Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
The numbers are rolling in…and they’re impressive in a odd way. Based on numerous news reports, somewhere in the neighborhood of 310 to 400 thousand people participated in the People’s Climate March on Sunday, September 21, 2014 in New York City. The parade was, of course, a precursor for the U.N. Climate Summit 2014, which begins tomorrow.
Yet the results of the U.N.’s Global Survey for a Better World, also known as MyWorld2015, show “Action taken on Climate Change” at the very bottom…the abyss…of things that matter most to families around the globe. See the screencap below. If you haven’t had your say, you can take the survey here.
Looks like the 310 to 400 thousand people who marched in Manhattan yesterday have priorities that are out of touch with the rest of the occupants of this lovely planet.
Considering the object of the U.N. meeting, maybe the marchers should have been calling for “honest and responsive government“, which ranked much higher than climate.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Ted Kennedy Jr. is calling once again for jail terms for climate skeptics (he uses the “D” word).
If there is ever a notion that screams “I don’t have the science on my side”, this is it.
Ted Kennedy Jr. or Robert Kennedy Jr.?
I personnally have seen Robert Kennedy Jr say this (on TV). The man would make a good commie.
I meant Robert Kennedy Jr, but was reading about Chappaquiddick. Multi-tasking infarction.
[Better a multi-tasking on-line infarction than an multi-person infartion… .mod]
310,000 out of a New York City population of 8,400,000 is about 3.7%..
That MyWorld 2015 survey had about 20% of the votes going to ‘Action taken on climate change’.
So where were the other 16.3% of NYC’s climate concerned population? I make the march short by 1,370,000. 🙂
Giants at Texans maybe?
It was mentioned upthread that the 310k figure represented the estimated worldwide turnout; for NY the estimate was 100k.
Karl,
And how many of that 100,000 were local residents out enjoying the party as it went by? The population of Manhattan is >1,600,000. Plenty of locals were out having fun — and adding substantially to the crowd numbers.
I didn’t see a single concerned face. Just about everyone was smiling and laughing, having a good time. And I suspect that the people who were providing the crowd “estimates” were the same ones who made this sign:
http://www.moonbattery.com/FuzzyMath1.jpg
The Radar O’Reilly Diploma Mill math question. 😉
Karl,
Yes you did. Sorry – missed it.
Climate change happened to be a common rallying cry of the marchers. But the real goal, as evidenced by the response in these interviews, appeared to be a desire for communism / socialism.
http://reason.com/reasontv/2014/09/21/what-we-saw-at-the-peoples-climate-march
And no one gave a cogent answer as to what they wanted.
Jamie Henn @ur momisugly Agent350 · 10m [Note the ID…]
I always thought “climate chaos” was a better term than “climate change.” # FloodWallStreet pic.twitter.com/F9ESotGHJf
japhetweeks @ur momisugly japhetweeks · 14m
“Are you getting arrested or not?” How people greet each each other at # FloodWallStreet
Fossil Free @ur momisugly GoFossilFree · 1m
Check out the crowd at # FloodWallStreet! pic.twitter.com/O96Af8GSyM [OK photo]
Now that’s funny, whoever you are
David Darnell @ur momisugly DlorenDarnell · 12m
“Climate protection has become a growth engine,” I’ll say. Have you seen the size of @ur momisuglyalgore? His homes? His jets? # FloodWallStreet
Bossy Darth Kitteh @ur momisugly eloracnasus · 4m
# CommieCon
It’s like comic con, just minus the showers, but still packed full of fantasy and sci fi!!
FlyoverStateofMind @ur momisugly TheMightyComet · 8m
Reading smart phone posts on Twitter from people condemning Capitalism at # FloodWallStreet is completely satisfying. # Hypocrites
@Steve from Rockwood, if you look closely at the graph, you would see that there is not a 100% correlation. The time periods could have been divided differently with similar results (for example, 3.2 mm/yr rise since 1985). Also, there is variability and even “hiatuses”, yet sea level rise continued to accelerate over decadal time periods.
