Believe It Or Not

Screams and loud chants burst across the masses as I struggle not to lose the few people who I know. Overhead, the constant circling of helicopters causes everyone to feel uneasy. Someone begins to scream on a megaphone. The police try their best to keep people in line, but there’s simply too many to watch. A lady to my right bursts into tears as we march along in “lines” of varying degrees of organization. Believe it or not, this is not a war zone. This is the People’s Climate March.

On the morning of September 21, Caroline Hargrave, Ciara Fagan, Carrie Klein, and I loaded onto the train that would take us to what was rumored to be the largest Climate Change march in history. An estimated 200,000 people were to attend, although later the official numbers seemed to show that the actual amount was double that. I was excited and a little nervous. I had wanted to go to this march since it was featured in The Rolling Stone magazine several months ago, but now that I was on my way, I realized what it was that I was doing. The situation, I thought, could be dangerous. What if somebody got out of hand and the police started shooting? The fact of the matter was that this march needed to happen.  The UN was holding a large-scale conference where it was stated that certain crucial plans, such as plans to cut carbon emissions, would be discussed during the next week. It was the perfect opportunity to show the leaders of the world what their people supported. Many citizens were becoming aware of the alarming rate our environment is changing at and had decided to get out there and make their voices heard. We were on our way to join them.

The subways are more crowded than I’ve ever seen them, even worse than those times around the holidays. Ciara and I grab a spot in the endless line to buy metro passes. We haven’t been waiting long, however, before the New Jersey marching group sees our signs and us and generously offers a few of their passes for free. After several thanks, we head through the rotating gates and onto the platform to wait for our subway. There are so many people that the platform is completely filled up to the wall. A few well-meaning marchers try to yell directions out to everyone but the din of confusion mostly drowns them out. When the train shows up, the true chaos begins. Everybody smashes against each other in a frenzied effort to squeeze a few more bodies onto already packed train cars. There are so many people it is almost getting hard to breathe. Finally, we reach our destination. Everyone streams out of the open doors and race towards the exit. Immediately, we are thrust into the March.

I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this. There are so many people. It’s unbelievable. Some carry props, others signs.  Brightly colored banners stretch across the street-wide mass. There’s a man with a cardboard owl on his head. A group of people wearing light blue shirts move around a giant ice cream cone with earth as the ice cream scoop.  We get handed extra signs pins and buttons left and right from smiling activists. There’s so much to look at, so much to process that I realize I haven’t even spoken since we got out of the subway. Somehow, dazzled, we integrate into the masses, and the march begins.

Against all the distractions I happen to notice the sky is overcast, and I wonder if it’s going to rain. The skies never did open up, which I’m not sure whether it would have helped or hindered our cause at that point. Perhaps it would have been good to acknowledge the destructive power of water on people, as I’m sure our protest would have melted into a soggy pile of painted cardboard signs and bedraggled protestors. Whatever inconvenience the rain would have caused would be nothing compared to if the same streets we are walking on were underwater, a fate the majority of us there were fighting to change. Water levels increase by 0.14 inches per year due to global warming and other environmental crises, putting coastal states and cities such as New York City at huge risk for being flooded out. If we could get the attention of the UN, we hoped, they could perhaps make decisions that would mitigate this threat.

The march crawls on at a snail’s pace, at first. We stand for 5 minutes and then move a few feet. Then we are stuck again. But nobody seems to mind the delay. They begin chants to keep themselves occupied. One person will call out “SHOW ME WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!” and those surrounding will reply with “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!” The energy is electric. Some wild haired guy to my right begins to sing a loud, slightly off-key ballad of “we shall overcome,” which seems to be the quintessential protest song.  People around him chuckle good-naturedly at his boisterous attitude before beginning to sing along. I realize that people like this man, people with a crazy, infectious kind of charisma, are absolutely vital to the success of a movement. They are the ones that can rise above the din and have their voices heard and understood by most people, including ones not familiar to a cause. It’s not the angry, bitter lady screaming incoherent noise through a speakerphone. It’s not the people who belittle someone on the street for putting a soda can in the trash. It’s activists like this guy, full of life and passion for what they do, and not afraid to make a scene of themselves in the process, that can lead the rest of us into the light of the public.

