Climate Change

We have undergone a transformation during the last few decades—what John Ralston Saul calls a corporate coup d’état in slow motion. We are no longer a capitalist democracy endowed with a functioning liberal class that once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible.

The most hopeful, diverse, photogenic, energizing and often hilarious march I've joined in 52 years of activism—and one of the biggest, at 310,000 strong—has delivered a simple messag​e: we can and will rid the planet of fossil fuels and nuclear power, we will do it at the grassroots, it will be demanding and difficult to say the least, but it will have its moments of great fun.

With our lives and planet on the line, our species has responded.

Ostensibly, this march was in part meant to influence policy makers. That just goes with the territory.

An estimated 400,000 people flooded the streets of New York City on Sunday for the historic People's Climate March, billed as the largest demonstration of its kind in history, organized by more than 1,500 organizations including indigenous, faith, labor, environmental justice, social justice, youth, and climate activism groups.

The march was at least four times the size of pre-march estimates, which stood at 100,000.

Just hours after roughly 400,000 packed the streets of New York City for the People's Climate March, a flood of people marched to the city's financial district to target what they say is the root of the climate crisis: capitalism itself.

Demonstrators sporting blue aimed to stage a mass sit-in Monday morning "at the heart of capital"—Wall Street—to call out and demand transformation of "an economic system based on exploiting frontline communities, workers and natural resources."

More than 1,000 Vancouverites filled the CBC Plaza on Sunday, joining hundreds of thousands more around the world as 125 world leaders prepare to converge on New York City Tuesday in an historic UN summit on climate change.

Tens of thousands filled the streets of New York City in what organizers say may be one of the largest climate change rallies ever held in the U.S. (Michael Poland/Twitter)

Rallies are underway or have happened in New York City, London, Berlin, Paris, Rio, Toronto and Seattle. More than 2,000 events were registered in more than 130 countries.

Last year, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern that the world's commitment to mitigate climate change was insufficient. Indeed, in today's Lancet, a Comment by Andy Haines and others provides a stark reminder of the likely adverse effects on human health should fossil fuel consumption and high population growth continue at their present levels. They call for the health community to take a longer term view, where actions that target climate change and health today will reduce the global burden of ill-health in the future.

Carbon dioxide emissions, the main contributor to global warming, are set to rise again in 2014 - reaching a record high of 40 billion tonnes.

The 2.5 per cent projected rise in burning fossil fuels is revealed by the Global Carbon Project, which is co-led in the UK by researchers at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia and the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences at the University of Exeter.

The People’s Climate March on Sunday in New York City and numerous other cities including Vancouver, promises to be the biggest day of protest in the history of the climate movement. Will Canadians turn out?

On September 3rd, I attended the only Canadian stop of the People's Climate Tour at Montreal's Concordia University. Many gathered in the auditorium to witness a skit by climate justice activists, a photographer's powerful images of communities who will be facing the brunt of the Energy East Pipeline, and speeches by anti-racist activist Shaina Agbayani, human rights activist from Kanehsatà:ke Ellen Gabriel, and founder of 350.org Bill McKibben.

Viking I landed on Mars, the Ramones released their first album, the Soweto Uprising began in South Africa, North and South Vietnam reunified to become the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and Gerald Ford was in the White House. 1976: The same year scientists discovered that refrigerant chemicals, chlorofluorocarbons, better known as CFCs, were responsible for creating a hole in the ozone layer was also the last time when global average temperatures were below the 20th century norm.