Tag: climate march

Tens of Thousands attend New York City Climate March Sept. 17, 2023

From “Democracy Now!” Sept. 18, 2023

Tens of thousands of people filled the streets of midtown Manhattan Sunday to send a clear message to the world and leaders coming to the city for the U.N. General Assembly this week: End fossil fuels.

Climate March in NYC, Sept. 17, 2023. Photos Paula Panzarella

As part of more than 200 actions around the world leading up to the first-ever United Nations Climate Ambition Summit this Wednesday, more than 700 grassroots groups together called on President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency, stop all federal approvals for new fossil fuel projects, phase out production of fossil fuels on federal public lands, and build a new clean energy future.

Climate March in NYC, Sept. 17, 2023. Photos Paula Panzarella

Speakers at the massive march’s rally included New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman, environmental justice activist Sharon Lavigne, former Irish President Mary Robinson, actor Susan Sarandon and climate scientist Peter Kalmus. “Every little bit of fossil fuel we burn makes the planet a little hotter,” warned Kalmus, while Bowman and Robinson condemned fossil fuel investment as “subsidizing” the planet’s “own self-destruction.” Added Kalmus, “This is a task of cosmic importance. …

We are on the brink of losing absolutely everything.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/9/18/march_to_end_fossil_fuels_presser

New York City Climate March September 17

by Emma Willer, 350 CT

On Sunday, Sept. 17, thousands of climate activists will take to the streets of New York City to demand an end to fossil fuels. This action is strategically planned to take place three days before the UN Climate Ambition Summit, also happening in NYC. The march aims to amplify the urgent call for action against climate change and a transition to renewable energy.

A coalition of environmental organizations, Indigenous, youth, elderly, and social justice groups has organized the march. The demonstration will represent a powerful collection of voices demanding a sustainable future for all. Climate change is no longer a distant enemy, looming in the future. It is here and now. Wildfires and smoke in the air, flooding, extreme heat and cold no longer affect remote communities. Everyone, everywhere, has experienced and will continue to experience these environmental changes.

A Connecticut coalition is organizing folks into buses and trains to transport them to the march. We have planning meetings every Sunday evening now until the march, and we need volunteers to help hand out flyers and put up posters. If you’d like to join the effort in CT, go to 350ct.org or email [email protected]. The national group will be announcing the march route and details soon. Keep an eye out at endfossilfuels.us.

We have an opportunity to build this mass action into a movement. The major social changes that have occurred in this country have come out of mass movements: antiwar, civil rights, gay liberation, etc.

People taking to the streets and demanding what they want is personally empowering and creates real change.

Download the poster here.

Christian Parenti — Upbeat Possibilities Upset by Science Denier

by Stanley Heller, Administrator, PEP

Christian Parenti gave the Mark Shafer talk for Promoting Enduring Peace on Nov. 17 and talked a lot about events that upended his ideas for strategies to avoid climate catastrophe. He tried to be upbeat about humanity and environment, saying that human and other species routinely shape the natural world and that it can be a good (he gave as an example how Native Americans would burn forests to increase soil fertility and eliminate pests like ticks).

He said humanity as a whole has all we need to turn the corner on climate: first, the technical know-how to get off fossil fuels; second, the cash ($3 trillion sitting idly in bonds and other such paper owned by the super-rich); and third, a way to make fossil fuel use too expensive by using the executive branch power of regulation.

I had interviewed Parenti a week before the election for The Struggle Video News on point #3 and he made a convincing argument that the government could “euthanize” fossil fuel production without a carbon tax and without approval of Congress. It could be done by the Environmental Protection Agency fining companies producing global warming gases. He says many court decisions have backed this up.
This all was thrown off course by the presidential election. Parenti says he assumes the new president will attempt to gut the regulatory state and starve the EPA. So we have to resist. “Standing Rock is the model. People have to attack these infrastructure projects in every way, with their bodies, with sit-ins, peaceful protests, lawsuits and with deals.” He referred to Native Americans in Bellingham, WA, who at first wanted a coal export terminal on their land, but ended by working with environmentalists instead. They killed the project after finding a different one that would create jobs.

That makes the Dec. 3 climate march in Hartford quite critical (email [email protected] for more information). It’s a way to show that we’re not giving up and that we will reject the science denier’s march to climate suicide. It’s directed at Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and his foolish methane projects as well as Trump and his love of unbridled development.

Action also needs to be directed at Obama. He has almost two months left in office and he can do a lot just by Executive Orders. He can go to Standing Rock, show solidarity. He could even put in federal troops at Standing Rock just as LBJ did in Alabama. He can settle the lawsuit inspired by James Hansen and filed by young people who realize the government is liable for destroying their future. He can do more. He can act now.