Hudreds of thousands of unemployed Watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) indulged in a carnage of garbage on the streets and sidewalks of New York. Informed by the superstition of ignorance which inflates faster than superhelium, the inchoate mobs wandered around taking selfies and screaming about the evils of capitalism and blaming big oil, rather than their own guilty tech enabled soft lives of wasteful indolence. Today they want to stop the city just like the framebreakers broke the industrial machines in the first factories. Back then these people were flogged and broken on the wheel, now our society tolerates and encourages them to keep others from doing what they eed for their daily bread. And most of us need tat bread every day! These hysterics and paid activists should be given a lesson in civics, but it’s highly unlikely,given the leaderless state of the country. In actuality, their march will have no effect whatsoever on the climate debate. The public has voted, climate is the last thing they want to talk about or spend money on.
Too bad fot the hysterics whose only legacy is the mountains of garbage on the streets which will have to be burned!:]
“Hudreds of thousands of unemployed Watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) indulged in a carnage of garbage on the streets and sidewalks of New York.”
I would hazard a guess that quite a few of them are government lardasses.
Climate March Hare is just another reason for the disparate groups of homeless and trust-funders to party.
Bob Tisdale,
Two points that I think should be added to the context of your lead post.
First point is some historical perspective about the attendance at yesterday’s NYC climate march, with its ~310 thousand participates which was the number reported by news media, compared to some other well-known marches that were generally considered to be highly successful marches for their causes. Well, it looks like the Sept 21 climate march in NYC by numbers, in historical perspective, cannot be discounted as being comparatively also very successful. I say that based on this historical info on marches for other famous causes:
Second point is the UN survey you posted doesn’t indicate the relative effectiveness or organizational efficiency of any of the causes just based on survey numbers. The survey does not measure intensiveness of any group of people within any of the listed subject matter. The survey gives no rational person any reason to be less concerned about the danger from radical climate activism due its comparatively lowest poll numbers.
John
Welll….
375,000 would be about 0.185 of the US Population in 1969
From US Census — Historical
July 1, 1969 202,676,946
As for today.
310,000 of a the current US population would be: .. 0.098 percent
Estimated US Population for 2013-2014 — 317,297,938
All these are national and international issues — and sparked attendance from outside the area of the March — so it’s probably valid to say that there was half the interest — and this in a time when social activism is strong. So it was probably easier to get people out in these times of strong publicity for popular “causes”.
Something to think about
WillR on September 22, 2014 at 11:37 am
– – – – – – –
WillR,
Yes, yours is an interesting perspective.
I just wanted to add some critical perspective to Bob Tisdale’s post. Balance seemed needed.
John
Tide gauge data 1880-2000:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png
Same here . I am the biggest cheerleader for “global” warming. There are no indications in my part of the world that there is anything significant happening. When I no longer have to winterise my palm trees for a decade I will be more convinced than I am now.
I see a lot of similarity between the alarmists and big foot hunters. “See that broken branch? A big foot did that.” and “See those jellyfish? Climate change did that.”
Alyson Ann Cina @ur momisugly AACina · 19m
What Broadway just north of the charging bull looks like right now. # FloodWallStreet pic.twitter.com/UhGumGCoCT
[ground level, but well framed up street. few hundred sitters]
Chris @ur momisugly TheNYCBMX “@ur momisugly NatGat2014: # floodwallstreet panorama right now
pic.twitter.com/yDUsF4jJjt via GlobalRevLive @ur momisuglyRebelMouse http://rbl.ms/1ymubVS ”
[about a 180 deg panorama. worth a note]
350 dot org @ur momisugly350 · 3 m
Wow, check out this great video from above the # FloodWallStreet crowd earlier today:
//bit.ly/1C5IaOd [1:07 iphone vid from top of a tourist bus inching through the crowd.]
on.mash.to/1r0BDSA [photo from 8-10 floors up of the street around the bull]
Funny
Nicolás Feierherd @ur momisugly flaicaster · 22m
“@ur momisugly SooperMexican: Cardboard sign but $600 iPhones # floodwallstreet pic.twitter.com/RcGiGkcyOE”
Mirá la notebook @ur momisugly porliniers.
hashtags are forever @ur momisugly markwaterous · 2m
To the brilliant, “We don’t want Canada’s oil” people at # FloodWallStreet omgosh you’re right! Buying from the middle east, so much better.
