Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Step It Up Rallies Draw Crowds Nationwide

UPDATE: More pictures from photographer Elvert Barnes

Thanks to the thousands of people who came out to over 1,400 Step It Up climate change rallies nationwide on Saturday!

The Green Miles was invited to speak at Arlington's "Creating a Climate of Change" event. I had a few "models" help me display unfashionable items (like incandescent bulbs) and their more cutting-edge counterparts (like compact fluorescents).

The day's damp, chilly weather brought to mind a recent Newsweek article on the language of the climate change debate. The term "global warming" doesn't have as much impact when it's in the 40s in April, but "climate crisis" is accurate year-round.

Lowell and Eric have much more on the event at Raising Kaine. You can see a couple of other photos of the Arlington event, plus pictures and recaps of events nationwide, at the Step It Up website.

Not much coverage of the rallies in the mainstream media, just a handful of paragraphs in Sunday's Washington Post. But then again, if the media covered all the stories we wanted it to, you wouldn't need to read blogs like this, would you?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha awww look at you! Good job! :)

Anonymous said...

The pictures from the rallies looked great but the organization really needs to identify a member(s) of Congress who will draft or introduce this legislation and really champion it on the Hill. Just like evangelical christians put pressure on their members of Congress, this is an issue that needs the same type of action. Once legislation is out there, all these ralliers (not really a word) can start getting their elected officials to join as cosponsors and get them to commit to voting for it. Rallies are cute, but legislation and political pressure is going to drive the issue further. And if an elected official won't support the legislation - remind them of election day '08.

Elvert Barnes said...

Mike,

Thanks for reminding me to insert a link to your blog and your organization. I was trying to figure out if you appear in any of my photos but your profile image is too small for me to get a good look to determine if you appear in any of my flickr photos.

If you do appear in any of the flikr photos let me know which one and I'll tag it with your name as well as any others that you appear in.

Elvert
elvertbarnes@yahoo.com