Moving Forward After the People's Climate March
- Details
- Published on Wednesday, 08 October 2014 20:40
- Written by editor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(((( T h e B u l l e t ))))~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1046 .... October 9, 2014
___________________________________________________
Moving Forward After the People's Climate March
Kamran Nayeri
The September 21 People's Climate March in New York City was a huge success. Over 310,000 people consisting of hundreds of contingents of various origins and interests marched in New York (some have put the number of marchers as high as 400,000). The organizers report that 2,807 similar actions took place in 166 countries during that weekend. In New York, contingents representing environmentalists, trade unionists, students and youth, indigenous activists, community organizations, religious and political groups and many others represented the breadth of support for immediate effective action to stop and reverse global warming and catastrophic climate change. Although dozens of similar protests took place elsewhere in the U.S., thousands of participants came to New York... on 550 buses, many trains and planes to give the march a national character.
Also, the march had an international character because it was in response to the UN September 23 meeting of heads of state and corporate leaders to address climate change. It is not secret that only an internationally coordinated response can successfully address climate change. Among marchers there was not just high-profile environmentalists like Bill McKibben of 350.org, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jane Goodall and Vandana Shiva but also key politicians including U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also joined the March. President Barack Obama sent a supporting Twitter message. While mainstream media did not cover the march in proportion to its importance there was positive coverage of it in the New York Times and other influential mass media.
Still, it is doubtful if many participants returned home thinking that the U.S. and world elites have heard their message and will now collaborate on a plan to slow and then stop emission of greenhouse gases in a timely fashion. Two-decades of fruitless international ‘negotiations’ have made any thinking person skeptical about the intentions of capitalist politicians and corporate leaders who are after their own narrow self-interests rather than the health of the planet and its peoples. The key accomplishment of these protests was the broad collaborative effort of many constituencies who are serious about putting an end to greenhouse emissions and address other planetary crises and the message they sent to the rest of the people of the world. We can build on the success of this march and similar events to continue bottom up pressure for change in climate and public policy in the U.S. and worldwide. To this end, I will take up a few lessons from our recent experience.