Steve from Rockwood:
This is from Grace’s link. Notice that neither sea levels nor sea temperatures are accelerating:
http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/SeaLevel/SL+Nino34.gif
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/22/more-than-310-thousand-people-with-skewed-priorities-flood-new-york/#comment-1743677
The Reason video clip is pretty revealing. It makes it clear that 350.org has been successful at mobilizing the usual left-wing ‘activists’ (upper-middle-age academics, naive students, Unitarians, public-employee unionists, the Young Socialists, etc.) behind a basically inchoate slogan, “Climate Justice Now!”
What the heck does that mean? Nothing; it’s just the usual anti-corporate, anti-capitalist sentiment, tacked on to the ‘climate’ agenda of 350.org (and the White House). These Watermelons are just ‘useful idiots’ (in Lenin’s words) for the anti-American Marxist Left. They don’t know anything about climatology, and they don’t care to know anything, because they just want to be camp followers of ‘the movement’ of ‘the people’ against the evil capitalists who, they are told, are running (and ruining) the world.
They even claim they’re willing to do without all of the ‘stuff’ that the evil capitalists have foisted upon them. Don’t ask them about iPhones; ask them if they’d like to do without their washing machines.
/Mr Lynn
“They even claim they’re willing to do without all of the ‘stuff’ that the evil capitalists have foisted upon them. ”
Like Pizza. Vegan Pizza.
http://twitchy.com/2014/09/22/so-capitalism-is-okay-now-floodwallstreet-orders-pizza-for-brave-occupiers-photos-video/
“310 thousand people” supporting the progression of science to a universal frame directed through [social/political] consensus. The discomfort with uncertainty is understandable but poorly conceived. These well-intentioned movements inevitably lead to misaligned development with consequences for individuals, societies, humanity, and the environment.
Is their concern about human lives or something else? Make life, not abortion.
There are two types of people. Those who build up and those who tear down.
Chris Lehane, the PR boy in the back of the White House in 1994 who concoted the Conspiracy Theory at age 24 with Mark Fabiani, to cover Clilnton’s WH peccadilloes, is billionaire Tom Steyer’s new PR master. (According to NPR this AM.) Lehane and partner Fabiani are based out of San Francisco. I wonder if they organized the People’s March.
It is both amusing and sadly tragic at the same time to see how socialists and communists have infiltrated the environmental and climate activist movements and created a mythical link between anti-fossil fuels and anti-nuclear eco-utopianism and climate action on one hand and socialist/communist ideology on the other. One might even say that the movements have been melded together to one degree or another.
Is there evidence from history that such a link exists or is justified? In the old Soviet Union and its East European satellites? In Cuba today? North Korea? Where is the proof of such a link or association?
This is amusing in the sense that the radical left has to resort to doing something like this to maintain the movement in the face of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Yet it is also tragic in that there are so many people in the country (although hopefully a minority) who have bought into the idea that such an association can and does exist. Interviews and evidence displayed by individuals in the climate march yesterday in NYC would seem to indicate this.
If it is to be believed that socialism and communism are somehow more eco-friendly than the free market has demonstrated it is capable of being, then I believe the radical green left is going to have a difficult time convincing the majority in this country that it is true given that polls in the past (IIRC) have shown continuing majority support for fossil fuel usage and development.
To the extent that environmentalism, climate activism and socialist and communist ideologies have all melded together, environmentalism and climate activism now be seen to have somewhat of a black eye in the minds of those who value the principles of freedom, democracy and human rights that are held near and dear. If Bill McKibben and others of his ilk want to talk about divestment, they would do better to divest the environmental movement of its radical political leftist element.
CD (@CD153)
September 22, 2014 at 1:05 pm
“It is both amusing and sadly tragic at the same time to see how socialists and communists have infiltrated the environmental and climate activist movements and created a mythical link between anti-fossil fuels and anti-nuclear eco-utopianism and climate action on one hand and socialist/communist ideology on the other. One might even say that the movements have been melded together to one degree or another.
Is there evidence from history that such a link exists or is justified? In the old Soviet Union and its East European satellites? In Cuba today? North Korea? Where is the proof of such a link or association?”
