I was in Washington on Thursday and Friday for some interviews for a book I’ve been working on. (Think meat, fish and feed and the many and complex ins and outs of those.) My daughter came down on Friday evening so she, my sister-in-law, and I went to the big march on Saturday. Great day! A good time was had by all. Continue reading
for more of these cool posters from New York, click on the photo
I had a great time on Saturday joining the March on Science in New York City. (I wrote about the march with some background back in February after it was first announced.) Aside from the main march in Washington, DC, there were over 600 satellite marches around the world. Nice! There were tens of thousands of people lined up on Central Park West for ten or more blocks. Relaxed, festive. Some young, some old, some nerdy, some hip, a good number of scientists, science teachers, activists, and others who are fans of science. It was all largely apolitical but the message was quite clear: The war on science – and particularly climate science – being waged, let’s face the facts, almost wholly by the Trump Administration and his enablers in the Congress, is not something that people are going to take lying down. Continue reading
Action This Day. That’s what Winston Churchill wrote on many of his memos. It has always worked for me as a call to arms. Action was the persistent theme of the recent UN Climate Summit. I had the good fortune to be there last week and I was, after a fair number of years of observing the environmental scene, somewhat in awe of the tone and timbre of the speeches in support of climate action. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has been building support for nearly a year for a successful summit, with leaders of governments, business and civil society in abundance coming to speak and to make commitments. Continue reading
New York City this week and next is the center of the Climate Activist universe. I define activism broadly: it means not only being in the streets and expressing discontent with the pace of change toward decarbonizing and denuclearizing our energy economies to save the climate system, but also doing the hard work of researching, litigating, legislating, organizing, writing, speaking, making movies, teaching, farming, financing, designing, planning, building, regulating, and working, day after day, to create the newer world that we need. I celebrate everybody and all the energy and focus and commitment brought over the past 50 years of the modern environmental movement that has brought us forward. The first environmental journalist, Phil Shabecoff, wrote a great book, A Fierce Green Fire, about the movement. (They made a documentary last year too.)