On Sept. 21 a group of Islanders will travel to New York city to take part in the historic People’s Climate March covering an estimated 26 blocks beginning at Columbus Circle and ending facing the United Nations, where global leaders will begin a weeklong summit on global climate issues. Inspired by their involvement locally with the national organization 350.org, these Islanders have involved themselves here on Martha’s Vineyard through education and activism to increase public awareness of this critical concern for all life on our planet.

Islanders Zee and Bill Gamson, Chris Riger, Sarah, Bruce, Aria and Katrina Nevin, Nicola Blake and Cathy Brennan will be there. Perhaps the most impressive and intrepid group of marchers is the 18 volunteer students from the charter school led by their teachers Jonah Maidoff, Lewis Hall and Jane Paquet. Although they are traveling independent of the charter school, they were brought to this activism by their teachers’ classes on environmental issues. Surely others will rise to the occasion and get themselves down to New York city to join what promises to be a large and significant demonstration, demanding global action to stop the climate changes caused by the oil, nuclear, gas and coal industries polluting the planet. The Island students and their teachers will travel there on one of the buses hired by Cape Downwinders, a group devoted to closing down Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant, which has organized round-trip buses traveling to the march leaving from Harwich, Barnstable, and Sagamore. For more information, call Diane Turco at 508-431-1744 or email her at tturco@comcast.net.

The march itself will include an unprecedented collaboration of over 1,000 businesses, unions, faith groups, schools, social justice groups, environmental groups and more, all working together. UN Secretary­ General Ban Ki-­moon is urging governments to support an ambitious global agreement to dramatically reduce global warming pollution. Already the global level of carbon dioxide is currently over 400 parts per million, though 350 parts per million is the maximum level before climate change becomes inevitable. To reverse this carbon dioxide level the renewable energy sources of solar and wind energy must replace the dirty fuels destroying our planet. With our future on the line and the whole world watching, marchers will take a stand to bend the course of history.

The People’s Climate March is a piece of that change. For more information go to peoplesclimate.org.

Sarah Nevin
Edgartown