Via Tom Nelson:
“For “the biggest climate rally in history,” attendance was remarkably sparse. Those of us in the Light Brigade guessed 5,000”
It was really, really cold the whole time. I was surprised that everyone we ran into was wearing oil-based clothing. I figured a couple people would try to symbolically wear “natural fibers,” I didn’t see any. When I pointed out to people that their clothes were made of oil, they blamed “the system.”
…
For “the biggest climate rally in history,” attendance was remarkably sparse. Those of us in the Light Brigade guessed 5,000. We were heartened by the lack of real enthusiasm by the protesters. The Light Brigade, as our videos will show, had real passion–we love energy with conviction, while they hate it with confusion.
“Forward on climate” was personified by the shivering, emotionally muted, and fairly sparse crowd leaving early in their oil clothing to get to their coal and gas homes.
The lesson of the protest was clear: Nature, untamed by fossil fuels and other affordable, reliable energy is an often uncomfortable and dangerous place to be. That’s why the protesters left as early as they could, and why the whole production was ridiculous. Who wants to stand outside in the middle of February, freezing to “send a message” about “global warming”? Resolve faded to the point where by the 4:00 closing time, I could shoot footage right next to the stage with no one within 20 feet of me.
Stunning: 40,000+ Rally in DC for Forward on Climate | 350.org
What a day! Over 40,000 people poured into the streets of Washington, DC today to push President Obama to take our nation “Forward on Climate” and say no to the Keystone XL pipeline.
Our team here at 350.org had expected a crowd, but this was MASSIVE. Volunteers from around the country organized 130 buses to get people to the rally and it showed: there were people of all ages from Florida to Wisconsin to California here today.
Washington DC Climate Rally – February 17, 2013 « Suwannee – St. Johns Sierra Club
Contact our bus coordinators to sign up for a seat on the bus. We are asking everyone to contribute $72.74 towards the actual cost of $130. [So who paid the rest of the “actual cost” and why?]
Charter Bus Prices and Bus Options
[Typical capacity around 50 people]
It seems highly unlikely that all the buses were chock-full of people. 130 buses at 30 people per bus would be about 4,000 people. If 36,000 other people actually attended this rally, how did they get there?
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Some cold weather gear is made from recycled plastic, which is made from petroleum feedstocks.
Plastic fabric or fleece as it is called is made from recycled plastic bottles. But, how is fleece made of plastic bottles? It is an extensive process, definitely but it is definitely worth it. Generally, it takes about 25 disposed plastic bottles to make enough polar fleeces for an adult to sew a piece of clothing out of it. — http://www.snvplastics.com/articles/How_is_fleece_made_of_plastic_bottles.php
Marc Marano: FoxNews 16:10 EST
Jim Hansen is “NASA resident ex-con”
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/19693/NASAs-resident-excon-Top-NASA-global-warming-scientist-James-Hansen-arrested-again-in-White-House-protest-over-pipeline–180000-taxpayerpaid-salary
Want to plug the March I attended this year. 😉
[snip . . OT . . mod]
Andrew
What do you mean natural fibers for clothes? If its is from animals, it is cruelty to animals even if the animal is not killed in the process like sheep shearing. If it is from plants, to meet the large demand from from demonstrators who would like to demonstrate in cold weather, the fibers have to come from plants grown in plantations. This means clearing forests, displacing wild life and displacing indigenous population. The most important thing is for them to use common sense, that is plan their demonstrations in warm weather or even go more natural through out the year.
I guess support for their Cause is worse than they thought.
I shot a lot of footage walking throughout the main areas of the protest during the official time of the protest: 12:00-4:00. When it comes out tomorrow, it will be clear that this was a complete failure of a “rally.” It’s possible they paid a bunch of people to come in for a few minutes; that or PhotoShop could explain a picture McKibben posted that made the attendance look like a full house. It was never impressive, and well before the end of the rally the two words that came to mind were “ghost town.” Perhaps needless to say, McKibben, the “Hip Hop Caucus” et al quickly retreated into fossil fuel comfort; they were nowhere to be found after their fire-and-brimstone sermons. Four hours in nature is obviously too high a price to pay for “solidarity.”
DirkH says:
February 18, 2013 at 12:54 pm [ … ]
Exactly right.
Nick in Vancouver says:
February 18, 2013 at 12:20 pm
They rode on sheep which they sheared and hand wove on wooden looms into loose shawls tied with hemp . They slaughtered the sheep and ate the raw meat in celebration of natures bounty. Really, who needs fossil fuels.
*
Nick, I found this to be a piece of poetry – Hope it’s okay, I’ve saved it to put on my wall!
