Skip to Content
Streetsblog New York City home
Streetsblog New York City home
Log In
Climate Change

McKibben on Climate Change: “We Don’t Have a Movement”

If the melting of Greenland can't make the American people pay attention to global warming, can anything? Environmentalist Bill McKibben, whose The End of Nature was one of the first books to raise the alarm on climate change for a general audience in 1989, is hoping that "Step It Up 2007," a day of rallies planned for April 14, will at least get things started.

Writing on Grist, McKibben admits that despite overwhelming scientific evidence, popular momentum on the issue is lacking.

[W]e don't have a movement, the largest rally yet held in the U.S. about global warming drew a thousand people. If we're going to make the kind of change we need in the short time left us, we need something that looks like the civil rights movement, and we need it now. Changing light bulbs just isn't enough.

So pitch in. A few of us are trying to organize a nationwide day of hundreds and hundreds of rallies on April 14. We hope to have gatherings in every state, and in many of America's most iconic places: on the levees in New Orleans, on top of the melting glaciers on Mt. Rainier, even underwater on the endangered coral reefs off Key West.

We need rallies outside churches, along the tide lines in our coastal cities, in cornfields and forests and on statehouse steps.

Every group will be saying the same thing: Step it up, Congress! Enact immediate cuts in carbon emissions, and pledge an 80% reduction by 2050. No half measures, no easy compromise, the time has come to take the real actions that can stabilize our climate.

McKibben reports that early interest in the project is high, but there are only three tiny gatherings listed so far in New York City. And even if people show up at the individual locations at the appointed hour, will it be possible to get any sense of "a movement" from rallies that are spread so thin?

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog New York City

Former NYPD Boss Says Deadly High Speed Chases Were Result Of ‘Rogue’ Adams Insiders

Former NYPD Commissioner Tom Donlon alleged widespread corruption leading to a string of deadly high-speed chases.

July 16, 2025

Uncle Sam Wants to Fence Off a Lower Manhattan Plaza

A federally-funded police gate will lockdown a pedestrian plaza huddled between two federal courthouses in Manhattan.

July 16, 2025

Wednesday’s Headlines: Gonna Have to Pay for That Edition

We're going to need a lot more money to handle storms like the one we saw on Monday. Plus more news.

July 16, 2025

Appeals Court Halts Adams’s Impending Bedford Ave. Protected Bike Lane Demolition

The judge's ruling came just as the city was set to begin the bike lane demolition process Tuesday evening.

July 15, 2025

New Yorkers Threaten Legal Action If Eric Adams Makes Bedford Ave. Less Safe for Cyclists

Brooklyn cyclists pledged to sue the city if they are killed or injured on Bedford Avenue after Mayor Adams makes it less safe.

July 15, 2025

E-Bike Fans and Foes Agree: Adams’s 15 MPH Speed Limit Won’t Make Streets Safer

A public hearing about the mayor's proposed speed limit devolved into a debate about e-bike licensing, naturally.

July 15, 2025
See all posts