Wrapping up Earth Week, approximately 600 scientists and climate activists joined the March for Science, which started at Central Park West and 72nd Street and ended at Bryant Park on Apr. 23, 2022.
With the march, climate activists and scientists demanded swifter and stronger actions from governments worldwide to cut greenhouse gas emissions and called for an end to the expansion and future construction of fossil fuel infrastructure before time runs out.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the next few years are critical to prevent a complete collapse of the climate. In its latest report, the IPCC predicts that immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors need to happen within the next three years. Otherwise, limiting global warming to 1.5°C is beyond reach.
Climate emergency is already creating more extreme weather events like heatwaves, droughts, flooding, winter storms, hurricanes, and wildfires. And those events will get substantially worse if global warming exceeds 1.5°C.
Extinction Rebellion NYC (XR NYC), which had partnered with March for Science, marked the last day of its Spring Rebellion by blocking traffic on 6th Avenue and 42nd Street after the march while holding banners, signs, and calling for climate justice. Two activists climbed on top of the 42nd Street Bryant Park subway entrance and unfurled a banner “We’re in a Climate F*cking Crisis.”
XR’s Spring Rebellion, a ten-day series of acts of civil disobedience, included blocking the roads in and out of the New York Times printing plant in College Point, Queens, on Apr. 22, which is also used as a distribution site by the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Activists called on the New York Times to stop accepting advertising dollars from fossil fuel companies. They also took aim at the Wall Street Journal, which has published a series of opinion pieces backed by the fossil fuel industry, and USA Today for its underreporting of the climate crisis.
Bjorn Long, who only recently joined XR NYC, shared that he had always been concerned about the decline of the climate. This year was his first XR spring action, which calls on governments, the media, and the financial sector to take immediate steps to address the climate crisis.
“There are hundreds of species that are dying every day because of human action and the environment,” Long said. “Finding that out really upset me and made me very distraught. And it was kind of one of the things that finally pushed me to actually go out and participate.”
32-year-old Michael Broffe became part of XR over a year ago and was one of the activists to engage in an arrestable action of civil disobedience because “there was no other way.”
“We can march, we can send letters to the government. We can send letters to the media, we can send letters to the financial institution, but it like there’s so much at stake,” Broffe said. “If we don’t raise hell and stop like business as usual, nothing’s going to get done. We just need to push hard enough and long enough, and that’s how real change happens.”
Yana Landowne became an activist with XR NYC in 2019 because she wanted to join fellow activists who believed in social justice and saving the environment.
“To be in a community with a wide variety of ages of people life experience, people who really believe deeply that we need to act now for climate change, that is very important,” Landowne said.
Landowne was among 22 rebels who staged a peaceful sit-in on 6th Avenue and 42nd Street and who were placed under arrest by the NYPD for disorderly conduct.
Greg Schwedock has been with XR NYC since 2018 and said that “business as usual can no longer occur.” He pointed out that climate emergency will lead to wars, the rise of fascism, climate refugees, and a rise in diseases.
“This is the tip of the iceberg, you know?” Schwedock said. “We’re talking about the collapse of civilization here as we know it.”
Photo gallery:
