People's Climate March: Why we are marching

ON THE 100th Day of the Trump Administration, tens of thousands of people will be in the streets of Washington D.C. to show the world and our leaders that we will resist attacks on our people, our communities and our planet.

Organizers announced the People's Climant March will ‘literally’ surround the White House as it winds its way through the streets to the Washington Monument in Washington, DC on Saturday, April 29th

Tens of thousands are expected to converge on Washington, DC from virtually every state in the country. In addition, more than 250 sister marches are also planned across the country and around the world.

“At 2 p.m. on April 29th, tens of thousands of people will encircle the White House in Washington D.C. to directly confront Donald Trump and challenge those who are pursuing a right-wing agenda that destroys our environment while favoring corporations and the 1 percent over workers and communities,” said Paul Getsos, National Coordinator for the Peoples Climate Movement.

“This administration continues waging attacks on immigrants, Muslims, people of color and LGBTQI people everyday. This moment will be the highlight of a day that will begin with a march leading from the Capital to Washington Monument.”

"We will come together from across the United States to strengthen our movement. We will demonstrate our power and resistance at the gates of the White House. We will bring our solutions to the climate crisis, the problems that affect our communities and the threats to peace to our leaders in Congress to demand action", say the organizers in a press release.

Among the goals of the marchers: 

• Advance solutions to the climate crisis rooted in racial, social and economic justice, and committed to protecting front-line communities and workers. 
• Protect our right to clean air, water, land, healthy communities and a world at peace. 
• Immediately stop attacks on immigrants, communities of color, indigenous and tribal people and lands and workers. 
• Ensure public funds and investments create good paying jobs that provide a family-sustaining wage and benefits and preserve workers’ rights, including the right to unionize. 
• Fund investments in our communities, people and environment to transition to a new clean and renewable energy economy that works for all, not an economy that feeds the machinery of war. 
• Protect our basic rights to a free press, protest and free speech. 

The Peoples Climate March will near begin the Capitol, travel up Pennsylvania Avenue, and then surround the entire White House Grounds from 15th Street in the East to 17th Street in the West, and Pennsylvania Avenue in the North to Constitution Avenue in the South. The march will close with a post march rally, concert and gathering at the Washington Monument.

Trump has vowed to undo the progress this country has already made in cutting the pollution that contributes to climate change. In just his first few months, he has take executive action to reverse measures that would cut pollution from cars and power plants. And he has threatened to withdraw from the international Paris Agreement on climate change, sending precisely the wrong signal to the rest of the world—that saving our planet from devastation is somehow optional.

Trump has also made no secret of his wish to roll back or outright eliminate many of the federal protections that are crucial to ensuring public health. After appointing a vocal climate change denier and friend of the fossil fuel industry to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the president proposed gutting that agency's budget by nearly one third: a one-two punch cynically designed to lessen the EPA's ability to do its job of enforcing our existing environmental laws.
"Trump may be ready to throw in the towel in the fight for our children’s future, but the rest of us are not. And we won’t let him do it," said Rhea Suh, president of the National Resources Defense Council in an article in Self. "On Saturday, we're going to Washington to let our voices be heard. There's absolutely no way that we'll fail to get the president's attention."

• For more details about the march in Washington DC, click here.
• To find the sister marches across the country and the world, click here.