 Hi. Welcome to the call this evening for the People's Climate Merge. I'm going to pass it off to Paul Getkos, who is the campaign coordinator for the People's Climate Merge. Paul. Thanks, Kim. I wanted to welcome everybody tonight. We have thousands of people from across the country who are registered and signed on to learn more about the People's Climate Merge on April 29th. Before we start a couple of things, I'm going to ask everybody who's at their computer. We're trying to get our Facebook likes up there. I'm going to ask everybody to make sure that they like and say they're going to attend our Facebook event in D.C. Then I'm going to ask people to make sure that if you need information that you check out our peoplesclimate.org for information about the march and we're updating that. If you haven't signed up or pledged to march, please make sure that you pledge to march on the site. For those of you who are organizations, we also need organizational partners. That's an opportunity to do that. Again, I wanted to welcome everybody and thank everybody. One note that I did want to share is that Keith Ellison, Representative Keith Ellison, fell ill. He had to cancel events for the next day or two. He's not going to be able to join us tonight. He has pledged to come out with a video urging people to march to D.C. That's one thing I wanted to flag for folks. Then we have another person representing Van Jones tonight will introduce. I wanted to just before I hand it back to Kim say, while notable elected officials, celebrities are important to help get the word out. The peoplesclimate movement, the peoplesclimate march is not about celebrities or elected. It's about people like you who are marching in the streets doing the work and frontline community members who are representing indigenous community members, communities of color, labor union members, everyday people who are really fighting for climate change. I think that is one of the things that makes the peoples climate movement and that will make the march and marches on April 29 different and successful and powerful because it's people like you who are out there representing and leading the fight for social change and people like the amazing people roster of speakers we have tonight and so I will let I will now pass the mic over to Kim. We'll introduce everybody and I just wanted to thank everyone for joining and thank our co-presenters tonight for helping out with this live feed. Thank you so much Paul and thank you for your leadership. I'm Kim Glass. I'm with the Blue Green Alliance and the executive director of one of the largest coalitions of labor unions and environmental groups and we are very proud to support this march. Around this country working people understand we don't have to choose between good jobs and a clean environment. We can and we must have both. That simple truth that's created the Blue Green Alliance which is a strong and thriving organization and we're here tonight in advance of the march for climate jobs and justice to show our support for taking action and creating and sustaining good jobs by doing so. I'm honored to be with this amazing panel of leaders tonight to talk about the people's climate march coming up on April 29 and I will be facilitating the call this evening. This call should last about an hour. We'll be monitoring questions in the chat box and on Twitter using the hashtag climate march call. So if you have any questions throughout climate march call please put them in either of those places and they'll be passed along to me for question and answer at the end. If you're having any technical difficulties this call will be recorded and viewable afterwards. Before we jump into our speakers I want to talk a little bit about why we're hopping on the phone today and why our panelists and so many of you are tuning in are hard at work to make the people's climate march a success. We believe the PCM is an amazing opportunity to show huge grassroots opposition to the attacks on our communities and climate. We know what we don't want and we think PCM is a chance to put forward a vision of actually what we want. A clean energy economy that works for everyone. A vision for economy that's bigger more inclusive that is anything that is coming out of the White House or any corporate board rooms. Something that works for people creating jobs and prosperity for everyone without contributing to climate change and we think of mass mobilization tens of thousands of people in the streets in Washington DC and all across our country is a powerful way to send a message to politicians to the press to the American public with huge numbers of people walking from all walks of life from clergy to teachers to nurses to students to community organizers who are ready to see climate action. That's why I'm excited about the PCM why I can't wait to see you at the end of this month. I'm also really excited to hear from all our panelists this evening and hear a few more details about the big day and about sister marches happening all across this country. So before I pass the mic I'd like to introduce everyone. Tonight we are joined by Jordan Marie Daniel of Rising Hearts who's been a leading amazing work in the DC area among our community partners. Elizabeth Yampierre with up rows, Michelle Romero from Green For All and Rabbi Shoshana Mira Friedman from the Mass Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action. And Paul we want to extend our appreciation for all the work that you're doing on the ground coordinating the People's Climate Movement and we'll hear from you at the end and just a reminder if any of you have questions while our panelists are speaking you're asked you can ask them in the chat box or can use the hashtag climate march call which we will be tracking throughout the discussion. Jordan Marie Daniel is the founder of the Rising Hearts Coalition and part of the DC organizing table for the March for Climate Jobs and Justice. Jordan can you kick us off and share a bit more about your work and why you are working on the PCM and what's happening on the ground in DC. Can you hear me? Awesome okay hi so everyone my name is Jordan Marie brings three white horses Daniel I'm a member of the Lorable Sioux tribe in central