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Dear friends,
For those of us lucky enough to be in Manhattan exactly one month ago today, perhaps the greatest moment of a great day was the surge of sound that followed our moment of silence.
The “People’s Climate Roar” began on Central Park West and then pulsed down Sixth Avenue and crashed through Times Square. That wave of sound symbolized two things:
1) We are sounding the alarm on climate change, the greatest problem the world has ever faced.
2) We are demonstrating the tide of anger, joy, and resolve that is going to do something about it.
And it wasn’t just us who thought it was so important. Here’s what other folks had to say:
– “Taking a Call for Climate Change to the Streets”, the front page New York Times story
– “Into the Streets”, a gorgeous 9-minute video about the march from our friends at Meerkat Media
– “Inside the ginormous, huge-tastic climate march”, a 24-minute radio program from Ben Wikler at The Good Fight
– “The Wisdom of the Crowd”, by Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker
– “Why you should be hopeful about the climate movement” by Todd Gitlin on Grist
– “People’s Climate March”, a short audio story by Bianca Giaever and friends on Cowbird
In the 30 days since the march:
– We’ve seen the greatest fossil fuel fortune on earth commit to divest from coal, oil, and gas — the Rockefellers, with their action, laid down a profound challenge to everyone else on the planet. If the family that built Exxon thinks it’s unwise and immoral to invest in fossil fuels, what excuse does anyone else have?
– We’ve watched divestment spread around the world: from Glasgow University to Australia’s National University, this movement has new beachheads — and new pushback from a scared and peevish fossil fuel industry. (If you ever wondered if divestment mattered, read this, right to the last sentence.)
– We’ve witnessed a rising pitch of action against the dirtiest fossil fuel projects on earth. In Canada they’re battling the Energy East pipeline with wit and savvy. And at the largest coal port on earth in Newcastle Australia, our friends from 12 low-lying Pacific nations used their traditional canoes to block massive coal ships. Check out this incredible picture of the action.
That picture from Australia joins the one from Sixth Avenue among the classic images of this explosive movement. But there are plenty of others, and we’re pretty sure some of them are on your phones and computers. This is a chance to share some of the great pictures from the People’s Climate March before you forget about them.
We all need the inspiration, because this fight is for real. September was the hottest September ever recorded; it looks like 2014 may be the hottest year in history.
The only way to fight that is to make 2015 hotter still — for the politicians and the corporations that will wreck our world if we let them.
Thanks to you, and to the 400,000 in the streets of New York: game on!
Bill McKibben for the team at 350.org
P.S. The basic energy for movements come from people’s hearts and souls and feet — but they run on money too, so if you want to kick in, here’s the place.