Almost half a million people gathered in New York City for this year’s People’s Climate March on Sunday, an event aimed at informing people of the effects of global climate change.
Around 400,000 people attended the NYC Climate March on September 22, with over 2,600 events in more than 150 countries around the world. This has made it the largest climate march to date. Many celebrities and high profile environmentalists were in attendance, including Former Vice President Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Mark Ruffalo, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Leonardo DiCaprio, who gave an impassioned speech to the U.N. on Tuesday.
The event was timed to precede the United Nations Climate Summit occurring this week, where global leaders will discuss the issues around climate change and how to catalyze climate action.
Rachel Chu, a Memphis native and environmental studies and sustainability sophomore at Sewanee, was one among many who attended the People’s Climate March
“The turnout for the march included communists, anarchists, socialists, democrats, unions, feminists, children, etc,” Chu said. “I almost cried when I saw TV screens they had provided next to the march playing slide shows of people showing support from all over the world.”
People were brought together in their activism by holding signs and chanting.
“There were people cheering for us from all sides, even some of the policemen and women,” Chu said. “Some signs said ‘I don't want to die,’ ‘I can't breathe’ and ‘Fossil fuels are ancient history.’ We also chanted things like ‘United Nations can’t you see, that there is no Planet B.’"
Chu claimed that the U.N. lawmakers would be unable to deny people of their rights to climate justice.
“We aimed to show the heads of state that we know the causes of global climate change, and we need legislation in order to change the rapidly increasing effects,” Chu said. “We also aimed to show people around the world that they need to start paying attention to the science of climate change.”
Chu believes that college students are the key to stopping climate change around the world.
“College students are the first generation of humans affected by climate change and the last generation who can change it,“ Chu said. “If we don't begin changing the cultural and social norms that contribute to climate change, it is our children, families, and futures that will be affected.”
Dorian Burnette, an assistant professor to the earth sciences program, explained that climate is measured over a 30-year period.
“We assess the period from 1951 to present in order to attribute the current global warming trends,” Burnette said. “This is because superimposed on top of the long-term trend are important climate variations and we need a long enough time period to adequately assess ‘signal from noise.’ When we do this, we find that the dominant cause of the warming since 1951 is manmade greenhouse gases.”
There are many claims on the short and long-terms effects of global climate change, but some theories are much more likely than others.
“Arctic sea ice cover is very likely to continue to decline and this combined with ocean warming will lead to sea level rise,” Burnette said. “The frequency of warm days and warm nights is likely to increase, while frequency of cold days and cold nights is likely to decrease. This suggests an increase in the number of heat waves is possible.”
Although there is a chance that hurricanes could be more powerful, the scientific community is uncertain as to what will happen to tornadoes and severe thunderstorms as the climate continues to change.
Although there is a lot of data supporting global warming, there are many people who are still unconvinced that it is a real threat to our planet. Some people claim that Antarctica is not losing ice or warming, that the climate changes with or without human intervention, that average temperatures were higher in the past, and that people are being forced to reduce their lifestyles.
“There is a big ‘go green’ push today, and that is one way for students to get involved,” Burnette said. “What the climate issue really boils down to is an energy issue. Society will have to move away from fossil fuels eventually. I encourage students to get involved in the democratic process. Voice your concerns to your representatives, and vote for those who are interested in finding long-term solutions.”
The U.N. held their Climate Change Summit on September 23, 2014 in New York to discuss bold new plans to reduce the effects of global warming.
