Post by coolplanet on May 31, 2013 11:53:10 GMT -5
www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20130529/NEWS/305290050/Iowan-organizes-cross-country-march-focused-on-climate-change?Frontpage&gcheck=1&nclick_check=1
Iowan Organizes Cross-Country March on Climate Change
By William Petroski | May 29, 2013
A coast-to-coast march intended to spur Americans to address climate change issues will pass through the Midwest, including stops in Des Moines and Iowa City, according to a route to be unveiled today.
The Great March for Climate Action hopes to attract 1,000 participants who will endure eight months of heat, rain, wind and insects while promoting a cause about which many of them are passionate. They will also most likely encounter some global warming skeptics along the way.
The event will begin March 1, 2014, near the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, Calif., and end Nov. 1, 2014, in Washington, D.C., said former Iowa lawmaker Ed Fallon of Des Moines, a longtime liberal activist and the march’s lead organizer.
“Climate change is a crisis,” Fallon said in an interview with The Des Moines Register on Tuesday. “We have to respond to it the way that Americans responded to World War II. This needs to become the defining issue of this century, and we can do it if people rise to the occasion.”
One thing that major marches can accomplish — as demonstrated in the past with movements for woman suffrage, civil rights and peace — is to grab the public’s attention and inspire individual Americans and politicians to focus on an important issue, Fallon said.
Since Fallon began planning the nationwide trek two months ago, the march has been endorsed by Physicians for Social Responsibility and 350.org, an activist group aimed at building a global grass-roots movement to address climate change.
U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, an Iowa Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, is backing the march. So is state Sen. Robert Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, who has authored a book titled “America’s Climate Century.”
Hogg says he agrees with Fallon that the fight against climate change — both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for more extreme weather in the future — must become a new national purpose.
“In the past, you would have an occasional flood. Now we just have one flood after another,” Hogg said Tuesday. “We are seeing a weather system on steroids, and it is going to get worse, not better.”
About 50 people — including a few organic farmers from Pennsylvania, a Native American woman from Seattle and a couple of 70-year-olds from Iowa — have already signed up for the march, even though organizers haven’t begun actively recruiting marchers yet. The route indicates the marchers would enter western Iowa in late June or early July, stopping in Des Moines and Iowa City sometime in July.
Fallon said he’d raised $60,000 so far to help bankroll the effort, and that he’d hired four staffers besides himself for the Des Moines-based march headquarters. He’s still working on the details, but he expects participants to walk 14.3 miles per day and to stop at least once every seven days to rest. Trucks, which organizers hope use little or no fossil fuel, will transport the marchers’ gear and supplies. The participants will be housed in tents and use sleeping bags.
As the marchers pass through communities, they anticipate many local people will join them. Fallon hopes to also showcase sustainable technologies along the way. Some suggested ideas include weatherization of low-income homes, transporting a mobile wind generator and demonstrating urban gardening techniques.
Heather Ryan, 41, of Des Moines, joined the staff of the march two weeks ago as communications director. She worked in the past as a talent manager, but has known Fallon for years and says she feels strongly about politics and issues.
“I think Ed is right on the money when he says this is a crisis. People just don’t quite get it, and I am hoping this will make them more active, “ Ryan said.
Don’t expect to see state Rep. Ralph Watts, an Adel Republican, among the marchers.
Watts, a retired electric utility company executive, said he has been researching global warming issues for the past decade and he doesn’t spend time worrying about the threat.
He chuckles that the marchers — who will be exposed to blistering heat and frigid temperatures during the march — will discover what life would be like for many Americans if they didn’t live in a world that relies heavily on fossil fuels.
“If we had a list of 100 problems that we needed to deal with, climate change would be somewhere around 99 or 100 on the list,” Watts said. He describes climate change activists as “alarmists” and suggests more debate on the matter is needed.