🙂
Bamboo clothing is made out of rayon. The rayon is made by breaking down the bamboo. This of course only requires natural sunlight and sea water. /sarc
As one of “those Canadians”, I can give some input on why “we” don’t preprocess the bitumen coming from Alberta:
1. Oilsands production is already being scrutinized under a microscope. The tiniest increase of emissions or smallest pond that a few ducks get mired in makes headlines. Refining is not on the table right now because we’re inundated by Luddites too
2. Sending the raw bitumen, at a discount I might add, is more economical. Oilsands production is still at an early stage, and although things are MUCH better than 10 years ago the focus at the moment is still just getting anything marketable out of the ground
3. It’s far more efficient for both the producer and consumer to work with raw materials, It would be far more complex to refine product and ship it than it is to ship bitumen.
It’s not just that there is more capacity to refine near the Gulf, it just makes the most sense to produce a finished product nearer the point of consumption. Keystone XL is designed to transport bitumen, which is not sweet, or light, and requires further processing.
The whole thing is ironic, really. Alberta IS cleaning a massive natural spill, and there are amazing “reclamation” rules in place for these developments. The land WILL be better than it is now…. cleaner, more productive, better for wildlife. And I’d like to see that stuff cleaned up BEFORE the area is under ice again, because it will be eventually. And EVEN IF there was a Keystone XL related leak or spill, the product moving through the pipe is heavy and thick, much less likely to do any of the harm that people are afraid of.
Again, the whole thing is either motivated by self-interest by the extremely wealthy left, or motivated by ignorance of facts, or motivated by an essential failure to understand how puny human activity really is relative to the planet. On a related note, how is the Gulf dealing with the horrible aftermath of the “devastating” blowout? Lost all the fish yet?
Well said CodeTech. It is the largest ever clean-up of a natural oil release that we know of. It may have happened in Venezuela too a long time ago.
Protests are promoted against pipelines because of corporate and national interests. It is a surprise to me that so many Canadian NGO’s will take money to act as sleazy shills for narrow foreign interests. The head of one admitted to Anna-Marie Tremonte they took $3.6m in US funds to agitate against the pipeline to the BC coast on behalf of US interests. You can hear the interview on line (CBC radio) if you missed it. Anna-Marie’s response to this? Nothing whatsoever. Not an investigative question, not any sign of alarm. Is that high-level collaboration with foreign interests or journalistic incompetence? Hard to tell.
The best solution? Pipe it to the East Coast along existing pipeline routes.
outtheback says:
February 18, 2013 at 10:28 am
——————————————–
If the Texans have the technology to refine the tar sands why would they share it with Canada? There is money in refining. Plus the investment cost of building a refinery to ship oil down to Texas where such a refinery already exists? Seems like a waste of infrastructure investment. I’m in the mining industry and not oil & gas but I do know that high capital costs kill projects.
I feel that a data smoothing event has just occured.
Silly 350ers, global warming events are for summer!
I think the crowd was mostly from the lonely Occupy swine. They thought the large pipeline carried through the crowd was a giant reefer and they did not want to miss out.
Reminds me of The Guardian’s pictures of 350’s demos around the world in 2009. Thrill to the sight of literally dozens of people flooding major cities!
I’m sure The Guardian would love to have had every picture full of thousands of committed activists – in Boston the picture contains a whole 2 people.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/oct/27/350-campaign-climate-change-protest?INTCMP=SRCH#/?picture=354767634&index=0
The Newshour program on PBS just had on a spokesman from NRDC. He claimed 30,000 protesters, so they are already walking it back. But then he said 3.1 million new jobs from renewables in the last decade, and I swear his nose grew.
It was funny, the news only spent about 5 seconds on this story before moving on to something else. I was wondering why their footage was only of a single group of protesters instead of a wide view shot of a large crowd.
DirkH says:
February 18, 2013 at 12:54 pm
###
Brilliantly said!
I am sure the data points were ‘homogenized’ ….
Smoke, Lots of mirrors and a huge bucket of alarmist Bull Shit. Walla 40000 climate zombies. LOL
I’m reminded of an English football (soccer) team, Wolverhampton Wanderers. A club with great history and tradition, regularly drawing crowds of over 30,000 to their matches, they found themselves relegated to the bottom tier of the football league in the 1980s.
One dismal Tuesday night during this dark part of their history they found themselves playing a knockout FA Cup tie away at an amateur club called Chorley. They lost. The total crowd was 2,000 and it was not a long trip, even by English standards.
Fast forward to now. They’re doing well again, crowds aplenty. You will not find a fan amongst them who does not claim he went to Chorley. Anecdotally that crowd would have been 20,000!
To make this relevant, I’m thinking 350.org counted those who were there in spirit, as well as fact, much like the Wanderers!
Network37 says:
“I watched this McKibben … person.. on Al Jazeera a couple days ago – he downright lied several times. He blinked a lot..”
At least he’s learnt to blink, his doctors are making progress:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/tick_tick_tick/
It is a technical definition from anthropology. Check any introductory anthro text.
350, of course. 😉