Over 160 energized Middlebury students, alumni and faculty descended upon the streets of New York on Sunday, joining 311,000 others at the People’s Climate March, a historic climate rally that wound a three-mile, six-hour course through Manhattan.
Hundreds of thousands of people both in New York City and at over 2,800 sites in 150 countries marched with polychrome floats, banners, pickets, placards, and blow horns, marshaling attention to the looming threat of climate change. More than 1,500 U.S. organizations, including schools, labor organizations, businesses, and faith groups, helped plan the protest, which espoused the tagline, “To change everything, we need everyone.”
The single largest demonstration of the climate movement to date, the march preceded the United Nations Climate Summit on Sept. 23, which was called to order by Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Dubbed a “political action forum,” the gathering at the U.N. Headquarters in New York will generate a precise framework for forthcoming climate talks in Lima in December and Paris in 2015, during which an international pact on CO2 emissions reductions will be discussed.
“The U.N. has outlined the stakes in the climate fight,” Greta Neubauer ’14.5 said at the march. “Today, people filled the streets and demonstrated that we will accept inaction no longer. The U.N. needs to take serious steps to address the causes of the climate crisis, and it needs to take the lead from the people most impacted. They will lead the path to a just transition.”
The Climate Summit also followed last month’s release of a major report on climate published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report states that human-produced emissions will significantly increase the risk of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts” to the environment in the decades ahead. These environmental impacts (e.g., flooding, heat waves, reduced grain production, and thawing snowpack in the poles) are likely to escalate unless greenhouse gases are regulated with uniform benchmarks set by national governments, according to the report.
“At this point, the urgency of climate change is well documented, so now, it’s time to act,” said Laura Xiao ’17, who helped lead the organizing team at the College for the march. “The march on Sunday was for the record books, and we’re eager to see how this momentum and excitement will boost the Middlebury Climate Campaign this year.”
Led by Xiao and others in Sunday Night Group (SNG), Middlebury’s enduring environmental activism umbrella campaign, began planning for the march over the summer.
“We were on conference calls in mid-July, already thinking about buses, vans, lodging, recruitment, fundraising, and grant writing for the march,” Xiao said. “First, we focused our efforts on the College’s newest students, the members of the Class of 2018.”
Michael Shrader ’18 from Bristol, Va. was one of the first to reach out about interest in the march and recruitment at the College. “Since my interests lie primarily in environmentalism and politics, I was ready to get started as soon as I made it to campus,” Shrader said. “The final result in New York was greater than anyone could have anticipated, and the voice of the climate movement was surely heard.”
Boston-area resident Ethan Reilly ’17, who joined Shrader and the rest of the Middlebury contingent at the march Sunday, was inspired by the throngs of marchers snaking through the city.
“The feeling of solidarity was just unbelievable,” Reilly said. “Seeing a crowd so large and diverse affirmed for me that anthropogenic climate change is an issue that people everywhere take very seriously. I am confident the march sent a resounding message to the U.N. going into the summit Tuesday.”
Moving into the third week of classes, students of SNG are hopeful that those who brought the noise in Manhattan will channel their enthusiasm through initiatives back on campus. “This is one of the most exciting moments in the climate movement in my four years here,” Hannah Bristol ’14.5 said. “The march was beautiful and showed how diverse and intersectional this movement is. I can’t wait to see how that energy transfers back to campus.”
