1509. Join the March for Climate Justice on September 21

By Kamran Nayeri, August 12, 2014

On September 23rd, political and corporate leaders are meeting at the United Nations in New York City for the Climate Summit 2014. This summit represents yet another step towards the corporate takeover of the UN climate negotiations, and the privatization of land, water and air resources under the guise of a global climate compact. 

In response, Climate Justice Alliance has issued a call for a People’s Climate March in New York City on Sunday September 21.  There will also be a week long series of activities including a People’s Climate Justice Summit to discuss and issue demands reflecting the needs and interests of “Indigenous peoples’ communities, communities of color and working-class white communities that are the first and most impacted by the storms, floods and droughts, are organizing to create millions of family-supporting jobs in clean energy, public transportation, zero waste, food sovereignty, community housing and ecosystem restoration.”

The Climate Justice Alliance calls on other organizations and individuals to:

• Join us in the streets of NYC for a week of creative non-violent actions for Climate Justice

• Organize a delegation to join the People’s Climate March & People’s Climate Justice Summit in NYC

• Organize a creative action in your home community that highlights local solutions to climate change

• Spread this call to action amongst your respective networks and social media outlets

The Climate Justice Alliance members are:

• Alliance for Appalachia

• ACE for Environmental Justice

• Asian Pacific Environmental Network

• Black Mesa Water Coalition

• Catskills Mountainkeeper

• Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy

• Center for Story-based Strategy

• Communities for a Better Environment

• Community to Community Development

• Cornell Global Labor Institute

• East Michigan Environmental Action Council

• Energy Justice Network

• Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative

• Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives

• Global Justice Ecology Project

• Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

• Grassroots International

• Indigenous Environmental Network

• Institute for Policy Studies

• Ironbound Community Corporation

• Jobs With Justice

• Just Transition Alliance

• Kentuckians for the Commonwealth

• Labor Community Strategy Center

• Labor Network for Sustainability

• Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

• Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment

• Movement Generation

• Movement Strategy Center

• NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program

• New York City EJ Alliance

• People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER)

• POWER

• Right to the City Alliance

• Rising Tide North America

• Ruckus Society

• Southwest Organizing Project

• Southwest Workers Union

• UPROSE

System Change not Climate Change, an ecological socialist coalition, has endorsed the September 21 call and its affiliated local groups are organizing to join the New York march or local protests, including one in Oakland, California, that Our Place in the World cosponsors.  

I urge all readers of Our Place in the Word in the United States to join these activities.  Also, I urge others elsewhere in the world to join similar activities where they are taking place or organize such activities. Even modest house gathering with friends, families, co-workers, neighbors to discuss catastrophic climate change, it causes, and how to stop and reverse it would be a welcome step forward.  

Climate change is a time sensitive concern. The window of opportunity to act to stop and reverse it is relatively brief beyond which the dynamics of global warming gets out of human control.  No one knows what will happen if the average global temperature continue to rise beyond two degrees centigrade.  Life of many species as well as our own is at stake.  The time to act in NOW.