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Hundreds of Thousands Turn Out For People's Climate March In New York City

mdsolar writes with an update on the People's Climate March. More than 400,000 people turned out for the People's Climate March in New York City on Sunday, just days before many of the world's leaders are expected to debate environmental action at the United Nations climate summit. Early reports from event organizers are hailing the turnout as the largest climate march in history, far bigger than the Forward on Climate rally held in Washington, D.C., last year. High-profile environmentalists including Bill McKibben, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jane Goodall and Vandana Shiva marched alongside policymakers such as Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and former Vice President Al Gore were also there, and more than 550 buses carried in people from around the country.

15 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. With scientists like Leonardo DiCaprio behind it by NotDrWho · · Score: 5, Funny

    How could I *NOT* accept it as established science?

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  2. Re:Just in time for another record cold winter by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's climate change because some morons look out the window, see that it's cold today and decide that global warming must be fake.

    While the global climate is warming, the effect locally at any given time may not be warming. It sometimes causes more extreme weather, including cold. Hence, climate change.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. I went by Gerafin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Something about this march has inspired a lot of ire across the internet, so before the negativity rolls in let me share my experience. I was hesitant to attend the march on Sunday, because I feel like protests like these are accomplishing less and less as time moves on. I was worried that people would feel they had 'done their duty' by showing up, and gone back to their day-to-day without changing anything. I've also constantly been cynical about the global warming movement, believing that we've done too much harm to reverse, that nothing we can do can slow the inexorable and extinction-level rise of global temperatures. After arguing about it with my girlfriend, I came to a few important conclusions. First, cynicism is laziness in disguise. The problem was too big, too scary, too complex, for me to tackle, but at this point is impossible to deny. How can I acknowledge the problem without allowing any responsibility to fall to myself? Cynicism and negativity (which I've seen comment board after comment board filled with regarding this subject). Another conclusion I came to was that our generation is going to be held accountable for any damage that climate change caused. We knew the danger, yet we allowed it to happen. I want to be able to tell the next generation, 'I tried.' I want to be able to show them pictures of the march and say, 'We were not filled with apathy, we fought, we tried.' Plenty of people who recognize the issue of climate change have been deriding the march based on the presence of socialists, 'dirty hippies,' punks, gays, etc. Yeah, there were some whackos there. I saw some people with signs about chem trails, 9/11 truthers, religious nuts. When you have 400,000 people in one place, you're not going to agree with all of them. But I also talked to doctors, scientists, politicians, students, teachers. And I work at a bank. Did we accomplish anything? Perhaps very little. But I could see the people there were galvanized by the event, their batteries were recharged, and they were full of hope. It generated discussion today. There are a lot of corporations throwing a lot of money around to prevent legislation regarding climate change. We can't challenge them on the money front, so numbers is one of the only tools we have left. If we can get enough people on our side, perhaps we can change the political climate (harr harr) through elections. I'd rather try, than sit at home and do nothing, and have to answer to future generations about my apathy.

  4. Re:Just in time for another record cold winter by tbannist · · Score: 5, Informative

    I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, however, ...

    Obviously, you don't understand how science works:

    Record hot summer = Evidence of global warming

    As part of a trend of record hot summers, for sure. Individually? Not unless the record heat is so extraordinary that it falls outside of what would be possible without global warming.

    Record cold winter = Well, that's just weather, pay it no mind.

    A record cold winter would be evidence against global warming if it was part of trend, or it was so cold that it fell out of what should be possible with global warming. Having said that, globally this past winter had the 3rd warmest december, the 4th warmest January and the 21st warmest February, none of which exactly qualify as "record cold" on the global scale.

    Extreme weather events = Evidence of global warming

    Again it's the trends in extreme weather events more than the individual events that matter with certain exceptions where the events themselves fall out of what would be possible without global warming.

    Lack of extreme weather events = Well, that's just weather, pay it no mind.

    Again, it the trends, not individual weather on any specific year that matters

    Ice melting in Antarctica = Evidence of global warming

    Record ice in arctic = Well, that's just weather, pay it no mind.

    I think you might have your north and south mixed up. We're near the record low for Arctic ice extent, and at record highs in Antarctic ice extent. Both of which are expected as part of global warming.

    IT'S SCIENCE, PEOPLE!

    It actually is, whether or not you resort to derision and mockery.

