Hundreds Join Global Climate Strike Rally

September 29, 2019, 11:00 am 8.5k Views 63 Comments

By Robert Bernstein

Greta Thunberg has awakened a Climate Crisis movement in the past year in a way that may finally lead to real action. This 16-year-old Swedish student is angry that she has had to leave school to wake people up to this crisis and to demand action. She traveled from Sweden to the United Nations in New York by sailboat.

She spoke at the United Nations to shame the “adults” into taking action on the Climate Crisis. And to express the outrage and injustice that it is the young and the poor who will bear the effects of the crisis. Even though they had little or nothing to do with creating it.

September 20 was a global Climate Strike that she called. And September 27 was another Climate Strike.

Here are my videos and photos of the September 27 event in Santa Barbara.

Hundreds of people gathered at noon in De La Guerra Plaza to listen to a series of speakers and to talk to a range of organizations that tabled in the plaza.

Unitarian Minister Julia Hamilton talked about the importance of being part of an organization to be more effective at bringing about change:

Supervisors Das Williams and Joan Hartmann were on hand to talk about what Santa Barbara County is doing and yet needs to do. Very important is to have local control over how energy is produced and distributed in the region through “community choice” energy.

Luz Reyes-Martin posed with Mayor Cathy Murillo

Luz holds many positions locally, including being a trustee for the Goleta Union School District. She has worked hard to provide the school district with more sustainable energy in a variety of ways.

Many came to express solidarity with Greta Thunberg and the powerful movement she has helped create

People of all ages were out in force

While President Obama promised a Green Jobs program, little came of it in the long term. But the Green New Deal is becoming a detailed plan that will put millions to work with good jobs in sustainable transportation and sustainable energy. Implementing the Green New Deal on a national scale was a major rallying cry.

Santa Barbara City College Board of Trustees Vice President Jonathan Abboud was one of many who addressed the massive crowd

UC Santa Barbara Sociology Professor John Foran gave the final speech urging that we must think of all that must change to stop the Climate Crisis. “System Change – Not Climate Change” was his message.

Then the crowd peacefully moved out into the street. This short video shows the scene as people headed out of De La Guerra Plaza and down State Street

And here was the view from the overpass as people got to lower State street

By the time the march was headed down State Street it was almost 2PM on a Friday afternoon. Quite an impressive turnout and a strong sense that this movement is here to stay.

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Written by sbrobert

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63 Comments

  1. This looks like it was quite a fun event. Thank you Madame Mayor Murillo for everything you do to help our environment! And Das, what can I say other than thank you, thank you, and thank you so much for all of your hard work, time, and effort.

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  2. OK, lots of people were out there with signs. What exactly was their measurable impact on earth’s climate? Has the earth’s temperature decreased at all as a result of this event? Will it ever? Maybe earth’s temperature will actually increase because of all of the energy these people used getting to and from the event. What they are proposing is that we need to invest tens or even hundreds of trillions of dollars in order to control earth’s climate. Unfortunately not a single one of them has even the slightest clue how to go about doing this.

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  6. I will believe these people when they give up their subarus and weekend warrior mercedes sprinter vans, live in clay/earthen homes with solar panels, shop at thrift stores only, have no children and show me exactly where the sea has risen because I’ve lived near the beach over 30 years and the water is still in the same place. I guarantee this shenanigans will all go away in 5 years.

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  7. My kind of people. They get that we’re all in this together. It’s time for people to stop being so self-centered and selfish and lose the stupid “Well, I won’t be here in 50 years so it doesn’t matter how much my behavior lays waste to planet Earth.” It’s about quality of life now and the quality of what we will leave for future generations.

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  8. Great to see all these people of different ages coming together. As someone who has tangentially worked with climate researchers, it’s really sad to see how moneyed interests like the Koch Brothers have bamboozled people into being anti-science and treating climate change as a political/cultural issue. But younger people give me hope. It’s their future after all that’s being sacrificed by their parents and grandparents.

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  12. Yeah, here’s the thing. I agree with you. Lead from the top down. It’s hard for people in China to give up their dream of American style materialism when they only see ongoing mindless consumption from us–including many people who are active on the climate issue.
    But, here’s the other thing. If you know for a fact that, for example, the ocean is becoming a life desert, that we have lost 90% of the big game fish, are you really going to be on of the a$$holes who eats the last few fish because other people are doing it? So why mock real efforts to educate and make changes in the right direction? Are you just a nihilist?

