Both Sides of a Coin Called Climate Change

I have had the incredible opportunity to not only participate in this mosaic, but also to join in the single largest climate change related demonstration ever. While I would have marched in The People’s Climate March in New York City on September 21st regardless of what I am studying now, it does help that I am spending my entire semester studying climate change and have been throwing myself into the world of international negotiations (which this march was aimed at). It is nice for a change to see the other major side to the climate change movement. Near the end of the march, there was no movement though. The people were stuck. The UN had been blocked off by the the immense swath of marchers. This was not a bad thing though, there were simply so many people taking part, that the streets were completely saturated.. There were so many that the organizers had to start diverting marchers from the established pathway because it was becoming difficult for anyone trying to leave the march needing to get out of the streets. This is what is needed though. This meeting of the people and the leaders of the world is necessary. In order to start making serious progress on climate change mitigation and adaptation pressure needs to be applied on world governments. This issue needs to be at the forefront of their minds, as often a possible. It is this demonstration that will hopefully do that. Imagine a world without these types of demonstrations. Where would the great global society be now? How far behind would we be? The march wasn’t just about reducing carbon emissions and trying to get the world’s leaders to get along with one another, it encompassed so much more. There were groups from every walk of life. From Al Gore’s Climate Reality to groups of anarchists. This march wasn’t s single event either. It was held all over the world. There were over 2,600 events in 150 countries, with the main march being in NYC where alone somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 people participated. Even UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon joined in the march. More of my photos here.