in the country and they are fully invested in fossil fuels.”

“We’ve just had the worst fires I’ve ever seen in my lifetime,” said Robb, a Pasadena resident. “We had 58 families in my son’s school who lost their homes. My son goes to Blair (High School) down the street. And it’s been devastating.”

“Climate change is not something that’s theoretical,” she said. “It’s real.”

The Rev. Mark Chase, associate rector for All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, also spoke at the rally, sharing some background about how extreme weather impacts the planet.

“Thousands of people have been displaced as a result of what meteorologists are calling weather whiplash,” he said, “where we get these extremes in weather conditions that feed off of each other. So you get extreme rainfall that increases vegetation, and then you get extreme drought, which makes that vegetation susceptible to fire. Then you couple that with extreme winds.”

Chase said these condition have only begun occurring in the past few decades.

“We’re seeing an increasing rise of those things due to climate change and the planet getting warmer, so it’s a direct connection,” he said, “and it’s always the most vulnerable who will pay the brunt of that cost.”

Prior to the program starting, sign- and placard-carrying protestors assembled in front of the building at 500 North Lake Avenue, which has a large, new mural on the face of the building which states “Invest in Communities, Not Fossil Fuel.”

Shouting in both Spanish and English, protestors chanted, “What do we want? Justice! … When do we want it? Now! … If we don’t get it? Shut it down! …”

The mural project, painted by local artist Eddie Roldolfo Aparcio, was organized with the help of David Solnit, a Berkeley member of CCG, who has been involved with similar projects up north.

“They asked me to think about any way we could use art,” Solnit said, having done other projects following other fires up north where ash from the fire is used as part of the work.

In this case, he said, ash that was deemed toxin-free was donated by an Eaton fire survivor and by two survivors from the Palisades fire, and used in the mural.

“This is beautiful,” Solnit said, looking the mural over. “Using art to advocate, it’s partly a ceremony and partly to advocate for the cause.”

Aparicio, who lost his home in the fire, chose to depict a solitary image of a chimney left standing after the fire.

“The mural is based off a chimney like mine and many others,” he said. “It’s a symbol of what’s left, a haunting image that I kept seeing in the news. But also it’s a symbol of resiliency.”

“I think it’s important to use any platform you have in the world for the things you believe in,” Aparicio said. “For me, as an artist, if art can speak to the way people see the world, to me that’s an important time to do it.”

“I do think this is a climate crisis we’re in and unfortunately we’re still in a world where that’s being debated,” he said. “It’s not a debate anymore. I lost my home, right up the street from here.”

Jarret Liotta is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and photographer. Staff writer Anissa Rivera contributed to this report.