In Manhattan, on September 21, 2104, 400,000 took to the streets to bear witness and demand action in the People's Climate March One sign read: "The seas are rising, but so are the people."
Two thousand six hundred ninety eight events in one hundred sixty one countries.
Democracy Now! streaming live coverage -
Here are some excerpts from the alternate media coverage leading up the event:
Naomi A. Klein: We’re talking before the march, but I’ve got a feeling it's gonna be huge. And I know there’s a been a debate about 'Who’s marching?' or whether it means anything, but I just think the experience of just seeing how many people feel passionately about this issue is going to be so important to break that sense of isolation and just the cognitive dissonance of living in a culture where you are absorbing this terrifying news about the destabilization of our home, on the one hand, and to be surrounding by messages from popular culture and our political leaders who are acting as though nothing is happening. So I think there’s something really important about moments of coming together to say, ‘No. We see this as an emergency and we want to act.” So I don’t think it’s about whether this march is going to accomplish something linear, but I do think that it’s going to nourish this movement in a really important way. And what I have found most striking as I’ve been talking to journalists for the last couple of weeks is that I was so prepared to have people challenge me about how radical the conclusions are or how radical the changes have to be. Or maybe disagree with me science isn't that alarming. My amazing researchers and I spent a lot of time anticipating those kinds of attacks. But what’s actually happened is that I've spent most of my time talking to journalists who want to argue with me about whether there’s any hope at all. So they’re agreeing with the conclusions about the need for radical change, and what they disagree with is the idea that there's any hope at all. So I think it’s a pretty extraordinary political moment. And where so many people do recognize the need for profound change and really the task for progressive movements is to convince people that change is possible. We must find ways to show that we’re not so far gone, that we’re not so hopeless, that we’re not so corrupted, that we're not so greedy and that we still could act to save ourselves. And that means social movements have their work cut out for them—for us. But that’s the task, I feel. A Feeling It's Gonna Be Huge': Naomi Klein on People's Climate Eve, Common Dreams, 9-20/14
Rebecca Solnit, TomDispatch via AlterNet: We can do it. And we is the key word here. The world is not going to be saved by individual acts of virtue; it’s going to be saved, if it is to be saved, by collective acts of social and political change. That’s why I’m marching this Sunday with tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of others in New York City -- to pressure the United Nations as it meets to address climate change. That’s why people who care about the future state of our planet will also be marching and demonstrating in New Delhi, Rio de Janeiro, Paris, Berlin, Melbourne, Kathmandu, Dublin, Manila, Seoul, Mumbai, Istanbul, and so many smaller places. Mass movements work. Unarmed citizens have changed the course of history countless times in the modern era. When we come together as civil society, we have the capacity to transform policies, change old ways of doing things, and sometimes even topple regimes. And it is about governments. Like it or not, the global treaties, compacts, and agreements we need can only be made by governments, and governments will make those agreements when the pressure to do so is greater than the pressure not to. We can and must be that pressure. Rebecca Solnit, What to Do When You're Running Out of Time, 9-18/14
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) today announced that Vandana Shiva, anti-GMO and climate activist, and author of more than 20 books, will march with the OCA’s “Cook Organic, Not the Planet” contingent in the People’s Climate March, on September 21, 2014, in New York City. “Vandana Shiva is known the world over for her tireless activism on behalf of the anti-GMO movement, organic agriculture, food justice and food sovereignty,” said Ronnie Cummins, international director of the Organic Consumers Association and its Mexico affiliate, Via Organica. “It is our hope that by joining with OCA in the People’s Climate March to promote our ‘Cook Organic, Not the Planet’ message, Vandana will further our mutual mission of drawing attention to the destructive impact industrial agriculture has on global warming, and the very real potential of organic, regenerative agriculture to reverse global warming by naturally sequestering carbon in the soil.” Vandana Shiva to March with Organic Consumers Association ‘Cook Organic, Not the Planet’ Activists at the People’s Climate March in New York, Organic Consumers Association, 8-28-14
Listen to Neil Young’s New Climate Anthem "Who’s Gonna Stand Up" (Acoustic Solo)