South Dakota so I've been here in DC for three and a half years and I came here on a dream that I've had since I was in eighth grade to really advocate for people of Indian country and our indigenous peoples. For me that meant kind of playing a behind-the-scenes role since I'm very much of an introvert and do not like public speaking and putting myself out there but that really changed the last several months of what was happening in Standing Rock and after my trip out there that really kind of lit a new fire for me and as I watched you know our native youth take a stand and rise up and you know putting their bodies on the front lines as well as everyone that made those sacrifices to protect our water and our future generations and just seeing the youth really use their voice that motivated me to be a voice for our communities so I had a vision of having an organization a coalition or something to represent our indigenous communities and a few months ago that kind of just came to light and I came up you know with Rising Hearts Coalition a women indigenous led coalition group organizing and mobilizing the people here in DC to be a voice and a presence for people of Indian country here in the nation's capital where decisions are made for us and not with us and so watching what happened with Standing Rock I really wanted to ensure that that movement and all of our allies that that generated continues forward as we protect you know our human rights and we protect the land and water in our environment and all of that plays you know a huge role and it's all connected with one another so the last several months I've been organizing in DC getting people to jump on board with petitions and you know founding Rising Hearts you know I have eight members eight close friends and incredible people that are that are helping me organize and to amplify the issues that are going on in Indian country here in DC so with that you know one of our big advocacy work groups that we're focusing on is the environment right now and the people's climate movement as it's been generating since the PCM march in New York City in 2014 it's been waking people up over the last few years and with what's been going on with the administration and what the what President Trump has been doing with these executive orders that are basically relaxing all of these regulations and policies and now going to be putting our environment in the public health at risk it's just been a perfect timing for this rise for PCM to happen right now and especially on day 100 of this administration so I'm really excited for people to be coming to the nation's capital to march for climate justice for the people and for jobs and for sister marches to be happening across the nation and so I'm really looking forward to helping continue this movement forward as we continue to protect the future generations and so it was mentioned too that Rising Hearts is the co-chair of the DC local table here and I'm really excited that that's going to continue past PCM as we want to unify all of these local organizations that are happening here in DC that are doing incredible work for for DC's residents and the people and the surrounding areas to really have the city of DC reinvest in their people and putting the people first and what we're seeing with this administration is that you know profits being put over the value of life and life you know incorporates human beings and it incorporates the environment so you know I just want to give you know a quick quick shout out to some of the people on this DC local table that's you know incorporating DC jobs with justice the democratic socialists of america and power DC green neighbors DC we have rising hearts coalition seara club DC we have the future foundation we have all of these amazing organizations coming together to organize for the city and to be helping each other's campaigns out while we continue to elevate and generate awareness of what's going on for the people that we are representing so the purpose of this local table is to support local organizing for the long term and to strengthen local movement while building infrastructure thank you so much Jordan so great to hear from you and all the work that you're doing thank you next up we have elizabeth elizabeth yon pier elizabeth is the executive director of up rows brooklyn's oldest Puerto rican community-based organization and she was part of the leadership of the 2014 people's climate march in new york city so elizabeth i'm handing this off to you thank you bueno tal de mi gente it is a pleasure to be with all of you today this evening yes i am the executive director of up rows and brooklyn up rows is a grass fruits women of color multi racial multi ethnic community organization that has been working on environmental and social justice for many years it's a 50 year old organization this year i've been there for about 20 years that's why we have to be intergenerational and um and we have done tremendous things everything from doubling the amount of open space in the community to stopping the siting of power plant to holding the largest gathering of young people of color and climate change in the country which we do every year and we'll be doing again this year in august and in 2014 we were with the climate justice alliance which i'm here speaking on behalf of today also and the new york city environmental justice alliance we were key organizers for the largest climate march in us history but also the largest ej contingent in us history the environmental justice movement has been doing very deep work for many years transforming landscapes and their communities passing legislation that has made it possible for us to be able to breathe better be healthier and the climate justice movement has been working to basically move us away from a fossil fuel dependent economy to just transitions the climate justice alliance is a national alliance with over 50 groups uh from community-based organizations and alliances from richmond california to detroit uh from the gulf south to brooklyn uh from indian country down to appalachia literally covering the entire united states we are rural we're urban we're multi racial multi ethnic we're intergenerational and we're on the ground and we're at the table and where and we are uniting the front line of the climate crisis beyond this moment for the pcm that happened 2014 our goal was to change the face of the climate movement we wanted to make everyone in the country and in the world know that it's the front line of the crisis that is going to be impacted more than any other and the front line must lead and the front line can speak for itself and the front line is responsible for making decisions that impact its community for a long time a lot of the resources have gone to the top and resources in power have not been shared in the bottom and i think we were successful uh it was amazing and we really changed the conversation about how we engage and so we are here today again uh to to make it happen again and we're in a very different place than we were in 2014 so collectively this movement what we call the climate justice movement rejects false solutions and fights for a just transition away from the dig burn dump economy to an economy that honors people and the planet a regenerative economy and this particular march this this moment in this historical moment is particularly important for us and it's important because now we have a different president uh a president who really would like to eliminate a lot of us um and this president um you know trump and his corporate cabinet is ruthlessly slashing environmental safeguards and incentive and incentivizing the fossil fuel industry and those of us who are on the front line of the crisis also understand that this is not just about carbon that our people live and struggle at the intersection of racial injustice and climate change um and in fact we've always known that and we've always worked at that intersectionality we just don't have the luxury of having to choose between going to a police misconduct rally and going to a climate change fight all of those issues affect our communities because we are the descendants of extraction extraction of our lands and extraction of our labor so this same crisis targets and terrorizes communities of color in a multiplicity of ways extreme policing deportation poisoning our food our air our water creating unemployment but this is an opportunity for us not only to honor our ancestors but to honor our values and honor what we think is a nation that's made up and of and celebrates difference and so this march presents us with that opportunity to do that um and we don't just work at the point of complaining about all of the problems the solutions we believe are local we are looking at operationalizing community on solar offshore wind operationalizing just transitions and building just just relationships sharing power and resources because we know that the path to climate justice is local and we also know that the jobs are local and if you look at a place like new york city where the ej communities live um in significant maritime industrial areas those are industrial areas that are being commercialized for high end uses for people who are displacing us when they could be building for renewable energy and in new york we're looking at making the entire state go 100 percent renewable so we are all about these solutions and if you're listening to us today um i believe that you're the choir you're the believers you're the first line of defense against climate change uh so the question for us really is uh not whether you're coming but who you are bringing uh because this is a moment where we have an opportunity to step up and step up in all the intersections and all of the beauty that represents who we are and and make our demands about what we want to see happen and also build relationships with each other strengthen relationships with each other so that we can all go back stronger than we were when we came out to this to this march so i would urge you to come to bring as many people as possible to light up the internet uh to to base we've created so many memes that i think we're becoming obnoxious at up girls we've just made so many it's become a thing for our young people there's a lot of different ways of showing up but having our bodies there is going to be really important and the climate justice alliance is going to have a direct action the day before and we were going to be there on the 29th and if you were coming from a frontline community that has a legacy of extraction of abuse of discrimination of having to decide whether or not um you could take a job because even if it's going to hurt your your health this is a place for you to be you know our communities um uh we went into the environmental justice movement because we understood that um you can't fight police abuse unless you could breathe and so these issues for us have always been intersectional and so it this is an opportunity for us to show up in a big way and and to let people know that um the climate change is here and that we've got scientists backing us up and our ancestors right behind us so gracias thank you thank you so much Elizabeth those are really powerful words and we really appreciate hearing from such a champion of the PCM of 2014 as well who's been working on this year's march you've played an integral role next up we have Michelle Romero who is the deputy director for green for all a national initiative to build an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty Michelle hi everyone can you hear me we can hear you great um i'm on the road that i'm joining this call because it's really important that we come together so green for all is a national organization we were founded by ban jones about 10 years ago um sort of in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina at a time when the green economy wasn't really much of a thing you know just a very distant idea and um it was an opportunity for us to get in early and think about what would a green economy look like and how would we create a green economy that was strong enough to actually lift people out of poverty and so for the last 10 years we've been um using our national platform to help uplift solutions that tackle both poverty and pollution together in recognition that it is a low income for black and brown folks that are really on the front lines of some of the worst pollution in america and that are often you know and continue today i think to experience barriers to participating and benefiting from a green economy when um you know our climate policies leave them out or leave them as an afterthought so it's really been our um mission and our work to uplift climate solutions that are going to put communities of color who are on the front lines of the pollution at the forefront of the solutions and so we're really excited to participate um our whole team's going to be out there in dc for the climate march we'll be there for the takers event uh the day before as well and participating at some other partner events and one of our big goals is to just help support getting more frontline community leaders to be seen um in this space and leveraging our media partners and communications platforms to help tell these stories um in a really deeper broader way last year we saw you know a community in split michigan that was ravaged by lead poison water and we saw you know standing rock fighting for against the pipelines and those are just like two very um two communities i think that were the tip of the iceberg of the problem that uh this you know fossil fuel industry really dumping on people of color and underserved communities for decades and you know every once in a while there's this opportunity where something surfaces enough to capture national attention and i think this is a moment to really come together and clearly say environmental justice is racial justice environmental justice is economic justice all of these things are interconnected and um all of you know all of us are interconnected and so how do we come together to do that and so um yeah i mean i think you can hear from my boys i'm just really excited about this opportunity and how we do that and showing up um with one another for one another and if anyone is planning on coming to the march to come from a frontline community and wants to help tell their story of environmental racism or what you're doing to fight for solutions um definitely reach out you can contact me at michelle at greenforall.org so michelle with two ls at greenforall.org um and we want to help uh get you in front of some of our media partners and things like that to try and help uplift more of these stories we are up against the lot and we have you know now a president that wants to call climate change a hoax and roll back all of our environmental protection and it's really important that we not allow that to happen and that we are really standing firm to say you know this is just a problem for the environmental community this is actually a problem for all of us um like i said environmental justice it's racial justice environmental justice is economic justice and we can only win together and so really excited to see all of you in dc michelle thanks so much for those words and for all the great work that you and green for all are doing um i want to now recognize rabbi shoshana murah freedman who's the assistant rabbi for engagement at temple Sinai of brookline she serves on the leadership of the mass interfaith coalition for climate action and speaks and teaches widely on the religious and moral imperative for visionary public action for climate change um shoshana hi can you hear me i can hear you great hi everyone i'm so honored and happy to be on this call um i've been engaged in the movement for the past two and a half years or so i also want to give a shout out not only to my congregation and to the mass interfaith coalition for climate action acronym mica um but also to a website clergyclimateaction.org which is something i started along with some friends to organize people to do non-violent civil disobedience from a faith and spiritual stance on climate justice and that's a project of a wonderful organization called the climate disobedience center um so those are some of the other frontline places that i'm involved i want to start my remarks which are going to be slightly more uh general framing about what it is that we're doing i want to start by saying happy third night of Passover to all who are celebrating and an early happy Easter and happy spring to everybody um so drawing from my own tradition we often think about Passover as a holiday of freedom from servitude but if we listen carefully to the words from exodus moses actually asks pharaoh to let the israelites go in order for them to serve god so in other words Passover is not just about freedom it's actually about being servants of a chosen master and i believe that all of us on this call are in sacred service to the cause to the cause of climate justice and the many values that stand behind that cause and that the people's climate march is an opportunity to literally stand up for those values and to be publicly in service and to call others to do the same so in light of how hard this fight is and how bleak the science looks and how bleak the political landscape looks i want to offer a few brief thoughts about how we can come to this work from what i would call a faith perspective but which i think is ultimately a universal humanist way of of engaging in difficult activist work so first service comes from a stance of humility and in Jewish tradition humility isn't actually about taking up less space necessarily it's about taking up the right amount of space so personally i was stuck in my activism for years because i didn't believe that i could make a meaningful difference on issues that mattered to me and i thought that this was me being you know really wanting to make a difference but i actually think that part of this was my ego getting in the way that i wanted to be a big enough deal before i would even try and i have over some hard inner work really let that go and i now strive to see myself as a cell in an immune system of the planet and i see each of you on this call as cells also so now instead of thinking that i need to either do it myself or not even try i believe that we each can discern our rightful place in the movement and the thing that our cell in this immune system needs to do and that the people's climate march is an amazing opportunity to renew our connection to that broader immune system and to feel ourselves a part of it right there's nothing like marching physically with hopefully hundreds of