Feel the heat
World of anger on Sandy ann’y
AN OUTPOURING of activists and environmental advocates marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday to mark the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy — and call on government to take climate change seriously.
Thousands crowded into Cadman Park Plaza in downtown Brooklyn ahead of the march, many carrying signs that read “Climate Justice Now,” “Soil Not Oil” and “Windmills Not Walls.”
“Here we are on another warm day in October, and we know why,” said Eddie Bautista, the executive director of New York Environmental Justice Alliance, who drew a direct line between the devastation that hit New York five years ago and the spate of storms that slammed the Caribbean this summer. “Five years ago ... the city was visited by a severe weather event, the likes of which we had never seen, and then this past summer we have seen hurricane after hurricane devastating the global South and communities of color throughout the lower parts of the United States,” he said.
The group banded together with messages about inequality and environmental injustice. Canvases painted with images of Mayor de Blasio, Gov. Cuomo and Sen. Charles Schumer included calls for clean energy, divestment of city pensions from fossil fuel companies and full funding of the Environmental Protection Agency. The marchers made their way toward the Brooklyn Bridge, chanting, “Who’s got the power? We’ve got the power!” and “Water is Life.”
“I’m here because climate change is here,” said Mariolga Reyes, 47, who spent her last day in New York at the rally before heading back to her own stormravaged home — in Puerto Rico. “We are all being affected by it, and part of it is to acknowledge that we are interconnected. There’s no way what happens in one place doesn’t affect everybody else.”
Rosa Zuchuk, 40, of Crown Heights, called on elected leaders to protect the city’s more vulnerable neighborhoods. “We’re here today to be part of this reminder
reminding at this point — that climate change is killing us, and it’s killing poor folks and folks of color more blatantly and aggressively than everyone else,” she said.