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  13. I’m all for going out and expressing your beliefs. As the old saying goes, “I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” However, bringing children into it is somewhat troubling. Yes, the constitution protects your right to raise your children with your religious beliefs. I concede that protects the beliefs of those who think outlawing private cars and the consumption of meat is a good idea. However, indoctrinating kids to believe the world is ending seems unfair and cruel. Leave the kids alone! Stop trying to make them feel guilty about their very existence, and encourage them to enjoy their youth and have a little fun. Frankly, I think many of the adults around here would do well to loosen up and live a little fun too. Take you special someone out for a romantic drive, have a nice dinner that includes some tasty animal products, and go enjoy a sunset on the beach because the sea hasn’t risen. Life is good. It’s going to be ok. You don’t have to feel guilty anymore, and you certainly don’t have to talk children into feeling guilty.

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  15. ALEXBLUE, I think you need to have a glass of wine, take a downer, or smoke some pot (your choice, based on which is more sustainable in your mind, of course, but I suggest the first, and my personal only, alternative) and calm yourself down. 90% of game fish lost? Acidification of the oceans killing off their ecosystems? Are you living on the same planet I am? I fish and hunt as frequently as I can, and I can tell you there is no shortage of game fish and land-based wildlife. In fact, based on my experiences in the past 25 years, game fish populations such as yellowfin and bluefin, white seabass, yellowtail, wahoo, dorado, trout, pheasant, waterfowl, game ungulates, etc. are doing just fine. Weather patterns changing and climate changing? Yes, there always has been for four billion years. But to get caught up in this hysteria that catastrophe is imminent and we are all to blame and all the children are going to die like Greta is telling everyone of them and us is crazy. I am more worried that a nuclear catastrophe will happen somewhere that will have a far greater immediate impact like Fukushima or Chernobyl than NOAA predicting tomorrow will be the warmest day on record in Santa Barbara. Let’s approach and figure out what we can do logically to ensure a healthy ecosystem and not get wound up into blathering imbeciles standing on soapboxes predicting apocalypse in the next few years.

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  16. Telling another big one. You sure aren’t paying attention to bluefin tuna populations, that’s for sure. Among the numerous places where you can educate yourself are:
    ==================================================================
    https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/bluefin-tuna ==================================================================
    https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/09/01/547903557/countries-pledge-to-recover-dwindling-pacific-bluefin-tuna-population

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  17. To 10:40 am: My “big, unreadable blob of text” is because Edhat doesn’t allow for paragraphs or proper spacing in the comments, so address that with them, not me. Where do you think those “mix of different headlines and comments by people who are not climate experts” came from? They came from “climate experts” and were regurgitated by the press. Yes, it’s true Greta came on a sailboat – unfortunately it is a racing yacht made of fiberglass and synthetic materials and that several crew members will fly to New York to take back to Europe. She travels around the world in trains and electric cars (batteries recharged from fossil fuel plants), causing pollution, and living and spending on the current 20 million dollars her parents and backers have garnered from the capitalistic money it came from. Please, don’t lecture us that climate science is solid when we have so many contradictory studies. Let’s just agree that we don’t want to destroy the planet, but that we want a sensible path to ensure sustainability without the doomsayer hype.

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  19. Oh Climate change is real alright. Where it gets difficult is exactly what to do about it at this point. The rather large elephant in the room is over population. That is the main problem that most progressives choose to ignore. Even if all of us go back to medieval life styles, the bodily functions alone of the billions of people on this planet, and their burning wood to keep warm and cook, would keep those carbon levels too high.

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  20. Yep Black Bar, tuna populations going way down. NOT! The WWF is an alarmist radical group who will spin anything for their agenda, like PETA, to get $$$$ and NPR is also left leaning these days (https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/). Perhaps you also believe everything CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NYT, et al tells you. The NPR article you mention came from 2017 and was addressed only on Pacific bluefin, which have recovered almost entirely and continue to rise to historically high levels- the article even states that the fish is “very resilient”.
    Here are some actual, FACTUAL accounts and not alarmist propaganda:
    Sport caught Atlantic giant bluefin count 2019 through June: 2719 fish
    Sport caught Atlantic giant bluefin count 2018: 1663 fish
    From the simplistic, yet meaningful, sport fishing perspective, San Diego Union, June 2019: “According to the spotter pilots, there are more bluefin around. Sportfishing boats are seeing an amazing amount of tuna. We started seeing bluefin around 30 and 40 pounds in 2015 and each year they have gotten bigger.”
    You may want to see these statistics. Catches and populations are going up, not down: http://www.fao.org/3/y5428e/y5428e03.htm Or try this from Reuters: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-bluefin-tuna-uk.html You see, anyone can use statistics to make their point, some are probably true, some are hype, and some are downright lies to support an agenda. All I can tell you is that I seek out and read from as many sources as I can and then try to sort out the facts from fiction. The past few years at Guadalupe Island and San Diego offshore have been epic for both yellowfin and bluefin, respectively, based on my personal results and sport boats fishing there, but you certainly have a right to your opinion. However, please don’t tell me I’m telling another “big one” based on your dubious sources.

