The Peoples Climate March came and went, but we are still here. This is why we came: The United Nations Emergency Summit on Climate Change. Yes, it’s real. You can watch a live feed from the United Nations web TV at the link below. You can click on the bottom right of the screen for a translation and watch world leaders talk about their issues with climate disruption in real time. It may move slower than an action movie, but THIS IS what’s happening globally. United Nations LIVE:
And now for a Wall Street Flood Report:
We wore blue and joined with at least 1,000 demonstrators to Flood Wall Street in a symbolic show of the waters rising as climate change surrounds us. The mission statement read in part:
“Flood, blockade, sit-in, and shut down the institutions that are profiting from the climate crisis. Wear Blue.”
People gathered in Battery Park at 9 a.m. for rallies and speakers to get fired up. I’ve been fired up for a long time, so we spent the morning recovering from yesterday’s march and got to Wall Street in time for the sit-in.
Salon.com posted an article where Naomi Klein, author of “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate” was quoted as saying, “The fact is, if we’re going to respond to this crisis, we need to break a whole bunch of the free market rules that these guys hold very dear. We need to regulate. We need to get in the way of the fossil fuel companies.”
Ironically, or maybe regularly, the quote was followed by a Citi bank ad. Even more ironically, the CBS news clip I posted below opens with a car ad, but than again this is America where everything seems to get a commercial.
Reuters reported at least 200 people had expressed a willingness to be arrested at Flood Wall Street. The demonstration was loud and impressive with some trappings left over from the huge Climate March. A large inflatable carbon bubble was passed along over the heads of protestors to their delight and cheers. The police presence was also large and somewhat foreboding, but very professional.
When it appeared the police had routed traffic around the sit-in and decided to just let the demonstrators stay indefinitely, we decided to attend a proposed demonstration nearer the United Nations where 125 World Heads of State were scheduled to hold an emergency climate summit on Tuesday. Security was very tight. Blocks were cordoned off and we could not get near the United Nations. A rally was scheduled for one of the accessible plazas, but we found the plaza and did not find a rally.
CBS News Peoples Climate March Clip:
Salon.com article:
Photo: Margarita Baumann. Billy X on left carrying banner.
Submitted from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY