Well, I was at home, putting together a presentation for the following day in Kalamazoo. But I was watching the Giant climate rally on YouTube, and it was clear that a sea change was in progress. We are seeing that play out day by day in the past week. Above, Tim DeChristopher deconstructs the march immediately after, and below, Todd Gitlin anazlyes with a week’s perspective.
Less than two weeks have passed and yet it isn’t too early to say it: the People’s Climate March changed the social map — many maps, in fact, since hundreds of smaller marches took place in 162 countries. That march in New York City, spectacular as it may have been with its 400,000 participants, joyous as it was, moving as it was (slow-moving, actually, since it filled more than a mile’s worth of wide avenues and countless side streets), was no simple spectacle for a day. It represented the upwelling of something that matters so much more: a genuine global climate movement.
Cynics will look at photos of the crowd, observe the staggering range of posters and banners, and conclude that those 400,000 participants — the number certified in a remarkable act of legitimation by Fox News — are so disparate that they can’t even agree about what they stand for; and that would be accurate, up to a point, but rather trivial in the end and certainly not as important as critics might imagine.
The same could have been said of the vast antiwar mobilizations of the late 1960s — crowds ranging from Quaker pacifists and Democratic liberals to Vietnam veterans and Viet Cong supporters, and more brands of revolutionary socialists than General Mills made cereals — and of the early feminist parades as well. The civil rights movement called itself nothing more specific than a “freedom movement,” and both its supporters and its adversaries knew in their bones what that meant. The house of the climate movement will hold many mansions (and probably its share of hovels, too), but for all the differing emphases, even conflicts on particular issues, there will be a great bulge of de facto agreement on one thing: governing institutions have, so far, defaulted and the depredations of corporations and governments have to be stopped. Now.
All of the “opponents” of climate change, also calling for an end to carbon-free nuclear energy. And the audience refuses to call them on it.
George Orwell, call your office.
I was there and it was a fabulous experience. It will be hard to tell exactly what will result but the big turnout can not hurt. The other marchers and the people on the sidelines were extremely friendly. I’m curious as to how many readers of this were also there.
Not me. Like Peter, I watched the live feed. I’ll wait until it comes to DC. NYC is too far and too much hassle for us old guys.
I was there. With other Quakers, actually.
The reason there were a lot of different banners and messages is there are a lot of issues surrounding climate change. I sure would like to hear what part was out of place – the critics who maybe were confused about the diverse concerns, should realize that it means that climate change is a huge problem.