thousands of other human beings for a cause to feel like we are not alone and that we each have a place so second after humility i want to talk about how being in service necessitates a very difficult letting go of outcome and also having what i would call faith but faith in this case doesn't mean blind faith that it's all going to be okay we're all wide awake to the science we know that it's not all going to be okay already even if we stop burning fossil fuels today there are terrible things that are going to happen in this planet to other human beings to other species to landscapes so it's not that everything's blindly going to be okay but it means that we have faith that us showing up matters that it matters to other people around the country around the world to our children it matters to those who will read the history of this movement in years to come and it certainly matters to ourselves when we look in the mirror and i also believe that it matters to god to the divine um you could say that history cherishes the stories of those who stand up for justice even when they're not obviously successful in their own time and as much as i wish i could offer a happy platitude about how we're going to win i actually think that that is going to be much of how we are remembered that as a movement we stood up and strived to do the best that we could for justice even though there were a lot of things that we could not change at this late stage of the game and having faith that it's still worth it to stand up is a beautiful opportunity and i think that we're going to feel that faith really strongly in this march and that it's going to animate all of the important work that we're doing and then third i want to lift up that fighting for climate justice and for any kind of justice is a devotional practice this is really clear in Judaism and i know many of the world's religions that when we are working for a better world we are in deep service to god to the divine to the source of life whatever word you want to put in there but it also means that when we're faced with giant challenges like this and the odds of success at least with climate we could say that the odds of success as bill McKibbin might say from the standpoint of physics look pretty small right like that no matter what we do right now ice caps are going to melt and waters are going to rise and storms and diseases are going to increase but still there is work for us to do on the realm of the human spirit and some of my mentors in the interfaith climate movement say that we are not called on to be successful we are called on to be faithful and we're going to work like hell to be successful but since we have no control over that and we can burn ourselves out and drive ourselves crazy we instead need to bear witness to the love that we feel for the world and devotion makes room for all these emotions hope fear grief joy even rage and we can feel all of that as we march together so i bless all of us with a meaningful season of rebirth and renewal and a strengthened connection to each of our own sense of calling to sacred service for justice thank you shoshana um thank you so much for sharing such inspiring words with us all and providing us a larger context to the fight that we have ahead um i want to extend our big thank to all of thank you to all of our panelists i'm going to pass this back to paul for now who's with the pc m paul you've been all the nuts and the bolts and the fun details that you're going to go over about the march itself but you've been really instrumental and and pulling all of this together and i'm going to send it back to you to share an overview paul you'll need to unmute your unmute your thank you hey um so first i just wanted to thank um and uh just really cut you know the amazing inspirational work of the of the women who've spoken before me on this panel tonight and just you know people like elizabeth who i keep learning from and and really just was amazing person to work collectively with around 2014 and and kim who has worked over the last couple of years trying to build the connections between labor and greens and figuring out how we can build a new economy together so um and newer folks um i just really wanted like jordan who's building the table in dc so i just wanted to thank you and knowledge the work that you guys have been doing which is great um i wanted to say a few words about pc m and how we got here and then i want to get into the specifics um i think one of the most important things um is that due to the visionary um to the vision of people like elizabeth and eddie and john barton and michael guerrero and others people understood um and folks from 350 and jamie and and and um i think people really understood back in 2014 that really the goal then was not just a march but then a march to build a movement and i think one of the one of the successes of 2014 besides just turning out 400 000 people into the streets besides lifting up the powerful and critical stories of frontline communities and community leaders besides getting lots and lots of press and having an impact on the paris treaty i think one of the untold stories is the relationships that have been built across sectors um and that how people have been working together over the course of the last few years and so it's important for people to realize this march is not a response to it's not a response it was a strategic choice that people like elizabeth and mike williams and uh and kim and others made to say we need to make this next president whoever this president would be um to really come out strong and be a climate champion um back when we chose the date april 29th and developed a plan to first around the first hundred days we actually thought we were going to be out there in the streets probably the only people out the streets demanding hillary clinton to be big and bold and try to move her to the left um regrettably as and so we always had april 29th in our plans regrettably um after the election after the depressing horrifying and so too many um so many words to describe the election of donald trump our group of leadership um really said and made a decision that we're going to move forward on the 29th and that true to our form we weren't just going to