Yelling that the future and their lives depend on ending fossil fuels, tens of thousands of protesters on Sunday kicked off a week where leaders will try once again to curb climate change primarily caused by coal, oil and natural gas.
But protestors say it's not going to be enough. And they aimed their wrath directly at U.S. President Joe Biden, urging him to stop approving new oil and gas projects, phase out current ones and declare a climate emergency with larger executive powers.
“We hold the power of the people, the power you need to win this election,” 17-year-old Emma Buretta of Brooklyn and the youth protest group Fridays for Future said. “If you want to win in 2024, if you do not want the blood of my generation to be on your hands, end fossil fuels.”
The March to End Fossil Fuels featured such politicians as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and actors Susan Sarandon, Ethan Hawke, Edward Norton, Kyra Sedgewick and Kevin Bacon. But the real action on Broadway was where protesters crowded the street, pleading for a better but not-so-hot future. It served as the opening salvo to New York’s Climate Week, where world leaders in business, politics and the arts get together to try to save the planet, highlighted by a new special United Nations summit Wednesday.
But many of the leaders of the countries that cause the most heat-trapping carbon pollution will not be atttending the United Nations gathering or hear the protesters’ plea. And they won’t speak at the summit organized by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a way that only countries that promise new concrete action are invited to speak.
Organizers estimated 75,000 people took part in Sunday's march.
Among them was 8-year-old Athena Wilson from Boca Raton, Florida. She and her mother Maleah, flew from Florida just for Sunday's protest.
“Because we care about our planet,” Athena said. “I really want the Earth to feel better.”
People in the South, especially where the oil industry is, and the global south, “have not felt heard,” said 23-year-old Alexandria Gordon, who is originally from Houston. “It is frustrating.”
Protest organizers emphasized how let down they felt that Biden, who many of them supported in 2020, has overseen increased drilling for oil and fossil fuels.
“President Biden, our lives depend on your actions today,” said Louisiana environmental activist Sharon Lavigne. “If you don't stop fossil fuels our blood is on your hands.”
Nearly one-third of the world’s planned drilling for oil and gas between now and 2050 is by U.S. interests, environmental activists calculate. Over the past 100 years, the United States has put more heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than any other country, though China now emits more carbon pollution on an annual basis.
"You need to phase out fossil fuels to survive our planet,” said Jean Su, a march organizer and energy justice director for the Center for Biological Diversity.
Marchers and speakers spoke of increasing urgency and fear of the future. The actress known as V, formerly Eve Ensler, was scheduled to premiere the anthem “Panic” from her new climate change oriented musical scheduled for next year.
Climate protests have been going on worldwide for several years, but this march seemed to have more of a sense of urgency and frustration, said Anna Fels, a New Yorker who has been protesting and marching since the Vietnam War. And the march, unlike others, was more clearly focused on fossil fuels.
Signs included “Fossil fuels are killing us” and “I want a fossil free future” and “keep it in the ground.”
That's because leaders don't want to acknowledge “the elephant in the room,” said Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate. “The elephant is that fossil fuels are responsible for the crisis. We can’t eat coal. We can’t drink oil, and we can’t have any new fossil fuel investments.”
But oil and gas industry officials said they and their products are vital to the economy.
“We share the urgency of confronting climate change together without delay; yet doing so by eliminating America’s energy options is the wrong approach and would leave American families and businesses beholden to unstable foreign regions for higher cost and far less reliable energy,” said American Petroleum Institute Senior Vice President Megan Bloomgren.
© Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
27 Comments
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bass4funk
Crazy!
wallace
First Amendment.
TokyoCoffeeGuy
“First Amendment.”
Sorry that ends the minute you violate the law and you effect the lives of others by not letting them get to their place of employment on time or blocking emergency service vehicles from responding to calls.
fallaffel
Wow lots of "experts" here who only think it's constitutional to protest for causes they agree with (like 2020 election results).
I don't think these protests accomplish much, but it doesn't make financial sense to build more coal- or oil-fired power plants these days due to the lower cost of renewables. Fossil fuels are on their way out due to economics.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Just a word of advice to the modern day Galileos (thanks Jimizo): you don't know what the carbon characteristics of the local power supply that powers the phones is, nor due you know how much reuse the clothes get. Please continue.
wallace
Americans have the right to assemble and protest just like all the right-wing groups do. Protesting is not against the law.
TokyoCoffeeGuy
“Americans have the right to assemble and protest just like all the right-wing groups do. Protesting is not against the law.”
Thanks for admitting it’s all politically motivated!
Wallace the minute you violate the rights of other with your protest you have broken the law and should be arrested.
wallace
TokyoCoffeeGuy
I admitted nothing
The First Amendment protects your right to assemble and express your views through protest.