In the late 70ies/early 80ies the anti nuclear environmental movement in Germany staged massive demos. The small communist parties of the time had no opinion about the environment, and it took them a while to register something they had always tried to achieve but failed: A mass uprising of ordinary people.
So they joined the movement and the new Green party and quickly rose to the top and purged the Green party from all non-hard left elements.
The persons were Trittin, Joseph Fischer, and Kretschmann; they came from the small K-Gruppen – which were controlled by the KGB.
Joseph Fischer became Foreign Minister under the socialist Schroeder in 1999.
So yes, the KGB infiltrated and used the environmental movement. The K-Gruppen BTW called themselves Maoist – as Stalinist had fallen out of favor in the 70ies with the discovery of the Gulag.
“If it is to be believed that socialism and communism are somehow more eco-friendly than the free market has demonstrated it is capable of being,”
I have visited the smouldering wreck that was the remains of the DDR in 1990 after its collapse. Socialism does not invest; it uses up the existing capital stock. From 1945 to the collapse they kept using the same dirty machines they inherited from the German Reich.
The only eco-friendly aspect of the DDR was its incapability to develop anything; it was a civilisation in retreat – and where humans let infrastructure decay, Nature will grow, trees grow through roofs of houses, destroying them (yes I saw that in many places).
Where industry still operated, it was wasteful and dirty.
Yes, East Germany and the Soviet Union were notorious for environmental pollution. It was the capitalist West that could afford to spend money cleaning up rivers, air, and toxic waste sites.
It is indeed mysterious what the appeal of discredited Marxism is for the neo-enviros; as far as I can tell, it is all sloganeering, the tired old “People’s Revolution,” however vague and undefined. “It’s good to be against stuff, so lets go march and be against it, too!”
/Mr Lynn
fwiw, more than 800,000 Americans attended professional football games yesterday, and more than that attended college football games on Saturday. More than that watched the games on tv. Friday Night High School games I don’t know about, but I would guess that attendees also outnumbered the demonstration in NewYork. I wonder how many people go trick-or-treating on Halloween. 3 million people publicly protested the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
311,000 is a respectable turnout, but it looks to me like a demonstration of diminishing political influence, not gaining influence.
Don’t forget to add in the rest of the world attendance at futbol games. Also consider that most of these people attend every weekend, not just a one time walk in New York. Now, an astute warmer would call for a stadium exhale tax on all those cheering fans worldwide who pump out massive amounts of CO2.
Tom, it would be interesting to stage a march of opposite philosophy, say “Disband the UN”, and see how many protestors would attend both. Just for the carnival.
Why stop there? Approximately 7 billion people worldwide breathed air yesterday. Any demonstration less that that is worth ignoring.
The bandwagon has legs–alas.
It will press on deeper into the Big Muddy.
===============
The size of this march will embolden warmists into acts of civil disobedience—and will make the authorities more timid about prosecuting them.
It will embolden Obama to turn thumbs down on the Keystone pipeline–and make it impossible for him to back down on on his EPA’s actions.
It will make Dem politicians warier about opposing warmism.
It will also make the media shyer about opposing warmism, and more eager to pander to its warmist audience.
It will strengthen many hangers-on in the feeling that they are on the winning side.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/19/this-changes-everything-capitalism-vs-climate-naomi-klein-review
The new approach is seduction…
“Klein argues that humans don’t cause climate collapse, and nor does carbon. The problem is a particular arrangement of these elements – in other words, capitalism, the whole point of which is to find resources and exploit them. It’s a habit of mind, if you like, a form of behaviour. As such, it can be changed. Except that most of the time we cannot see this, because we are “locked in, politically, physically and culturally” to the world that capital has made. “We lack the collective spaces in which to confront the raw terror of ecocide,” is how Klein encapsulates the problem. Lucky for everybody then that opening up such spaces is exactly what Klein does best.”
Hilarious so if humans don’t cause it, if carbon doesn’t, capitalism does… but how? Visibly scientific reasoning is not a forte of The Guardian, or Naomi Klein for that matter. Of course, CBC, The Globe and Mail -that is Thomson Reuters- open their pages wide to interview and op-ed by the author…
“The problem is a particular arrangement of these elements – in other words, capitalism, the whole point of which is to find resources and exploit them. ”
Klein is a liar or complete moron. Throughout its existence the Soviet Union found and exploited resources in Siberia. Profits were forbidden; and it was a centrally planned economy, so it obviously was not capitalist.
