Climate change activists plan Wall Street protest

Climate activists on Monday planned to flood Wall Street to protest what they say is corporate and economic institutions' role in the climate crisis. It comes a day after hundreds of thousands of activists participated in the People's Climate March through Manhattan warning that climate change is destroying the Earth.

|
Jason DeCrow/AP
Bird-shaped kites are held in the air as demonstrators make their way down Sixth Avenue during the People's Climate March, Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014, in New York. The march, along with similar gatherings scheduled in other cities worldwide, comes two days before the United Nations Climate Summit, where more than 120 world leaders will convene for a meeting aimed at galvanizing political will for a new global climate treaty by the end of 2015.

One day after a huge climate march in New York City, activists on Monday planned to flood Wall Street to protest what they say is corporate and economic institutions' role in the climate crisis.

The protesters, dressed in blue, scheduled a rally in Battery Park before marching to the financial district in Lower Manhattan, according to organizers of #FloodWallStreet.

Scheduled speakers at the rally include Canadian author-activist Naomi Klein, journalist Chris Hedges and San Francisco writer Rebecca Solnit. Environmentalist, activist and author Bill McKibben also was expected.

Organizers said in a press release that the sit-in aimed to disrupt business in the financial district by targeting "corporate polluters and those profiting from the fossil fuel industry."

"Two years ago, Superstorm Sandy literally flooded New York's financial district but it didn't faze Wall Street and their drive for the short term profits that flow from the cooking of the planet," Klein said in a statement. "Which is why we're going to flood them again."

Dressed in a green wig and superhero outfit, protester Jenna DeBoisblanc, an environmental activist from New Orleans, Louisiana, said at a rally in a park near Wall Street before the protest that those assembled were expecting arrests at the sit-in.

"I think arrests in particular are a very good way of conveying the gravity of an issue," she said. "If you're willing to risk arrest it certainly demonstrates that it's something very urgent."

 

On Sunday, tens of thousands of activists participated in the People's Climate March through Manhattan warning that climate change is destroying the Earth.

Organizers said more than 100,000 participated, including actors Mark Ruffalo and Evangeline Lilly. The Christian Science Monitor was on the scene:

The People’s Climate March, organized by an array of environmental, religious, and labor groups the past few months, was scheduled to coincide with the United Nations Climate Summit, in which nearly 100 heads of state, including President Obama, will discuss global carbon emissions and seek to create a framework for an international agreement at next year’s climate summit in Paris.
But environmental activists were stunned by both the size and energy of the raucous parade, which organizers say is the largest climate protest in history.

It was one of many demonstrations around the world urging policymakers to take quick action.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Climate change activists plan Wall Street protest
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0922/Climate-change-activists-plan-Wall-Street-protest
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe