“There’s going to be a moment of silence in 2 minutes, pass it back,” a stranger said to me at 12:57. At 12:59, the eerie silence fell over at least 400,000 people with one hand raised to the air. Barely a moment later, an overwhelming, and slightly terrifying, wave of screaming and alarms going off swallows us from behind as we start cheering along as well. The “We Can Build the Future” section, which included labor, families, students, and elders, resembled a student section at a college football game, except instead of chanting “defense,” we were chanting “climate justice.”
Image via Getty/ Andrew Burton
At the People’s Climate March in New York City on September 21, more than 400,000 people marched along the west side of Central Park all the way to 34th Street in the largest climate protest in history. The protesters were attempting to sway world leaders, who attendedg the Climate Summit at the United Nations on September 23, to take legitimate action on solutions to climate change and a global agreement by 2015.
The climate change protesters showed their support across the globe with an estimated 600,000 people, including the hundreds of thousands which hit the streets in New York. The issues surrounding climate change have been ongoing for years, but now they are even more undeniable. While we can be hopeful for global changes happening in the next year after the Climate Summit and future meetings, the community of hundreds and thousands of families, students, celebrities, elders, and other important leaders have shown this is a problem we all want improved. The support in London, Melbourne, Berlin, and Rio de Janeiro was substantial, but there were events rallying climate change in 166 countries, according to the People’s Climate March website.
The Climate Summit happened yesterday, and if you want to read up on the details of what happened, check out this article.