talk about climate and climate justice but they were really going to much more explicitly talk about attacking and fighting back against the hate of this administration and the and the right-wing republicans who are attacking communities of color who are attacking immigrants who are attacking frontline communities and advancing the interests of corporate america over the needs of working people and so the one of the most proudest days of my life in this organizer was when our steering committee said we have to explicitly come out against hate and the attacks on all of our communities and not just have to be around climate and that is why it is so critical for people to show up at the white house and encircle the white house and this administration which is not an administration of the people we have to remember three million more people voted against donald trump um than for donald trump and the april 29th comes at a very important time the 100th day of his administration and the amazing work that the women's march um started the day after the inauguration that continued with the protests of immigrant rights and refugee rights groups and standing rock folks and the people who fought to preserve health care and others over the course of the hundred days april 29th is another moment when we have to show up big and strong in the streets because we cannot allow the normalization of this presidency happen and i'm going to urge everyone on this call to show up in washington dc we know it's a five hour bus ride we know believe me i've organized everyone on this call and i've organized buses for many years i know what it's like but i'm going to ask everyone to dig deep into their soul and figure out what's another bus can we get another bus can we get more people to show up on into dc and if you can i'm going to ask everybody to tell your folks and friends on the east coast to go to dc and i hope that everybody will hit the streets where you live because this is the most critical moment that we need right now to really show up in the streets and resist the normalization and fight for the climate fight for jobs fight for climate justice and so i just wanted to kind of urge people on that um and there are already 250 marches happening across the country so um that was my little uh plea motivation kind of like making sure people understood why it's important to be in that streets um in terms of the day i wanted to really just make sure that people understand this kicked off the day after the inauguration in the first 100 hours we had over 200 events around the country thanks to folks from green faith and others um and we have been continuing to build tables across the country um the next opportunity is we are now organizing a week of action we're calling it from truth to justice that kicks off with our collaborations locally in places with a march for science we're trying to work out how we can we are both supporting each other's marches which is amazing and we are really asking people over that week to come to dc focus on dc and build towards dc between the 22nd and the 29th we have amazing actions and activities that are going to be taking place in dc from lobby days from convenings to talk about green jobs and uh working with labor unions and environmentalists to produce a new economy direct actions being organized by a number of our partners including club at justice alliance um art builds happening throughout the city so i really want people to think a lot about religious services um water ceremonies indigenous um activities this is a moment to come to dc uh in terms of the um the day of i wanted to share with people so everyone understands us first of all the day of actually starts from for some of our people thursday night when they get on buses and start the 48 hour ride to wash it in dc to show up and be here in the morning of saturday april 29th um on saturday april 29th we will start the day with a water ceremony at 5 30 in the morning that is being hosted by local indigenous and national indigenous organizations um buses will start to roll in um you know right after that we will start to form in contingents um at 10 30 we are going to have a press conference that will last from 10 30 to 11 o'clock in the strong spirit of how pcm operates and our and our values that press conference will be frontline community members rank and file workers lay leaders from the faith community students and youth and so that is the way that we are going to present ourselves to congress and to the white house so that's happening from 10 30 to 11 at 12 30 we will kick off the march um at um close to the capital at fourth and um fourth in the mall we're going to be lining up in contingents and i ask people to refer to the website at peoplesclimate.org we have contingents based on issue area and and how we're in an entire narrative that we're finalizing and then we will kick off the march we will march down pennsylvania avenue and when we approach the white house our goal is to completely with our tens of thousands of people completely encircle the white house we are going to claim the white house and um for our own and really put pressure on the trump administration and the cronies who are in that building working with him to really say that this is you know this is our moment of resistance this is when we're going to fight back and tens of thousands of people at two o'clock will hold a moment of silence like new york we will engage in a collective action that we are still fine tuning and then we will end with a roar that ends up about our power and about how we're going to resist and so that is the moment where we are really going to confront and challenge power and mass imagine tens of thousands of people holding each other holding hand locked first in silence and then coming out in the large screen and really showing our power so that is a high point of the day from there we will march towards the washington monument where we will have a lot of different activities we will have a rally with again frontline indigenous and local speakers we will have music we will have performers and there will be a number of other movement building activities that people will engage in including and the ability to see all the beautiful