GREAT MARCH FOR CLIMATE ACTION RALLY AFTER ACTION REPORT
LeClaire Park, Davenport
Great March for Climate Action
Cheers and jeers
There are many, many people to thank for the warm and open-hearted welcome that the Climate Marchers received on August 24 when they trod their way into the Quad Cities; our community was but one stop of many on their mission to walk coast to coast to raise awareness of the deepening climate crisis.
The good news is that members of the PACG Environmental Forum were able to solicit dozens of volunteers and organizations to provide lodging, food, transportation, speaking venues, a lunch and a rally, and finally, an early morning send off, all of which we hope served to make the Marchers’ stay both productive and memorable. Special thanks go to Alice Traylor and Anne Corbi, whose hard work and organizational skills made all of this possible.
We offer our heartfelt thanks to all the other volunteers and organizations that helped. We also want to let everyone know that, along with many good memories that the marchers took with them, they also took about $2,200 in donations, which helped get them to Chicago. In addition, thanks to those of you who reached out to individual marchers to help them with personal needs like shoes and clothing. We can indeed be thankful that we live in such a generous and kind community.
The bad news, for me, is that even though we had a nice turn-out (150 or so) for the rally on a blistering hot day, the baseball stadium next to us had a game at the same time with perhaps three or four thousand people in attendance. Why do I say this is bad news?
Because time is running out! The warnings from our scientists become more dire and urgent by the day. We do not have hundreds of years or even decades to take meaningful action on climate change. Those thousands at the ball park who believed that they were being responsible parents by taking their kids out to a great family pastime must be made to understand that while they go about their daily routines, the future is being stolen from their children. And it is becoming clearer by the minute that this may include the very survival of the people they love the most. Neither in my lifetime, nor in the lifetime of any human being that has ever lived, has anything posed such a clear threat to our survival–not nuclear weapons, not pandemics, not meteor strikes–and here’s the deal: the laws of physics do not care what your political or philosophical beliefs are. If we continue to add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, the planet will warm past the point of being able to sustain life. It really is that simple.
Join us!
Bill Sherwood
PACG Environmental Forum Facilitator
563-271-0234
[email protected]