After eight months and over 3,000 miles, people marching under the banner of the Great March for Climate Action strode into Washington D.C. on Saturday declaring that they’ve seen firsthand how climate change is affecting people from coast to coast and their message is this: Americans want climate action now.
Though they were joined along the way by local residents and others supporting the cause, 34 people had completed the entire journey from the Port of Wilmington in Los Angeles to Lafayette Park in Washington D.C.. The core group walked 15-25 miles a day, 8 to 10 hours each day, allowing themselves to rest one day a week. Hundreds are expected to join the marchers at a rally outside the White House where they will recount their experience.
“I came to the March knowing a bit about climate change, but was really excited to learn the specifics about what’s going on everywhere regarding food, water and air,” one marcher, 22-year-old Emerson graduate named Sean, told Rabble.ca writer Cheryl McNamara. “And everywhere we go people talk about these things.”
A livestream of the D.C. rally is available on UStream while others are sharing images and quotes on Twitter.
#climatemarch Tweets
McNamara, who joined the marchers for some time, wrote that the group “had walked through severe drought in the southwestern United States, cutting up to the American heartland through industrial wastelands in Nebraska and Illinois.” From there they traveled through Ohio and through heavily-fracked regions of the Pennsylvania mountains before reaching their final destination, Washington D.C.
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