Climate March draws crowd to Washington in sweltering heat
WASHINGTON — On a sweltering April day, tens of thousands of demonstrators assembled in Washington on Saturday for the latest installment of the regular protests that punctuate the Trump era. This large-scale climate march marked President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, which have already seen multiple rollbacks of environmental protections and Obama climate policies.
The Peoples Climate March, which originated with a massive demonstration in New York in September 2014, picked a symbolically striking day for its 2017 event. The temperature reached 91 degrees at District of Columbia’s National Airport at 2:59 p.m., tying a heat record for April 29 in the district set in 1974 — which only amplified the movement’s message.
On the eve of the march, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was beginning an overhaul of its website, which included taking down a long-standing site devoted to the science of climate change, which the agency said was “under review.”
“Hang on EPA, the midterms are coming. 2018,” read one sign carried by Kathy Sommer of Stony Brook, New York, as the protest assembled on the Mall Saturday morning.
“There is no Planet B,” read another sign by Eva Gunther of Washington, D.C., displaying one of the most popular and oft repeated messages of the event (and of last week’s March for Science).
Hillary Clinton tweeted praise of the marchers Saturday afternoon, writing, “Great to see ppl take to the streets & combat climate change, protect the next generation & fight for jobs & economic justice.”
President Trump was in Pennsylvania for a rally on Saturday and did not tweet any immediate reaction.
In Oakland, several hundred people gathered at Lake Merritt, where speakers used bike-powered amplifiers to address the crowd before marching around the lake. Several attendees said they couldn’t imagine a better way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon.
“Where else am I supposed to be but counted among people who are saying this is not acceptable,” Oakland resident John White said, referring to the current administration. “The way Donald Trump will make America great again is by getting people to rise up, like they are doing here.”
Many at the march lamented the apparent lack of urgency in taking actions to reduce harmful carbon emissions. “We have to take care of our planet,” said Jihan McDonald. “If we don’t, there won’t be any politics, there won’t be anybody to put in jail, there won’t be anything to do whatever it is (the administration) wants.”
And if there was just one message that Palo Alto resident Lisa Danz wanted to get across to the Trump administration, it was that it can no longer say the cost of switching to renewable resources hurts the economy. As an employee for Tesla, Danz said, she sees first hand the economic potential of the renewable energy industry.
“There is ample evidence that climate change solutions do not harm the economy,” she said. “They need to stop using that as an excuse to do nothing.”
In Santa Cruz, about 500 people gathered in San Lorenzo Park.
Just before the march through the downtown, William Under-baggage, a Lakota Indian, encouraged the defense of sacred natural resources. “The climate crisis is upon us,” Under-baggage said. “We live on the skin of this earth.”
Susanne Moser, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, denounced “climate-change deniers.”
Moser said climate change will outlast the Trump presidency. “We are for a just transition for all,” she said, referring to efforts to bolster renewable energy.
Many of the signs at Saturday’s climate march in D.C. were dark and ominous, warning of climate catastrophe, dying oceans, crop destruction and planet degradation. But the mood of the marchers was anything but somber. It was a racially diverse crowd with marchers of all ages. There were women with flowers in their hair. A man dressed in Uncle Sam overalls. There were little girls in strawberry sundresses and boys in baseball caps astride their fathers’ shoulders. There were babies in strollers, like the boy who’d traveled with his family from Nashville and was now rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue carrying a sign that read, “Less pollution, more solutions.” There were elderly folks, too, such as 91-year-old Dorothy Peterson, who had traveled from Pittsburgh. She had a sun hat that resembled the earth and carried a sign in her wheelchair that read, “Mother Earth is older than me. Respect your elders.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Allison Dale, a geologist from Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. “It’s so well organized and everyone is really friendly and in a really good mood.”
The protest itself smelled of sweat, sunscreen and the occasional whiff of incense. It sounded like a drum circle - a neverending drum circle. The cacophony included banjos and boomboxes and at least one kazoo, tambourines and ukuleles and, yes, cowbell. Lots of cowbell. At one point, a full-on brass band — tubas, trombones, trumpets — waltzed by in full swing in front of the White House, while a man on stilts danced amid the musicians.
The climate event differs from last week’s March for Science in its focus and also its participants - only 1 out of 8 contingents of Saturday’s protest featured scientific researchers. The rest included labor activists, indigenous people already facing severe effects from climate change, and children and young people who will live with the effects of climate change longest as the Earth continues to warm.
But there was plenty of overlap between the marches. Ken Hunter, 78, traveled from Charles Town, West Virginia, for the climate march and also came to Washington for the March for Science last weekend and the Tax March on April 15 - and attended a Women’s March in Florida.
“Hell, I haven’t marched this much in years,” Hunter said with a laugh. “But these are all very important issues and it was important to be out here.”