In Photos: Peoples Climate March Draws ‘One Hell of A Lot of People’

An estimated 200,000 take part in Peoples Climate March in Washington, D.C., with tens of thousands showing solidarity from afar

By Deirdre Fulton, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 4-29-2017

Photo: @AltUSDA_ARS/Twitter

From coast to coast and across continents, people marched for environmental justice on Saturday, sending a clear message to the climate-denying Trump administration: we’ll fight your fossil fuel-soaked agenda every step of the way.

Organizers said that an estimated 200,000 participated in the flagship Peoples Climate March in Washington, D.C., while tens of thousands more demonstrated at more than 350 solidarity events in cities across the United States as well as in Asia and Europe.

“I can’t begin to describe how long and lovely the #climatemarch is,” 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben wrote on Twitter. “It goes on essentially forever.”

According to a press statement from the Peoples Climate Movement, by 1:00pm, the D.C. march “had clearly exceeded” its permitted space by over a dozen blocks. By 2:00pm, “organizers had succeeded in their goal of completely surrounding the White House,” read a subsequent statement. “Marchers sat down in the streets in a silent sit-in to recognize the damage caused by the Trump administration over the last 100 days and those who are losing their lives to the climate crisis.”

“Six months ago, my kids woke up to half a foot of water in our living room,” said Cherri Foytlin, director of BOLD Louisiana and spokesperson for the Indigenous Environmental Network. “Now, [President Donald] Trump wants to open up the Gulf Coast to even more offshore drilling. But we have a message for him: we are not afraid, and we will not stop fighting. With 100 and 500 year storms now coming every year, we are fighting for our lives.”

Below, some photos and video from the day thus far:

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