People’s Climate March
| People's Climate March | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | September 21, 2014 | ||
| Location | New York City with other events globally on the same day | ||
| Goals | Action to reduce climate change | ||
| Methods | Demonstration | ||
| Number | |||
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The People's Climate March (PCM) was a large-scale activist event to advocate global action against climate change, which took place on Sunday, September 21, 2014, in New York City, along with a series of companion actions worldwide, many of which also took the name People's Climate March. With an estimated 311,000 participants, the New York event was the largest climate change march in history. Described as "an invitation to change everything," the march was called in May 2014 by 350.org, the environmental organization founded by writer/activist Bill McKibben, and it was endorsed by "over 1,500 organizations, including many international and national unions, churches, schools and community and environmental justice organizations." It was conceived as a response to (but not a protest against) the scheduled U.N. Climate Summit of world leaders to take place in New York City two days later, on September 23.
Although based in New York, the event was global in scope and implication, with "companion demonstrations" worldwide. Organizers intended the march to be "the largest single event on climate that has been organized to date… one so large and diverse that it cannot be ignored." The entire PCM project consisted of "numerous events, actions, symposia, presentations, and more organized over the course of the days leading up to the Summit, and in the days following," of which the march was intended to be "the anchor event." Worldwide, nearly 600,000 people were estimated to have marched on September 21, including those in New York.
On May 21, McKibben published an article on the website of Rolling Stone magazine (later appearing in the magazine's print issue of June 5), entitled "A Call to Arms," which invited readers to a major climate march in New York City for the weekend of September 20–21. In the article, McKibben calls climate change "the biggest crisis our civilization has ever faced," and predicts that the march will be "the largest demonstration yet of human resolve in the face of climate change."
After criticizing world leaders, including President Obama, for not moving fast enough or going far enough to combat climate change, McKibben cites increasing evidence of environmental deterioration, including the melting of Arctic and Antarctic ice, the acidification of the oceans, and violent weather and quotes one climate scientist as exclaiming "We're all sitting ducks." He blames this state of affairs primarily on the fossil-fuel industry, which “by virtue of being perhaps the richest enterprise in human history, has been able to delay effective action, almost to the point where it's too late.” Although he claims that local, small-scale activism is crucial, the global climate justice movement sometimes "needs to come together and show the world how big it's gotten," and to allow for "opening up space for change." Writes McKibben: "A loud movement – one that gives our 'leaders' permission to actually lead, and then scares them into doing so – is the only hope of upending" the "prophecy" that it’s already too late to reverse the problem.
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