People's Climate March

21 Sep 2014

bus before takeoff

This is the group that I traveled with to get to the New York City People's Climate March. We left via a bus that took off from Doylestown, PA. The Philadelphia area sent around 30 buses in all.

assembling

Approaching the marchers.

How many people took part in the march? Good question. The original estimate was that the march would draw about 100,000 marchers. New York's official estimate was over 310,000, an activist claims that he used some math and observations and came up with an interesting estimate of 125,000. Seems prett doubtful as we waited an awfully long time to get moving and as the next-to-last photo here shows, the crowds were pretty solid right up until the end. Many sources are claiing 400,000, which sounds credible to me. An aerial drone took some overhead footage. Whatever the actual total number, we were clearly in the hundreds of thousands. Also, “Organizers said another 270,000 people had participated in related events outside New York.“

before moving

I had a really heavy pack with me. Didn't touch the lunch until after the march, but the heaviest item I had was a small camp chair, which I am SO glad I brought as there were so many people waiting to march that we took off well behind schedule.

finally started

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett's Administration proved itself to be less than useless in the climate fight, re-wording a bureau's website in 2012 to give the impression that Pennsylvania wasn't taking a position on climate change. One of the deleted paragraphs read: "The overwhelming scientific consensus is that the earth's climate is warming rapidly due to the atmospheric buildup of heat-trapping emissions, primarily carbon dioxide pollution from power plants and automobiles."

ny sight

Heh! Right before I took this, a guy snapped their picture as well. His girlfriend asked him why "Wel, uh, y'know, sights you see in New York."

energetically twirling

A New York Assemblyman defended climate change activists against three Fox News pundits. One of the charges he dealt with was the amount of trash left by the marchers. He said he talked to street maintenance people, who said the amount of trash left behind was thoroughly normal, quickly cleaned up and nothing to get excited about. Naturally, the right wing is completely up in arms about trash left by marchers and considers that to be THE truly neewsworthy aspect of the march.

dancer twirls

Gee wow, what a surprise [/snark], none of the Sunday morning talk shows dealt with the march at all. The elites just don't care, considering climate change to be a concern of the little people. And then of course, the writers and producers go to their swank country clubs and wonder why people consider them to be so out of touch and disconnected!

sign

Piece by reporter/author Naomi Klein, who wonders aloud whether our capitalist, free market economy can ever be compatible with human survival. The "Flood Wall Street" people the next day answered strongly in the negative.

big long banner

Wonkette reviews Neil de Grassi Tyson's Cosmos, the episode on climate change. Venus and Earth were very much alike for the first billion years, the major difference between them now being that Earth has stored most of its carbon in rocks, whereas Venus put so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere via volcanic eruptions that there was then a runaway greenhouse effect that heated up and made the surface uninhabitable. Tyson then goes on to make the case that CO2 is the reason that Earth is warming up.

signs

Wonkette::

This isn’t politics. It’s math, and physics. To illustrate how much carbon is dumped into the air annually, Tyson uses a nice visual trick — CGI and green screen at last: if that annual amount, about 30 billion tons of CO2 gas a year, were compressed into solid carbon, the mass would be similar to that of the cliffs of Dover, and so we get to see the cliffs double in size, and then some, year after year.

PDA

Progressve Democrats of America.

The Union of Concerned Scientists says that:

Over the past 130 years, the global average temperature has increased 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit, with more than half of that increase occurring over only the past 35 years. The pattern is unmistakable: The 12 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998 and every one of the past 35 years has been warmer than the 20th century average.

Also, CO2 is at a level that's 25% higher than in 1957.

FUMCOG

First United Methodist Church of Germantown. All the other pictures here were taken by me, but this was taken by my co-congregant Bill Ewing.

The UCS also draws a direct connection between global warming and increased precipitation, meaning we're getting fewer storms but they're heavier storms, increased rainfall and snowfall per storm. How is this consistent with increasing drought? Because rainfalls are heavier, that doesn't mean there's more rain. It just means that more of the rain falls in shorter time periods, so yes, warming leads to both increased rainfall and drought.

VFP

Veterans For Peace.

And yes, the US Navy has been fully on-board with efforts to combat climate change since 2009. The military in general is trying to become greener.

Making the SEALs into a leaner, greener tactical force is one of many such steps being taken by all branches as the U.S. military reduces its environmental footprint. The Army is targeting net-zero energy use at several bases, and the Navy and Air Force are experimenting with running jets on biofuels that use wood waste and algae and less petroleum. In Afghanistan, patrols now carry eco-friendly solar blankets and LED lamps.

me

Met a buddy of mine during the march and had her snap my picture.

roadside view

Typical view from the sidewalk throughout the march.

President Obama made a pro-save-the-climate speech at the UN. How did the Koch brothers feel about it? They hated it! Tells me we're probably on the right track!

chillin'

Chillin' and relaxin' before heading off back home. Good march, now to get to work on the follow-up and try to turn it into actual political momentum!

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