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  22. By the way I didn’t ask for your respect. That’s cool if you want to be climate loon but just because I don’t want to join the anti-trump I mean the 2016-2024 climate change movement doesn’t make me wrong. I love earth and promise you I am “greener” than most of these people. Why? Because I want to and because it feels good to use less, not because some crazed person told me I have to or else!

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  23. Any long-term plan to address anthropgenic climate change, like the Green New Deal, is full of BS if it doesn’t address the its number one cause.. HUMANS! How many billions of people are too many for this planet to sustain even when using all the green tech available. 10 billion? 15 billion? There is a limit and unless we start talking about it all the green initiatives will be for naught.

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  24. From your own source: “Overall, we rate NPR (National Public Radio) Left-Center Biased based on story selection that leans slightly left and Very High for factual reporting due to thorough sourcing and very accurate news reporting.”
    Mediabiasfactcheck.com is rated as “using amateur methods”.

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  31. Love how the people that believe their eyes instead of the vast majority of scientists want the people that support strategies to mitigate what we are doing to the climate to be pure of heart and deed. As if they would listen to Jesus if he came back and was in the march. To me Hendry’s looks pretty skinny at the end of the summer when it is usually at its widest. But I am very impure of heart and deed so don’t listen to me.

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  33. Big One–yeah, it just sort of bums me out that I can’t really go and dive on a living Great Barrier Reef. And again I say–yeah, okay, you’re fine, SB is in pretty good shape, I’m doing great, actually, I have money, a nice house, I travel, I have freedom, really “I got mine”.
    So F everyone else on the planet? F the kids who will come in to adulthood a few decades from now?
    Ah, you’re right, I’ll just munch an edible and drink a nice glass of Pinot, I’m good.
    https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/ocean-acidification
    http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/ioc-oceans/focus-areas/rio-20-ocean/blueprint-for-the-future-we-want/marine-biodiversity/facts-and-figures-on-marine-biodiversity/
    https://weather.com/science/environment/news/2019-03-01-fish-stocks-global-warming

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  36. I graduated in 1981 with a degree cum laude in Environmental Studies with an emphasis in The History of Science and Technology. Among the varied curriculum, we were repeated taught in many of the science classes that: 1) The ozone layer would be completely gone by 2018. 2) All fossil fuels would be exhausted by 2020. 3) Polar ice caps would be reduced by an average of 75% by 2025 and most glaciers would be gone forever. 4) Ocean levels would rise by at least four feet, inundating coastal zones and wetlands, and average oceanic water temperature would increase by 5-8 degrees Fahrenheit, destroying most ecosystems . 5) Acid rain would wipe out most of the earth’s food crops. So I’m not sure what these poor victims of mass hysteria are marching for, since it’s obvious we will all be dead by next year’s elections anyway. And Das and Cathy, you might as well resign now and enjoy your remaining days and the last few months of earth’s human population and existence instead of attending more marches. Enough said.

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  38. Some of you might want to read Julie Gunlock’s book, “From Cupcakes to Chemicals; how the culture of alarmism makes us afraid of everything.” And last week, the Competitive Enterprise Institute published a new paper, “Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions.” Below is a sample of the headlines from among the many articles the CEI staff found (the full list and complete articles can be found on the CEI website, http://www.CEI.org).
    “Scientist predicts a new ice age by 21st century” (The Boston Globe, April 16, 1970). “U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming” (The Washington Post, July 9, 1971). “Space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast” (The Guardian, January 29, 1974). “The Cooling” (New York Times Book Review, July 18, 1976). “Acid Rain Kills Life in Lakes” (Noblesville Ledger, April 9, 1980). “Acid rain no environmental crisis, study concludes” (Associated Press, September 6, 1990). “Rising seas to obliterate nations by 2000” (Associated Press, June 30, 1989). “New York City’s West Side Highway under water by 2019” (Salon.com, October 23, 2001). “Gore: ‘Entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years’” (WUWT, December 14, 2008). “Carl Sagan, shows a TV video clip of New York City under two miles of ice and predicts a Nuclear Winter because of Kuwait oil fires” ABC TV, televised debate, c. 1993
    A few decades ago, the “experts” at the U.N. told us that by 2000 some island nations (e.g. The Maldives) would disappear because of rising sea levels. It turns out that the ocean seems to be rising no faster (to the extent that it can be reliably measured) than it has been doing for many decades. A recent survey of many of the low-lying islands found that very few had gotten smaller while many others had grown larger — surprise, surprise. One explanation is that coral (which lives a few feet underwater and supports many of these islands) rises and falls with sea levels, so there is something close to a steady state rather than disaster.
    “Just 96 months to save world from catastrophe, says Prince Charles” (The Independent, July 9, 2009). “Gordon Brown: We have fewer than fifty days to save our planet from catastrophe” (The Independent, October 20, 2009). “French Foreign Minister: ‘500 Days to Avoid Climate Chaos’” (Washington Examiner, May 14, 2014). “Planet Still Standing 500 Days After French Foreign Minister Warned of ‘Climate Chaos’” (Washington Examiner, September 29, 2015).
    We are also told by some scientists and most everyone who is currently running for president that, if we do not act in X number of years (with each having a different number for X), it will be too late — whatever that means. As with the disappearance of the Arctic Sea Ice, these predictions have been made by many over the last few decades, and the specific X years have come, and gone, and no one noticed.
    It is tragically ironic that the CEI paper came out one day before many school children were encouraged to stop studying math and science and take a day off to protest the lack of some unspecified action on global warming. Thanks so much, Greta, for brainwashing our children while you travel around the world in private jets to warn us about the impending doom just ahead.