art that is being developed and one of the things that I regret I didn't mention is that we are collecting parachutes from around the country huge 50 foot parachutes that are being painted by community folks and we're delivering them and carrying with them um through the streets of washington dc to the white house and then we will present them on the mall where people can see so the day is really lifted up um and it's going to have a lot of different activities and what we are hoping is that we designed and created a day that is not just about a march but is about a march that is rooted in the movement building work that we have been doing over the last couple of years that builds off the amazing powerful work of the ej communities the labor communities and the and other organizations and movements that have been doing that this work so powerfully for so many years and so I think that this is an opportunity on on April 29th to come together to share our stories to bring our solutions to dc to march to do an action and then get revitalized and re-energized so we can go back to our communities and do the work that's so critical I will say the one other thing um before I close and if there are questions if we're taking questions is that because we are an intersexual movement because we are not about about April 29th we are already are asking people that after you march on the 29th you go out and you support our immigrant brothers and sisters on May 1st because that is the end of our week of justice when we say from truth to justice we are starting with the scientists and we are ending in support for immigrants who are being attacked every day in this country and that we are going to fight with our immigrant brothers and sisters and so with that I will wrap up thank you so much Paul and Paul you've been on the front line of all of this to help coordinate it and I you know I just want to extend our sincere and sincere appreciation for all the work that you have done um you know we're now going to move right into the question and answer portion of this call we have a lot of you chiming in in the chat box and on twitter with the hashtag climate march call we are following that hashtag now for questions and are going to dig into some of those right now so if you have a question in your mind throw it in the chat box now our first question comes from you um so one of the quick questions is how is the PCM connected to the science march are these marches um coordinated with one another I know Paul you you started talking a little bit about that but for any of our panelists to please chime in because I think there's a lot of interest in both of these marches in Washington yeah so I can I can quickly answer um you know we have been in conversations for months now with the march for science people a number of our steering committee members like 350 like Union of Concerns scientists are involved in both marches where we are at the point is we're trying to figure out we we are supporting the march for science the march for science is supporting us they're on our week of action if you look at at our web page and I think what we are asking people to do is if you are marching if you're doing a local march for science act on the 22nd we are hoping that you will come to the uh dc on the 29th and if you are planning to come to dc on the 29th we are hoping that you will support the march for science in your community on the 22nd and that is what collective we have asked people to do great you know thank you so much Paul I actually have another question here for the group I mean I guess what is the plan after April 29th and I recognize there might be some sister marches on May 1st but what is the plan to sort of take this movement forward I know there's going to be a broad array of people participating in the march coming into dc participating in sister marches but we'd love to hear from folks well uh from the perspective of the climate justice alliance we've been working on um on operationalizing just transitions now for a few years and I think a lot of us are just looking to what can happen on local basis and what can happen on a statewide basis what are the political um opportunities and openings for us to not only build a groundswell of climate consciousness but to actually um change the way change local economies and create local livable economies so uh so there's a lot of work happening I know that there is a new york and a new york city and a new york state I know there's a lot going on in california and chicago and detroit in kentucky um in uh and black mesa so literally um in all of the frontline communities that we work with uh there are very aggressive initiatives to uh to move us away from fossil fuel extraction and to uh and to basically bring our communities to an understanding that this issue is our issue when we first started working on climate change we said that our people had to feel strongly about climate change as they did about the civil rights movement um and we we were faced with this challenge that our people had to worry about housing and employment and social services and so taking on climate change felt like it was something that wasn't part of our part of our struggle until it was understood that a lot of those issues that we have to deal with every day come out of that fossil fuel extractive economy and so uh so we've been able to do that really successfully and I think now it's it's time to grow that resistance nurture it supported build that capacity um build a cross sectoral support uh we are working with groups like black lives matter and mi gente and right to the city and grassroots global justice alliance the climate justice alliance all of us all of us have come together uh to figure out how we are going to address the complexity of the challenges that we're faced with and so this is not going to stop us we've always been uh in the trenches and we've always had to deal with challenges that we can't even imagine that our ancestors had to deal with and so what we envision uh when we think about this we and i'm going to use that word devotion because it's stuck with me um I think that the devotion of the people who we never met uh who believed uh in in us we are we're the beneficiaries