So you don't support the First Amendment?
No, you don't. Otherwise, there would have been millions of arrests of protestors across the years.
Just because you don't support the cause of a protest does not make it wrong or illegal.
fallaffel
Have you seen how these scientists live? Not exactly a luxurious lifestyle, many are struggling just to get by. If they just wanted money they'd work in the private sector. My env science professor drove an old beater car in worse shape than mine (when I was a poor student). And you think they're making big bucks from some shady "globalist". Lol.
TokyoCoffeeGuy
“No, you don't. Otherwise, there would have been millions of arrests of protestors across the years”
Millions? Really like I said you can protest all day long but protesters have zero right to violate the rights of others!
wallace
They have First Amendment rights which are 24/7 supersedes any other law when it is a constitutional right.
Mark
If the HEAT waves and climate pandemic of 2023 was not enough to persuade these greedy oil producers and their allies then I don't know what would.
People are dying from heat strokes and yet some are still pushing ahead and producing the very same poison that destroyed mother earth.
TokyoCoffeeGuy
You clearly don’t live in Japan. Yes when people can’t afford their electricity and the Government’s like Japan ask it’s citizens to cut back in using AC. Your right heat related deaths are bound to happen, especially amongst the elderly.
None of that has anything to do with fossil fuels, if we had more fossil fuel usage then more people would live because they could use their AC and the prices would go down.
Keepyer Internetpoints
What so many call progress isn't.
Even Americans are going to have to go back to working with their hands again or its the end of humanity. People need to stop believing new tech is going to save us. It won't. Tech as been the core of the problem from the very start, and each new tech brings as many or more problems than solutions.
The Amish were right all along.
kurisupisu
More energy is needed and new ways of creating it have to be introduced into our societies.
No doubt that there has been a repressive mentality towards this but now fossil fuels are becoming inaccessible and limited.
Time for a worldwide push towards a new energy source
kintsugi
I see there are posters who don't support free speech and the First Amendment nor the right to assemble and protest of course unless they are the right-wing protests.
Jimizo
Politicians need to keep an eye on this. Even young Republicans put climate change high up on their list of important priorities.
Those seeing it as a hoax are starting to look like Betamax users still believing in ‘go woke, go broke’.
gcFd1
Far left wing extremists who support violent protesting need to be harshly treated.
They drum up these conspiracy theories in their overseas basements then prance around destroying public property and interfering with people's lives.
wolfshine
I hope this is the strategy America's left carries into the next election cycle. Environmentalism in its current form is both incredibly phony and unhinged, so I think people see it for what it is.
Keepyer Internetpoints
Say what now? For one, Betamax was a far superior device. My father had one for recording and over-recording his favorite TV shows LONG after other cheap crap VHS systems had died. The general public is dumb as a brick, and buys cheap now to LOSE money in the long run.
Go woke, go broke? That's got nothing to do with climate change. "Woke" began by meaning awareness of obfuscated racism, such as we had and still have with drug laws and penalties that fill American prisons with Black people. It recently changed to include awarness of sexism and LGBT discrimination, although even I have to admit its become much more than that and is now about LGBT and female hegemony.
It would be insane to combine BOTH anti-discrimination/ pro-hegemony agendas with the issue of climate change, and lump them into one box called "woke". Only crazy people are doing that. You may discount the words of crazy people, but keep your eyes on them.
Jimizo
Environmentalism has many forms. For some it is simply recycling and not wasting water. For others it’s what we read about here.
As I mentioned earlier, savvy politicians and number crunchers should keep an eye on views on climate change among the younger generations, particularly on the American right. It even warranted a question from a young Republican in the Republican candidate debate.
The days of Republican debates being about who loves Jesus and firearms the most and hates taxes and science the most have gone.
Keepyer Internetpoints
I wish this were true.
But we have to live with two sad facts 1) its the oldies voting most. 2) the votes of the ordinary person don't count for much. Our respresentatives are always removed from the race by the rich.
And both of those are why the protests are absolutely VITAL. Either we are on the edge of rebellion or we get NOTHING.
virusrex
What conspiracy theories are you talking about? the things they are demonstrating against have been demonstrated without problem.
FizzBit
So basically, tens of thousands of hypocrites…..with smartphones, teevee’s, electric mixers to make their pinacoladas, electric toothbrushes, and on. Like to see them get their fashion tattoos the old way. LOL
TaiwanIsNotChina
Basically "if I imagine them to not be fully committed to the message, it gives me the right to ignore the message", huh?
fallaffel
If you can't refute the message, insult the messengers.
wallace
There were no reports of damage to property. It was a peaceful march, not a Jan 6 riot.