{"id":532611,"date":"2010-04-18T18:54:25","date_gmt":"2010-04-18T22:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/climateprogress.org\/?p=23177"},"modified":"2010-04-18T18:54:25","modified_gmt":"2010-04-18T22:54:25","slug":"denis-hayes-explains-why-you-should-come-to-the-%e2%80%9clargest-climate-rally-ever%e2%80%9d-on-the-dc-mall-april-25-come-hear-everyone-from-james-hansen-to-james-cameron-from-sting-to-me-lets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/532611","title":{"rendered":"Denis Hayes explains why you should come to the \u201clargest climate rally ever\u201d on the DC Mall April 25 – Come hear everyone from James Hansen to James Cameron, from Sting to me. Let’s show the Tea Partiers what a real crowd looks like."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Earth Day Network is organizing a huge event on the Mall in Washington DC on April 25. The goal is to demand tough, effective climate legislation and a swift transition away from 19th century energy sources.<\/p>\n

“So what?” you may be asking yourself. There have been a lot of climate rallies over the last 25 years and Congress still hasn’t managed to pass a law. Why should I come to this one?<\/p>\n

Let me count the ways….<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Our guest blogger today is the legendary Denis Hayes<\/a>, national coordinator for the first Earth Day in 1970.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Hayes was director of the federal Solar Energy Research Institute (1979 to 1981) and is now president of the Bullitt Foundation and international chair of Earth Day 2010.<\/p>\n

You can get all the information you want about the Sunday rally — as well as other actions you can take — by clicking on the Earth Day Network website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In general, I haven’t been someone who pushes rallies.\u00a0 But the Tea Partiers have gotten an absurd amount of media attention for relatively tiny rallies.\u00a0 Back in September, they claimed they had a million attendees<\/a> at a DC rally that in fact had perhaps 60,000 to 70,000<\/a>.\u00a0 Remember that overhyped Tea Party rally in DC last week where they ludicrously asked The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to speak (see “Irony-gate 2: Modern day Tea Partiers outsource denial to Lord Monckton \u2014 a British peer!<\/a>“)?\u00a0 The speakers claimed they had 25,000 attendees, but even the Wall Street Journal<\/em> reported<\/a>, “we estimate that the number was less than half of that, at best.”<\/p>\n

This Sunday, let’s leave those numbers in the dust.\u00a0 Here’s Hayes on all the reasons that you should come:<\/p>\n

\n

Size<\/strong><\/p>\n

Past climate rallies have generally run from a few dozen people to a couple thousand. On Sunday, April 25, energy and climate activists from New England to the Carolinas will gather together to find new friends and allies at largest climate rally ever. We are coming together to move beyond education; to demand change; and to make it clear there will be political consequences of Congress doesn\u2019t act.<\/p>\n

Inspiration and Direction.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You will hear from:
\nClimate scientists<\/em> like James Hansen, and Stephen Schneider.
\nEPA chief<\/em> (and heroine!) Lisa Jackson & CEQ Chair Nancy Sutley
\nCultural leaders<\/em> like James Cameron (Avatar; Titanic) and Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid\u2019s Tale; The Blind Assassin)
\nTop business executives<\/em> from Siemens, Phillips, UL, Future Friendly & SunEdison
\nTop labor leaders<\/em>, including the President of the AFL-CIO and Secretary of the SEIU.
\nProgressive activists<\/em>, including Jesse Jackson, Lydia Camarillo, & Hilary Shelton
\nClimate policy gurus<\/em> like Joe Romm, Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, & Rafael Fantauzzi
\nSpiritual leaders<\/em>, including Rev. Theresa Thames, Rev. Richard Cizik, & Rabbi Warren Stone
\nAthletes<\/em> like Dhani Jones, Aaron Peirsol, & Billy Demong
\nEnvironmentalists<\/em> like Bobby Kennedy & Phillipe Cousteau<\/p>\n

Entertainment<\/strong><\/p>\n

In between the speakers we will hear from some of the most committed artists in the nation, including Sting, John Legend, The Roots, Willie Colon, Passion Pit, Bob Weir, Jimmy Cliff, Joss Stone, Booker T, The Honor Society, Mavis Staples…<\/p>\n

Intensity<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1970, I told huge Earth Day crowds in Washington, DC, Chicago, and New York: \u201cWe won\u2019t appeal anymore to the conscience of institutions because institutions have no conscience. If we want them to do what is right, we must make them do what is right. We will use proxy fights, lawsuits, demonstration, research, boycotts, and\u2014above all\u2014ballots…. If we let this become just a fad, it will be our last fad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earth Day organizers created a Dirty Dozen campaign that made “the environment” a voting issue in the 1970 elections. One of the seven Congressmen we defeated that fall was George Fallon, chairman of the House Public Works Committee: the \u201cpork\u201d committee. THAT got their attention. If Chairman Fallon was vulnerable, everyone in politics was vulnerable.<\/p>\n

Over the next three years, despite fierce opposition from the most powerful vested interests in the land, Congress passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and a half-dozen other far-reaching laws that have utterly transformed the way America does business.<\/p>\n

Now we must do it again.<\/p>\n

What Is The Goal?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Humanity must swiftly abandon dirty energy sources and switch to safe, clean, decentralized, renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and geothermal. The world, led by America, must abandon the appallingly inefficient way it uses energy and swiftly embrace the most efficient new housing, transport, and industrial processes that exist. We Americans must slash our politically risky and economically catastrophic dependence on the oil wealth of nations that don\u2019t like us very much.<\/p>\n

A necessary\u2014though not sufficient\u2014common denominator is to establish a price on carbon that reflects the costs of climate disruption, blowing the tops off mountains, and acidifying the world\u2019s oceans. <\/em>We must place a firm cap with no loopholes on the amount of carbon fuels we consume each year and ratchet that cap down at a prescribed rate every year in the future until we hit something very close to zero.<\/p>\n

Only a federal law can accomplish this goal.<\/p>\n

If this were easy, we would have begun a quarter century ago. The junk science, climate-denying interest groups are rich, powerful, and ruthless. But sooner or later they will lose.<\/p>\n

Sooner is better<\/p>\n

They will lose for the same reason that IBM and Control Data lost to Microsoft, Apple and Dell. They will lose for the same reason that Ma Bell\u2014the most powerful monopoly in the world\u2014lost to cellular upstarts and Internet-telephony. They lost because their thinking was anchored in the past instead of envisioning the future<\/p>\n

The junk science, climate-disruption-denying interest groups will lose because 19th century answers won\u2019t solve 21st century problems.<\/em><\/p>\n

Come to the Mall<\/strong><\/p>\n

At some point, this climate-disrupting madness has to start to stop. Come to the Mall between the Capitol Building and the White House on Sunday, April 25. Bring your spouse, your parents, your kids, your neighbors, your friends, your co-workers, your congregation, your bowling league. Vote with your bodies on April 25th at the largest climate rally ever.<\/p>\n

And put our political leaders on notice that you will vote with your ballot a few months later!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Come to the mall.\u00a0 Let’s show the Tea Partiers and the media and the general public what a real crowd looks like.\u00a0 And I promise I won’t give a policy wonk speech!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earth Day Network is organizing a huge event on the Mall in Washington DC on April 25. The goal is to demand tough, effective climate legislation and a swift transition away from 19th century energy sources. “So what?” you may be asking yourself. There have been a lot of climate rallies over the last 25 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":687,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}