Tim Murphy, at NYMag, “Can Sunday’s Climate March Expand the Movement Beyond Wonky White Men?“:
Vernell Robinson was stressed. The 51-year-old resident of the Carleton Manor public housing project in the Rockaways sat last weekend in the putty-colored community room of her building with two other local activists, Danielette Horton and Lawanda Johnson-Gainey, trying to figure out how to inspire a busload’s worth of fellow low-income Rockawayers to join them for the trip into Manhattan on Sunday for the People’s Climate March. Organizers of the march, which will occur in advance of next week’s U.N. Climate Summit, hope that it will be not only one of the biggest environmental rallies in history, but one of the most racially diverse, dispelling forever the climate movement’s reputation — and, at least in its upper echelons, its true history — as a preserve of privileged, outdoorsy white men.
Robinson and a few of her fellow Carleton residents got involved with climate activism after Hurricane Sandy. Sand got into the pipes at Carlton Manor and major storm damage to exterior brick walls remained unrepaired to this day…
So Robinson, a member of the low-income activist group Community Voices Heard, had pulled $23 from her own pocket to print up flyers about the climate march. “We’re trying to raise awareness and get people to connect the daily stuff to the big picture,” she Robinson. “The energy from the march will have a trickle-down effect.”
Horton, who was born in Liberia and lives in the nearby Hammel Houses, said, “I want people around here to be conscious of the planet.”
Their words would’ve been music to the ears of the organizers of the People’s Climate March, whose very name suggests the desire to expand the movement beyond the stereotype of wonky, well-to-do men with light complexions (think Al Gore, Bill McKibbin, RFK Jr.). They hope the protest, reflects who actually is most at risk from climate change: regular people, often urban and poor and with little mobility — be they residents of the Philippines or Red Hook. This broadened perspective is often called the environmental justice movement…
Getting the buy-in of the labor powerhouse SEIU, which played a major role in getting de Blasio elected mayor, was a no-brainer for the union, says Lenore Friedlander, who works in SEIU’s 32BJ sector, which represents building maintenance workers. “Our members experienced a wake-up call around Sandy,” she says. “They saw and felt the impact of extreme weather in a very direct way. We had thousands of members whose buildings where they work were closed down because they were underwater. Many of them couldn’t get to work because the city shut down transportation, and some ended up stuck at work. We had cleaners in the public schools, which became evacuation centers, flooded with people looking for a safe place.”…
Endorsement from scientists and other interested parties here, via Eric Holthaus at Slate.
skerry
Thanks for putting this on the front page!
People’s Climate March is the official link.
I’ve been working all summer to get the word out and organize transportation in the DC/Baltimore metro area.
ETA: Highly recommend watching the video “Disruption”.
‘When it comes to climate change, why do we do so little when we know so much?’
Through a relentless investigation to find the answer, Disruption takes an unflinching look at the devastating consequences of our inaction.
The exploration lays bare the terrifying science, the shattered political process, the unrelenting industry special interests and the civic stasis that have brought us to this social, moral and ecological crossroads.The film also takes us behind-the-scenes of the efforts to organize the largest climate rally in the history of the planet during the UN world climate summit.
This is the story of our unique moment in history. We are living through an age of tipping points and rapid social and planetary change. We’re the first generation to feel the impacts of climate disruption, and the last generation that can do something about it. The film enlarges the issue beyond climate impacts and makes a compelling call for bold action that is strong enough to tip the balance to build a clean energy future.
http://watchdisruption.com
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Much as I love the fact that we’re getting more action on climate shit, I do wish Robinson had used a phrase other than ‘trickle-down’.
Schlemazel
No, it’s too soon to take action on climate change. We need to wait maybe a decade at least; there needs to be irreversible damage done before we can start trying to fix the situation. Once its too late & the only option available are the bad ones THEN we can have action. It will be interesting to see how the ‘conservatives’ blame it all on liberals and scientists when the shit hits the fan.
But really, I hope this works out better than I expect. GOnna check out skerry’s link & see if there is anything to be done even if I can’t be in NYC.
Redshift
I really wish I could be there. Krugman posted this week about a new economic report showing that when you take into account the positives (such as reduced health costs from eliminating coal) addressing climate change may have a net cost of zero, or even be a plus.
It never ceases to amaze me when people argue with a straight face that climate science is unreliable, but projections of economic disaster decades in the future are rock solid.
Richard Grant
I expect to be there in the New Jersey section (hulking behind the banners?), so I probably won’t get a chance to watch the live streaming of the March.
My understanding is that this Sunday http://peoplesclimate.org will have both a Democracy Now live coverage stream and its own PCM stream as well as photos uploaded to flickr.
jl
I didn’t see link to the scientific supporting evidence and analysis, but below is link I found via Krugman’s NYT blog via Thoma’s Economist View blog (links from Thoma’s blog are gone now)
The New Climate Economy
http://newclimateeconomy.net
jl
And here is IMF blog post on topic, from same sources (original links also gone from Thoma’s blog)
IMF climate change blog post
Carbon Pricing: Good for You, Good for the Planet
Ian Parry
http://blog-imfdirect.imf.org/2014/09/17/carbon-pricing-good-for-you-good-for-the-planet/