When you see Leo fretting about global warming just remember that the hypocrite has a carbon footprint as big as a….oil sheiks yacht
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2656850/Leonardo-DiCaprio-borrows-one-largest-superyachts-earth-treat-pals-World-Cup-style.html
May I suggest simply requesting that the organizers show us how many Porta-Potties were present along the march route. I’m not trying to be funny. The number of Porta-Potties contracted for (and I would hope NY put that in as a requirement for the march permit) would tell one everything they needed to know about the size, or expected size, of the event. And if you don’t see the contracts, well, photographs showing the line-up will tell the story.
Dear all,
I happened to be in midtown NYC yesterday to meet some old friends for lunch. The trains in and out were at normal half-empty capacity for a typical Sunday. I didn’t know this extravaganza was planned. I didn’t see any protesters anywhere around Penn Station the entire day. Perhaps they parachuted in.
Be very suspect about these attendee claims. I’ve been to NYC for many years on New Years Eve for private parties, and I can assure you the transit routes are jammed on that night.
7.1 Billion Demonstrate In Favor Of Global Warming
NEWS IN BRIEF • Sep 22, 2014
NEW YORK—In an overwhelming show of support for dangerously escalating temperatures, 7.1 billion people from nearly every nation on earth staged massive demonstrations yesterday in favor of global warming. “Whether they were sitting in their living rooms, watching football at a bar, or just driving somewhere, a sizable portion of the world let its support for climate change be heard loud and clear,” said environmental policy expert Janet Purvis, adding that the protest that began in the morning never lost steam at any point throughout the day. “This should serve as a wake-up call to officials around the world that the factors contributing to global warming are real, important, and must be protected at any cost.” At press time, the 7.1 billion protesters were reportedly making plans to stage similar rallies every day for the foreseeable future.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/71-billion-demonstrate-in-favor-of-global-warming,36984/
Wait a moment, Ur-leftist Onion now lambasts a socialist Global Warming event? Are they dying?
This post is good opportunity to remind folks that WE too can DIVEST – divest ourselves of a mainstream media who no longer has anyone’s interests at heart except their own left wing bias – divest ourselves from Hollywood, which is comprised of numerous hypocrites and self serving blowhards – divest ourselves from the manic, CAGW-loving weather media such as the Weather Channel and “Weather Underground” – and divest ourselves from businesses who would rather ride the wave of public acceptance through forging ties with socialists, communists and left wing extremists than providing us with goods and services.
We CAN politically defeat these people if we would rise up and divest ourselves from their influence. And it is working – look at CNN for example which is going nowhere fast, and the Weather Channel, which has been dropped by a major cable provider.
Aerial photos of the crowd please!
If sensational aerial photos were available of the reported several hundred thousand person gathering, one would think they’d be all over the media. But in all, the media seem to be taking a pass on the People’s Climate March, possibly in recognition of the fun we’re having here with the photos and signs of the individuals representing the hodgepodge of organizations that trudged thru NYC yesterday.
So far, the best photo I’ve seen was posted by Stephen Rasey
September 21, 2014 at 12:34 pm,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/21/paid-volunteers-for-the-nyc-climate-march/
Which photo shows a mob of people walking c15-20 abreast along a broad avenue & trailing of into the distance, if not petering out. I have no experience or skill in estimating crowd size but my WAG here would be about 20 or 30,000 visible.
This drone video shows a bigger throng:
http://qz.com/269303/watch-this-drone-capture-the-enormity-of-the-peoples-climate-march/
Pretty good crowd up to 100,000 visible in the drone video, again WAG.
but I’m coming up empty on any pictures of Mr. Ban linking arms with anyone, let alone the designated Hollywood celebrity shill, I mean UN designated Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio, who not only gets to be a movie star, but also a messenger of peace. Some guys have all the luck.
Meanwhile, over in the UK, is the Telegraph getting Grauniad disease?
Emma Thompson: ‘Climate changed deniers are bonkers’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/11112714/Emma-Thompson-Climate-changed-deniers-are-bonkers.html