    --
    Fanatically anti-fanatical
  5. "Marching does nothing" by jpellino · · Score: 4, Insightful
    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
    1. Re:"Marching does nothing" by WrongMonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Times change. Cavalry was a military necessity up to WWI, 50 years later it was irrelevant. Marches were a stunning political tactic 50 years ago, now they're just another blip in the 24 hour news cycle.

  6. Re:irony by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, that's why they had local events in other cities.

    But I think it's kind of dumb to think that in a city with tens or hundreds of thousands of cars idling daily in traffic for the past 70 years, that 500 busses making a single trip is going to have a more negative impact than if leaders don't hear some kind of voice for change.

  7. Re:Largest Climate march in history by sycodon · · Score: 4, Informative

    They filled NY with garbage. and I'm not talking about themselves. Note that a bunch of A-listers flew in on private jets too.

    I bet that only 1 in 4 knew why they were actually marching. The rest were there for the party.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  8. Re:Just in time for another record cold winter by CajunArson · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, and I'm sure you're next post will be that nobody on the face of the earth has ever EVAR claimed that:
      1. Hurricane Katrina
      2. "Superstorm"* Sandy
      3. The smelt-made California Drought
      4. 2011 Japanese Tsunami **
      5. Back to back record years for agriculture in the midwest in 2013-2014 ***

    were caused by global warming!!

    * So named because it wasn't even strong enough to count as a real hurricane... while stronger storms have been known to hit NYC in the 19th and early 20th centuries!

    ** Yes, earthquakes are now caused by Global Warming. Get with the politcally correct program you denialist scum.

    *** No wait, that's not post-apocalyptic bad sounding. Two consecutive years of weather patterns over an entire geographic region is just an insignificant random weather event...

    Now, a not-particularly unusually strong hurricane that happens to hit a low-lying city that's in the middle of a region where you expect to see hurricanes over a 12 hour period... THAT'S CLIMATE CHANGE YOU DENIALIST SCUM!

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
  9. Re:Largest Climate march in history by jandrese · · Score: 4, Funny

    Someone found litter in NYC. Stop the presses. The whole environmental movement is a scam!

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
  10. Frank Luntz by TapeCutter · · Score: 4, Informative

    The terminology "climate change" goes back to at least the 1950's in the literature, "global warming" first appears in the 70's. There was no confusion until the early 2000's when this silly terminology argument was started by the brain fart of "public opinion guru" Frank Luntz, a GWB advisor who penned a memo advising the Bush administration to use the term "climate change" in preference to "global warming" because...I don't recall why...it "sounded less threatening"......or something equally inane and deceitful.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  11. When the people who say it's a crisis.... by dfenstrate · · Score: 4, Insightful
    When the people who say it's a crisis act like it's a crisis, then maybe I'll look into the matter. Until then, I have a hard time taking a finger-wagging jet setter seriously. You know the type, they want to make everything more expensive so only the rich can enjoy the benefits of modern life.

    "F*ck the poor people who want to stay warm, or get to a job. They should die off anyway, the earth is overpopulated!"

    --
    Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
  12. Re:irony by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Informative

    no, that's an extremely efficient way to travel compared to individual cars. Did you know a diesel bus can get over 150 passenger miles / gallon compared to 49 for jet?

  13. Re:Just in time for another record cold winter by radtea · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Again, it the trends, not individual weather on any specific year that matters

    Except that after every single warm snap or hurricane the same people who were smugly reminding us that "weather is not climate" are busy pointing to the event as "evidence" of AGW, which it is not. Distributions are evidence, events are not, because the science shows that the AGW/no-AGW distributions substantially overlap in our current situation, particularly with regard to extreme weather events.

    So only a person who does not understand science and statistics would ever suggest that any single event or small handful of events is worth mentioning as evidence either way. And yet Warmists are always out in force after any given extremum telling us it "proves" AGW.

    Don't get me wrong: AGW is real, although there are some pretty well-proven techniques for reducing it (notably carbon taxes, which also have the benefit of reducing corporate and income taxes, so you'd have to be some anti-capitalist nut-job to oppose them). But anyone who ever opens their mouth to point at a single event as if it was somehow worth the bother of discussing is an anti-science wing-nut, and adds only heat, not light, to the discussion.

    --
    Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
  14. Re:With scientists like Leonardo DiCaprio behind i by timeOday · · Score: 4, Informative

    The science is settled. What remains is to rally people to action en masse - more like "putting bums on seats" than proving theorems.