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  39. Your big, unreadable blob of text is a mix of different headlines and comments by people who are not climate experts. It has nothing to do with actual climate science which is solid. And Greta came to the US from Sweden in a sailboat, not in a jet. Did you even read the article?

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  46. Mock all you like. In not too many years our generation will be gone and our kids and grandkids will have to deal with what we leave them.
    Glad you and I got to enjoy a living ocean, too bad for future generations, but hey F them, right, we got ours.

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  49. It’s hard to be respectful with people like you because your willful ignorance is so disgusting. You’ve heard of Florida, right? You know that people are abandoning homes because they know they will just be flooded again and again.

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  50. Right, nothing matters, nothing changes, nothing is meaningful, no one should do anything about pollution or the destruction of vast swaths of our planetary resources. Yep, just crawl in the nearest McDonald’s and chow down, bro.

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  52. What action? Earth population nearly doubling since I graduated (4,536,996,762 in 1981 to 7,713,468,100 in 2019, urban population increasing from 40% to 56%)? Environmental controls initiated by the U.N. on China and other ultra-polluting countries? Nuclear power production increasing from 750 watt hours in 1981 to 2500 watt hours in 2019? Moving to electric cars whose owners think they are helping the environment although their batteries are charged from fossil fuel power plants? Would you like me to go on? These “catastrophes” did not happen “because people took action” – they did not happen because faulty science predictions were, well, faulty. I am as concerned about environmental issues as anyone. Certainly, humans affect everything around them, but to fall into the trap that we are entirely responsible for climate change based on “because scientific studies prove” is ludicrous.

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  53. Too bad there is little consensus on the climate change debate. For me, it would go a long way if the leaders in this space flew commercial and did not own multiple expansive homes. Reports state that at the recent climate summit in Palermo, there were over 150 private jets flown in, and dozens and dozens of super yachts as well. Until “they” walk the walk, no sensible person is going to believe the hype. It would be like someone warning you emphatically that an impending tsunami is about to engulf the sb harbor, but they stop to order sit-down at Sushi Go Go (below Brophy’s).

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  56. Very hard for science to make specific predictions about the future- it is better at telling you what has happened. But the trends of all of those things are intact. Ice free Arctic Ocean, Glaciers melting, temperatures rising, extreme weather increasing. I’m sorry you didn’t get a better education at your school, but is that any reason to avoid helping out now?

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  58. Nobody’s saying the Earth will end, at least for billions of years. What we’re doing is making it unfit for human (and myriad other species) habitation in a relatively short period of time if we don’t get our act together. Maybe when you wake up, the rest of us will have made some progress.

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  59. .I have two children pitmix. They both and most of their friends agree, without my influence. The majority of people think with their minds and don’t need bs studies by paid scientist that get funded by political interests.

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  62. I cited that site in a haste between my two naps I get. I could have probably found a better site, but I don’t have time to explain myself. I’m entitled to my opinions. I’m right down the center on almost everything btw, I just think think climate change isn’t 100% mans fault is all and I don’t think the earth will end anytime soon. Pass the peace pipe and have a good day. I gotta go and I’m done with this topic. Later Brother

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  63. Immediate action is needed. We are way past the time for “debate” when “debate” means spreading “doubt” as part of a political agenda. The only debate should be about the details of how to solve the Climate Crisis in a way that is effective and fair. Thank you for those who offered constructive information and suggestions.

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