The organisers had hoped for the largest climate rally in history, but even they were amazed at how many people turned up.
At one stage the estimate was 35,000, then 40,000 and at the end people estimated that nigh on 50,000 had poured into Washington with one message to Obama: Say no to the KXL pipeline and take decisive action on climate.
Wrapped up against the capital’s biting cold, from young and old, from students to scientists, from community leaders to ordinary citizens concerned about climate, they marched in their thousands.
They came from over 30 states in the US but also from Canada, holding thousands of hand-made banners and carrying a huge home-made pipeline. They were united in solidarity against the pipeline that would carry the dirty tar sands from Alberta to the US.
“This was the biggest climate change rally in U.S. history,” said Bill McKibben from 350.org and one of the organisers of the rally. “By our count, 50,000 people gathered by the Washington Monument and then marched past the White House, demanding that the President do more than pay lip service to what one speaker called ‘the climate crisis’.”
The marchers listened to speaker after speaker demanding action from Obama, including Mckibben, Michael Brune the Executive Director of the Sierra Club; the Rev. Lennox Yearwood, from the Hip Hop Caucus; Van Jones, NRDC Trustee and President Rebuild the Dream; Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic Senator from Rhode Island and various Indigenous leaders from Canada, including Chief Jacqueline Thomas, Immediate past Chief of the Saik’uz First Nation and Crystal Lameman, Beaver Lake Cree First Nation.
Earlier last week, Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club was arrested outside the White House with McKibben and forty six other leaders on climate, including Steve Kretzmann from Oil Change International. This is the first time in its history that the Sierra Club has backed civil disobedience.
“This is not your father’s climate movement” said Kretzmann. “Great work by so many has put this issue into its proper context – a moral one that centers on all of our survival. The energy, passion, youth and determination behind this movement is going to fuel many, many struggles on this issue over the next decade. We’re headed uphill, but today was the most hopeful day in years.”
– source priceofoil.org