An estimated 200,000-plus citizen (and non-citizen) activists descended on Washington, D.C., for the People's Climate March on April 29 -- President Trump’s 100th day in office -- while tens of thousands more in cities around the world rose in resistance and solidarity to remind America’s national leaders that action on anthropogenic climate change will define political power now and in the future. Never before in the Sierra Club’s 125-year history has our mission to explore, enjoy, and fight to protect and defend our planet been so clear. We marched to resist the Trump administration's assault on American values and to stand up for clean air, clean water, family-supporting jobs, protecting all of our communities, and investing in our future.
Aaron Mair with Indigenous Environmental Network executive director Tom Goldtooth, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, and filmmaker/environmentalist Darren Aronofsky.
John Muir used the simple organizing and mobilizing tool of a humble outing to inspire President Theodore Roosevelt to protect a national treasure -- Yosemite -- and commemorate it as a national park. This tried-and-true tool proved effective when we had a functioning democracy and a national government that respected science. Today we have a congress and White House that are seeking to dismantle (or as they put it, “deconstruct”) not only government, but also long-standing laws like the Antiquities Act of 1906, which gives presidents the power designate national monuments on federal lands in order to protect natural, cultural, or scientific features. Now we must march and work in concert with other environmental and justice-focused groups to build a movement to resist this governing threat to environmental protection.
Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir at Glacier Point, overlooking Yosemite Valley. Photo courtesy of the Sierra Club.
President Obama used the Antiquities Act to not only preserve wilderness acreage, but also to heal our country’s cultural disconnect over how Native Americans, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and the labor, faith, justice, and LGBTQ communities all have sacred symbols, places, and spaces that need to be preserved for the enrichment of the common good for generations to come. The current attempt by the Trump administration to dismantle the newly designated Bears Ears National Monument represents more than the threat of losing wilderness and open space; it represents the perpetuation of a longstanding assault on Native American sacred space.
Bears Ears National Monument. Photo courtesy of the Bureau of Land Management.
The designation of Bears Ears as a national monument is a shining example of how far our nation and the environmental movement have come in building national awareness of errors committed in the past in the name of conservation, but which all too often came at the expense of the deep cultural connection Native Americans have with the land. President Obama recognized this, and used the Antiquities Act not only to protect North American landscapes, but to help heal historic wrongs and atone for past errors (however well-intentioned).
Barack Obama and Aaron Mair in Yosemite in 2016, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service.
Why, then, would the Trump administration attempt to reverse this 111-year-old covenant to protect America’s environmental heritage? Simple! It is the corporate campaign-finance influence of the oil, coal, gas, uranium, and mineral extraction industries that seek dismantle our environmental, public health, natural resource, and labor laws for the sake of their shareholders.
Mair with (left to right) U.S. Representative Nydia Velázquez of New York, Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington (at mic), and Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
The People’s Climate March was about community stakeholders standing up to the polluting interests of dirty-energy shareholders. In the past, our movements did not see, fully comprehend, or factor in the connection of the human condition at all levels environmental protection. We do now. From the threat of defiling Bears Ears by re-opening its sacred sites to natural resource extraction to the burning of gas and coal that is killing our climate, we are collaborating with a groundbreaking coalition of environmental justice groups, labor allies and the frontline communities that are most vulnerable to the climate crisis and Donald Trump’s pro-polluter policies.
The People's Climate March on Pennsylvania Avenue, marching toward the White House. The tall gray tower in the distance is the Old Post Office, completed in 1899 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, then leased to Donald Trump in 2013 and converted to the Trump International Hotel in 2016. Miles of marchers chanted, "Shame! Shame!" and shook their fists or jabbed their index fingers toward the building as they passed by.
While Trump and his minions attempt to dismantle the progress we’ve made, the world is moving away from dirty fuels and toward clean, renewable energy, a healthier earth, and a booming clean energy job market. But President Trump and his allies in Congress have purposefully turned a blind eye, and in the administration’s first 100 days they have demonstrated that they pose a very real and serious threat to our public health, environment, worker’s safety, and public health. It is clear that for this administration, profits come before people.
This is precisely why the Sierra Club joined on April 29 with frontline communities, justice-focused collectives, and environmental justice, labor, civil rights, faith-based, indigenous, and youth groups in taking to the streets in Washington, D.C., and beyond, to march for climate, jobs, and justice. Now is a time when we as Sierrans must choose sides in order to save our planet and our democracy. Do we march for justice, science, and to defend hard-won legal protections for humanity and the environment, or do we side with the dirty-energy-influenced Congress and Trump administration to "deconstruct" our democratic institutions? The choice could scarcely be clearer. Join us!
Aaron Mair and Bill McKibben
All photos by Javier Sierra except where noted.