by Hal Smith
I appreciate a clever bumper sticker, though I don’t really think slogans are very persuasive. I also avoid crowds and virtually never attend rallies. Still, I queued up at 5 a.m. in mid-February with other Sierrans in Binghamton and boarded our chartered bus for a six-hour ride to Washington, D.C., for the largest climate rally in U.S. history (so far).
Why an outdoor rally in the winter? For starters, the fate of the Keystone XL oil-from-tar-sands pipeline may be decided soon. Plus, 2012 presented us with much more than a teachable moment; it was a teachable year, and a glimpse of the Apocalypse. During the hottest year on record, the U.S. was walloped by widespread drought, tornadoes, floods and a nor’easter/hurricane so historically disastrous that it started a bromance between Chris Christie and Barack Obama.
Moreover, Bill McKibben’s recent coast-to-coast speaking tour has begun to bear fruit, especially on college campuses. And many of the rest of us are frustrated, angry, and determined not to permit fewer than 200 bull-headed climate deniers in Congress to stop America from going Forward on Climate. In fact, according to a poll in December by the Associated Press, nearly four out of five Americans think it’s time to deal with climate disruption.
Indeed, “the times are a-changing” when white-haired couch potatoes like me embark on a road trip far beyond our comfort zones. When the Sierra Club suspends its 120-year-old restriction on staff civil disobedience, the times are a-changing. When New York frackivists surprise the oil and gas industry and battle it to a standstill for more than four years, there can be no doubt—the times are a-changing.
Essentially, the plan for the day was to convene a large and enthusiastic crowd on the National Mall for motivational speeches, followed by a march on the White House to pressure—and support—the President.
By the time the bus arrived at the Mall, I had been chatting for hours with Jim, a retired probation officer (that’s “a social worker with leverage,” he explained), who sat next to me. We were no longer strangers and, per instructions from our bus captain, we agreed to keep an eye on each other and make sure we both got back to the bus for an ontime departure. We shared war stories from our checkered careers, including my recollection of researching an article about mules for a farm magazine about 20 years ago.
As I learned from interviewing a farrier, a mule won’t stand out in the rain the way a horse does. On a very cold day, you know where your mules will be—burying themselves among the mares in the warmest spot in the barn.
Jim is a good listener. Shortly after we arrived at the Mall it became bitingly clear this vast open field is not a very hospitable place when it’s 30 degrees and winds are gusting up to 30 mph. “Let’s go up front and bury ourselves among the mares,” he said.
Up to 50,000 people were arrayed around us, including parents with bundled-up children in strollers. Two 80ish women in fur hats chatted behind me; a thin boy about 13 years old in front of me wore a lightweight hoodie and cheap sneakers, squeezing his body together, while standing with his right foot mostly on top of his left.
Rev. Lennox Yearwood, the rally’s MC, announced that some oil and gas agents were known to be in the crowd but that was OK. “Give your neighbor a hug,” he said with a smile. I looked behind me again; a fit 50ish guy, about 6’ 6”, stood alone, taking everything in. I sized him up several times and each time he met my gaze with no expression on his coarse face. He wore a heavy, long overcoat and, unlike virtually everyone else, he held no banner or sign. Meanwhile, a helicopter circled the crowd.
This did not seem terribly sinister to me. When about 50,000 people are poised to march on the White House, I assume that plainclothes police and the Secret Service embed themselves to take the crowd’s temperature. But there was no meanness in the air, which may explain why hardly any police were visible on the Mall or along our route to the White House.
I never considered taking notes on the speeches with numb or gloved fingers, especially since just about every important public event these days appears quickly on the Web. Wilton Vought, a Binghamton videographer on our bus, has posted the highlights at http://othervoicesotherchoices.blogspot.com/2013/02/forward-on-climate.htm.
