All around the country people did something astounding on Sunday (21 September 2014). People came together and did what passionate protesters do best: they marched. Civil rights activists marched on Washington DC, Gandhi marched 270 miles to protest British taxes in India, but what happened around the country this past weekend is different. Over 400,000 people got together and marched to show, once and for all, that people do care about climate change. Why, though, decades of mounting evidence that climate change exists do people still need to be marching about it? Is it really conceivable that there are enough people left unconvinced that our planet is in trouble? Do people realize the gravity of this situation right now?! Apparently not.
There is a guy by the name of James Lawrence Powell who has, in the past, compiled some interesting facts and figures. Right now on the homepage of his website, www.jamespowell.org, he cites that of the 10,885 peer-reviewed articles published on climate change, only 2 deny that it exists. His graphs have shown up on UpWorthy and many other places around the internet, and been kindling for the fire that is the climate change revolution. These numbers are astonishing, and even if you don’t agree with any of his other work, JL Powell makes an interesting point about denying climate change. It really isn’t a practical scientific stance anymore, just like the thought that Earth is the center of the universe, or that you can actually break your mother’s back by stepping on a crack in the sidewalk. If someone legitimately believed either of those two things we would call them insane.
Let’s, for a moment, look at our biggest source of climate change denial, shall we? Where could I find a huge number of people willing to openly deny that humans are causing climate change, most likely for their own personal gain? Let’s try the United States Congress, shall we?
People who know me know that I have one major pet peeve: I hate the idea that a corruption-ridden government has any say over scientific issues that face the planet. I don’t want to get political here, but indulge me for a moment. An article on ThinkProgress seems to sum things up nicely.
- 90 percent of the Republican leadership in both House and Senate deny climate change
- 17 out of 22 Republican members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, or 77 percent, are climate deniers
- 22 out of 30 Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, or 73 percent deny the reality of climate change
- 100 percent of Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Republicans have said climate change is not happening or that humans do not cause it
Of course, that says nothing of the Democratic Party which must have some right? Well how about a convenient list of all the Congressmen and Congresswomen who have spoken out against climate change or claimed that it is not caused by humans. You can see that list here!
Clearly we have some problems. There shouldn’t be a list of lawmakers and top officials in our government that deny scientific fact but maybe that is just my opinion. Either way I don’t want to make this article about politics. This is about the 400,000 people in New York alone who marched for climate awareness on Sunday, so let’s get back to them, shall we?
Organized by People’s Climate, who’s website is HERE this march took place all over the country, but most notably in New York City where the largest of the rallies took place. It was a huge event, there was even a guy in a polar bear suit who got arrested, which brings this thing to a whole new level of awesome. At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t matter how many guys in polar bear suits you have, it matters what impact you made on the world, and this didn’t go unnoticed. The reverberations from this huge march are going to be echoing for a few weeks at least, and that means that the organizers got exactly what they wanted out of this event: global recognition that we need to talk about this.
We are at a point in time where we can’t afford to stand around and mull this over anymore. We have reached a moment in history where we either need to do something, or just go ahead and throw in the towel. Here is what is predicted to happen if we just go ahead and continue with our daily lives like there is nothing wrong. All that red means that most areas of the planet would be well above 4 degrees over the average, which is a huge problem.
Well, unfortunately few people are willing to declare themselves “the voice of science and reason” but what we do have are a huge number of educated people working in the fields of Environmental Studies, Ecology, and Climatology that we can go ahead and lean on their years of research to prove one very central point: we have a problem on this planet, and if we don’t do something soon we won’t have a place to live anymore. I really don’t know how I can make this more clear. This is a relatively straightforward concept that apparently escapes almost half of the general public.