It’s all very much a sensory overload. Back home, I expected a dim, grim, angry crowd, but the opposite was here. People are bright and happy and passionate.  They sing loudly, some even play instruments. The spectacle of the thing draws people to the streets to watch, as if we’re in a parade. Although people do feel very strongly about what they’re here for, anger isn’t a primary emotion. Although I still get nervous when they begin a “group scream,” nothing violent seems to be happening around me. I was almost expecting something to break out. The march itself is well planned. Police try to direct traffic around the river of activists, while the march’s “peacekeepers”, well, keep the peace. It’ s a sort of organized chaos that works to draw only positive attention to the march.

Parts of the march seem straight out of the movies. There’s a moment where a small child peeks out his apartment window near 70^th street to see the flood of climate marchers. Confused, he waves at us, and once everyone has noticed him we all wave back and cheer loudly. His sister also appears at the window and waves and cheers are exchanged for a while before we finally move again.  One can only hope that his generation will some day lead their own march through the streets for the good of the world. Younger people are abundant at the march. I see babies all the way up to high school seniors, like us. Student marching groups are frequent throughout the crowd.  There are groups from high schools, colleges, and also groups for unorganized “students” of all kinds. I’m struck with the realization that we are the people that will have the most control over what happens to the ground under our feet in the coming decades. Around me are students with the potential to make real change in the world. The older marchers are, of course, essential, but those of our generation will soon be the ones becoming leaders, in business, government, community, or otherwise. We will be the ones who make the decisions.

Ladies in orange shirts hand out signs that I see for the rest of the day.  The signs say, in bold white print, “I’M MARCHING FOR:” with a large blank space to write whatever you’re here for. I notice that, although we’re all here trying to get something done, everyone seems to have a different something in mind. I take a look around. “I’M MARCHING FOR:”

“Clean air.”

“No more fracking!!”

“My grandkids”

“Animal Rights”

“Love <3”

“Legalization”

“Penguins”

“My future.”

Those signs show exactly what this march is about. People of all different backgrounds and interests coming together to make some noise for whatever they wrote on the sign. It wasn’t just a climate march. It was a people’s climate march. Even if some of the things on the signs seemingly had little to do with the environment, the reality was that if you looked deeper, everything did connect back in some way to each other. We all have a common goal, but that goal is very broad. Perhaps the march should be thought of as an effort to acknowledge every sort of climate change, whether social, political, or environmental.

At one point during the march, everyone goes absolutely silent. 400,000 people, dead silent, walking through the glittering, glowing Times Square.  It is the quietest I have ever seen a New York street. Onlookers are confused. I’m also confused. What’s going on? Then, from far, far behind, there grows a steady, subtle roar, making its way closer and closer until all around be bursts into cacophony, all 400,000 people screaming as loud as possible at one time. I swear I feel the vibrations of sound make the ground shake. It’s unbelievable.  More cheering continues afterwards, everybody knowing that that was something that can’t happen everyday. The strangeness of it all was how quickly it took to organize, only a matter of seconds until everybody had gotten the cue to be silent. The message seems clear. It’s a demonstration of the ability of people to cooperate with one another for the greater good. The whole world, I think to myself, needs to hear that scream.

It ends after 4 hours, the horde dissipating into a crowd in front of the Javits center. Some people still sing songs or chant loudly, but the general atmosphere seems to indicate that it’s finished. Half- broken signs, battered in the chaos, pile up near the garbage bins. Now it’s a question of what is to come. I go home that night confused, and I don’t feel like talking much. Did what I do really do anything, or was it a waste of everyone’s time? In the coming days, it is apparent that although strategies were discussed at the UN meeting, nothing immediate or finite was put into action. I feel like this is what happens often in our country, and perhaps others. Politics override true change, and nothing gets done. However, we have been seen and heard, and that is significant. “Our citizens keep marching,” President Barack Obama acknowledges. “We cannot pretend we don’t hear them. We have to answer the call.”  And this, I know, is progress.  If the President has heard us, then so has the rest of the country. We are the ones who will be leading the world of tomorrow. We have the ability to make the changes we wish to see in the world, if we care enough to do so. All of us hold the incredible power of technology and limitless access to information at our disposal to use in the fight against environmental collapse. It’s a fight that’s long and hard, and the roadblocks of politics are plentiful. It’s a fight that affects and connects every single person on earth.  If our generation recognizes the changes need to be made and how bright the future could be, we can, quite literally, save the world.

It’s time to start making some signs, MHS.