Modern Hiker

Bill McKibben - the organizer behind the largest Climate Crisis demonstration in the United States - seems like he’s been inspired by that ubiquitous “Think Globally, Act Locally” bumper sticker. For his next demonstration, he’s aiming to run the “first nationwide do-it-yourself mass protest.”

The decentralized event will harness the Power of the Internet to get the message across, and rely on local groups using local landmarks and theatrics:

Americans will gather in iconic places across the country. Some will be familiar at a glance: the top of the Grand Teton, underwater off Hawaii’s coral reefs, on the levees above the Ninth Ward, along a blue line on Canal Street in Manhattan that marks the city’s possible new beachfront. Others will be less famous: the steps of your church, the picnic grove in your city park, the biggest barn in your county. But everywhere people will be saying, loud and clear, that it’s finally time for serious action from Washington, D.C., on the mightiest problem the world has ever faced.

All you need to take part is a crowd — small in small places, bigger in big places — and a digital camera. By nightfall we’ll have a cascade of images for everyone, including local and national media, to look at. We’ll have proof that Americans care deeply enough to act. It should be lovely in every sense of the word.

The goal is to pressure Congress to pledge an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. The smaller demonstration in Vermont, which had a thousand people walking across the state for three days, succeeded in getting all of the Congressional members and candidates to pledge to fight for the same reduction.

McKibben will write weekly updates of the organization on Grist and the demonstration’s own web site. Set your calendars for April 14th.