Climate March: July 5 in Toronto
I have decided to attend the March for Climate, Jobs and Justice being held in Toronto on Sunday, July 5.
In many ways this is a dumb decision. Firstly, I do not agree with the "basket of concerns" approach the organizers take, and I disagree with several of the political positions held by the organizers. I feel that expecting all participants to be on board with all of these issues means that turnout will be smaller, and we need a wide diversity of people (who necessarily hold a wide diversity of views on political issues) to care about climate change if we are going to make progress on this issue.
Secondly, marches are not very effective politically. At best I am contributing to a talking point, which might increase pressure to turn climate change into an election issue for the upcoming federal election.
Thirdly, it is a little weird to burn fossil fuels taking buses to Toronto instead of marching locally, but overall I agree with the organizers that we will have a bigger impact overall by holding a few large marches than a lot of smaller ones.
Nonetheless, I have decided to participate, if only because I have been meaning to go to Toronto sometime this summer anyways. In addition, I am willing to stand up and be counted as somebody who is concerned about climate change. I want to see some real action taken towards addressing it (as opposed to kicking the can down the road for 85 years, which is the approach the current government has taken). So I will be attending.
You would think I would keep this shameful admission to myself, but I am blogging about it for two reasons:
If you are reading this and would like to participate, this is an invitation to do so. If you are from Kitchener-Waterloo and would like a companion to march with, I would be happy to do so.
If you are in the Greater Toronto Area and would like to meet up sometime after the march (which supposedly ends at 4pm) then please get in touch with me. At this point I have one meeting already, but I might be able to fit in another meetup.
The organizers are arranging buses from Kitchener-Waterloo to Toronto, and you can sign up for a seat by looking here: http://jobsjusticeclimate.ca/transportation/ . My intention is to take the chartered bus to Toronto, stay in the city after the march, and then take the last GO train or Greyhound bus that I can back home.