By Alison Cohen, WhyHunger’s Senior Director of Programs. This post originally appeared on EcoWatch.
A locally trained agronomist works with residents at Mouvman Peyizan Papay first Eco-Village, a sustainable community in Haiti’s Central Plateau.
Climate change is arguably the most pressing and cross-cutting issue of our time. The policies we’ve created, endorsed and use to rely almost exclusively on fossil fuels to meet all of our needs —from food, to clothing, to transportation, to the toothpaste we use or the basketballs we dribble—are heating up the atmosphere. And now the impact on our quality of life on this planet is looming large.
The roots of this crisis are entrenched, but I believe not as deeply as the roots of the people-centered social movements worldwide aiming to speak loudly and in harmony to demand a transformation of the global systems perpetuating the ecological crisis. If we can follow the lead of these grassroots movements, I believe we can not only address climate change, but we can reverse the widening social and economic inequality gap that is undermining the lives of hundreds of millions of people already on the edge.
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to engage in the People’s Climate March, People’s Climate Justice Summit and related activities Sept. 19 – 21, with more than 1,500 solidarity marches and events happening in 300+ countries. With the action’s epicenter at the march in New York City, the groundswell of folks converging on the streets of New York on Sunday, Sept. 21 will likely make this the largest civil society march ever experienced in the U.S. It will also rank among the most inclusive as grassroots organizations and movements representing labor, conservation, public education, women, youth, alternative energy, food and agriculture, anti-racism, indigenous peoples, immigration, prison reform, local and regional economics, faith, housing, hunger and poverty have organized to throw their voices, energy and resources into this action.
Read more on EcoWatch.