Photo: Jenna Pope Native Americans were among the speakers who addressed up to 50,000 people at the Forward on Climate rally in Washington, D.C., braving 30-degree temperatures and high winds in mid-February. |
Sierra Club leader Michael Brune was the final speaker. Unlike the first one, writer Bill McKibben, our brilliant 350.org advocate for sanity, Brune didn’t read an eloquent speech. He appeared to have only a few notes, trusting in the cadence and power of plain talk.
But I was most moved by the unexpected: a woman elder representing Native Americans from Oklahoma. No culture in the U.S. is better connected with the Earth, able to speak with greater simplicity. In picture words: Earth, wind, sky, moon, brother, father, blood. She had a commanding presence, speaking slowly as she embraced each hue in the rainbow in front of her. Many tribes, one family.
As the crowd began to flow out of the Mall and onto 17th Street, the sun came out strongly and, with blood returning to our toes, the mood became more festive. Wind power enthusiasts held aloft long, stout pinwheels; costumed polar bears were on the loose; and co-eds showed what the well-turned fashionista wears to the barricades.
“This is not a march on the White House,” I said. “This is a stroll on the White House.”
“I haven’t been here since the big protest against the Vietnam war,” Jim said. “It was a lot different.”
As we approached the White House, I recognized the partially dismantled reviewing stand from which Obama watched his second inaugural parade. The crowd’s chanting grew louder, swelled by finish-line cheering. Jim handed me his iPhone and asked me to take his photo with his original climate slogan (“Why Fry?”) hanging around his neck. I felt a bit self-conscious in front of Barack Obama’s house. The next day, I learned he wasn’t there, but on a golf course playing with oilmen. Perfect.
Nighttime retreat
The return bus trip was exhausting and macabre. At about the halfway mark, an accident on I-81 north stopped all traffic. After about two hours, we learned that a two-car crash, perhaps caused by an isolated snow squall, had ejected a passenger who was then run over by other traffic. The site was being processed as a crime scene.
Tractor trailers were stopped as far as the eye could see, but cars were allowed to turn around and head south on the shoulders to the nearest exit. About an hour later, the bus driver, too, received permission to head south — but only by backing up in the fast lane. For about 3.5 miles. Within inches of a seemingly endless row of semis. In the dark.
Unable to sleep, I watched two well-chosen videos on the bus screens. A documentary, “My Name Is Allegany County,” tells the story of how a politically vulnerable (thinly populated) Upstate community masterfully used civil disobedience against Mario Cuomo’s attempt to saddle Allegany County with a low-level radioactive waste site.
The second video was a record of a recent anti-fracking rally in Binghamton. For me, the only electric moment came when activist professor Sandra Steingraber, still hoarse from speaking earlier in New York City, reminded the crowd of the state’s progressive history. As Obama did in his inaugural address, she mentioned Seneca Falls, where the women’s rights movement was born, and the network of abolitionists who sheltered fugitive slaves en route to freedom in Canada. (Coincidentally, only a few days earlier, I had visited Auburn, where Harriet Tubman lived down the road from William Seward, the most indispensable man in Lincoln’s Cabinet.)
We are New Yorkers, Steingraber said. We have a rich heritage of meeting historic challenges. Now it’s our time to step up.
Tears for breakfast
I arrived home at 4:30 a.m., more than 24 hours from the time I had started from home. After about five hours sleep, I joined my wife at breakfast and began to review my sortie to the Mall. Bill McKibben’s most memorable comment was that we were embarking on “the most fateful battle in human history.”
I started to tell her what Sandra Steingraber said, but choked up.
“Honey, you’re exhausted. You need more sleep.”
“It’s our time to step up,” I said, my eyes glistening.
Later, I learned that McKibben had Tweeted: “Today was one of the best days of my life because I saw the movement come together finally, big and diverse and gorgeous.”
It’s official. We have a movement. It’s time to move. And/or write a check.
At times, we may need to retreat, or be forced to take detours. But it’s time for all of us to get on the bus.
Hal Smith, a freelance writer, is editor of the Sierra Atlantic and a member of the Susquehanna Group.