of that devotion of people that we've never met we're bringing that to our communities thank thanks so much Elizabeth um I have one last question for our panelists tonight um another question that's that's come in that says you're a coalition and that can sometimes soften the stances as you're coming together of positions that the coalition takes how are you going to make sure that the message coming out of this march is both strong and pointed um i'm going to turn to some of our other panelists we haven't spoken to shana michelle um you know to to sort of talk about that I can't speak directly for the for this broad coalition so i'll be brief I know that at the massachusetts level we have gotten feedback from our representatives um and senators at at on beacon hill in boston that coalitions are definitely the way to go in terms of lobbying and in terms of making clear uh that the people are behind what's happening but also that in order for real change to happen it's at least at a legislative level which is not the only level um there do need to be very clear asks so I guess I would say that um the coalition is really strong as a tactic and then the challenge is for the coalition to come to consensus on on what it's asking for but I also think that the challenge on the national level is that we're so having a president who doesn't even think this threat is real means that it gets very difficult to make meaningful policy requests that we think are actually winnable so I think to some extent this is about showing that we're not going anywhere as a movement and we're going to keep pushing um but I would in general and I but I would be curious to hear from others who know more specifically if there are any specific policy or other requests that are coming out of the march yeah I mean this is michelle from green for all I'm sure there are many I mean I think that that's actually the beauty of the coalition too is that um no one organization can do it all uh if they could there wouldn't be a need for a coalition right and there's actually it takes a lot of work to be part of a coalition and the process can be messy or slow or frustrating and challenging in different ways that push us and forces to grow um but if any one of us could do what needs to be done to end the pollution and create the solutions we need for all of us to have a livable healthy you know vibrant future then we wouldn't do it right and so the answer is well we can't we can't do it alone none of us can solve this problem by ourselves and so um we worked in coalition and I actually think that it is a great thing because along the way we're building a broader tent of political support or an issue and I think historically you know we've seen elected officials um talk about one issue or another whether it's education or economic issues or environmental issues or you know and they sort of end up becoming these like single issue politicians where as long as you can only care about your one main you know core issue and be really good on that you may not be um you not you may not be as good on some of the other issues that also affect your same constituents right and so I think by working in coalition and enforcing folks to realize and start to see these issues as interconnected um it it it is challenging I think it challenges the paradigm of you know even media outlets and how they cover an issue to be a little bit more intersectional I don't think we're there yet but you know people are not single issue human beings where we'll be fascinated human beings and we're affected by so many things and so I think we're just in a place now where we're starting to get you know you can't actually solve the environmental problem without solving the economic problem and vice versa these things are interconnected and so yeah it's a challenge but I think from that a lot of new solutions come to the surface too that that make it much stronger than before thanks Michelle um so that was our last question um Paul I don't know I might pass it off to you for the last minute uh for some quick reminders for folks who are participating in the march but thanks for everyone for participating on the call today thanks for the great questions um you really appreciate everyone taking the time tonight to join us um to make this march as beautiful and as powerful as possible we're going to need everyone call right now we need you to be caring about the march on social media talk to the community about the big day and really driving out turnout given um that this could be a really powerful and it will be a very powerful message um happening not only all over this country but here in Washington DC and with that Paul I might hand it off to you for any closing comments that you might have yeah I wanted to once again thank all the amazing speakers here today a couple of things for people to take away one is we could really use a hundred more buses coming to DC so if you know anyone if you are thinking about I can I do this make sure you talk to you know check out the peoplesclimate.org website look at bus info and reach out to one of our amazing organizers to help you do that a hundred new buses in the next couple of days could make a difference and there are resources to help you out um the other thing you can do is tell your friends and family members to come friends and family are the way that we get the word out and finally before you sign off tonight post a Facebook tweet um and share the fact that you're going to go to the peoples climate march on April 29th and uh with that oh and you can also donate at peoplesclimate.org which will help frontline communities like indigenous folks from uh Dakota Access Pipeline and other places um get to the march so thanks everybody and uh look forward to seeing you in DC on the 29th. Paul um just one last one last thing I know a lot of folks are really interested in the sister marches how can they find out information so sister march information is also on the website so check out the website and you can see the map of sister marches and if you are organizing one reach out to our organizers and uh and we can help you figure out how to get more people there. All right thanks so much Paul and thanks everybody thanks for joining the call.