#ForwardonClimate Rally Draws 50,000

The following coverage of last weekend's #ForwardonClimate rally was sent out to our e-mail list on 2/17/2012. Since that time, we've learned that the number of activists in attendance was a whopping 50,000 as opposed to the 35,000 originally estimated. To subscribe to our e-mail list, contact us at leftunited@gmail.com

50,000 activists are currently gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to speak out against the proposed Keystone KL Tar Sands pipeline. Should the pipeline be completely constructed and the entirety of the Canadian tar sands burned, NASA climate scientist Jim Hanson has predicted that it will mean "game over" for the climate. By all reliable accounts, this pipeline would bring the planet perilously close to irreversible environmental collapse.

Barack Obama, after first rejecting the next leg of the pipeline, is currently holding the planet in environmental limbo, awaiting review of the project. Like New York governor Andrew Cuomo, Obama has found himself caught between the corporate energy lobby which he represents as a politician in capitalist America and the people-driven environmental movement which he is sometimes forced to bow to as an ostensibly liberal president. 

It is against this backdrop that today's #forwardonclimate rally is being held in Washington, D.C. Organized by organizations such as350.org, Sierra Club, and the Hip Hop Caucus, the march has drawn in a large coalition of activists and organizations. Perhaps most importantly, the action has incorporated First Nations activists like those behind Canada's groundbreaking Idle No More movement. Occupy has also thrown its weight behind the demonstration, with participants from Occupy Wall Street as well as Occupy D.C. present today. 

In an inspiring development, revolutionaries from the International Socialist Organization and Solidarity have put aside their historical differences and co-organized an Ecosocialist contingent at the march. Additional endorsers of the contingent include Socialist Action, International Socialists (Canada), Ecosocialist Horizons, the editorial board of New Politics, Red Wedge Magazine, along with some branches of the Green Party and Socialist Party. @OccupyWallStNYC summed up the anti-capitalist spirit of some march participants, tweeting: "No Jobs on a Dead Planet, Capitalism has to go!"

Activists in the Hudson Valley have a lot of work to do in the fight against climate change. Aside from showing our support and taking action against the Keystone XL Pipeline, we are still in the midst of an historical battle against fracking here in New York State.

Ultimately, the challenges of a dying planet will not be met by a dying capitalism. It will take a monumental struggle of workers and the oppressed worldwide to overthrow this system, but we must also know that we are not starting from scratch. Today's mass demonstration in Washington is one of many seeds from which international anti-capitalist resistance has the capability to grow.

It is the drive for profits that places our planet in jeopardy and threatens the lives of all living on it. Under socialism, with production for profit replaced by production for use, humans will become the stewards, not exploiters, of our precious planet. Now that's something worth fighting for. HVR