MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — More than 1,000 Vermonters are planning to attend the New York version of what is expected to be a series of world-wide marches calling for solutions to the threat of climate change, organizers said.
Maeve McBride of the climate-change organization 350 Vermont said plans call for 22 buses to carry Vermonters to the Sunday Peoples Climate March in New York.
“This is a big moment in the course of this movement for climate justice,” McBride said.
She says other Vermonters will travel to New York on their own.
Some of the Vermont buses will be leaving on Saturday while others will be leaving early Sunday morning, to arrive in time for the New York march. The buses, which carry 54 passengers, will be picking up protesters from across Vermont. Seats on the buses were selling out quickly.
“It’s been quite a logistics puzzle,” McBride said.
The Vermont Public Interest Research Group has organized a Saturday rally outside the Royall Tyler Theater at the University of Vermont so people who cannot make the trip to New York will have an opportunity to demonstrate their support the movement. Other rallies will be held in other parts of Vermont.
Organizers of the national event are calling it the largest climate march in history. Similar actions are also scheduled to take place Sunday in other cities, including Rio de Janeiro and Lagos, Nigeria.
The marches come two days before a Sept. 23 climate change summit at the United Nations in New York. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited heads of state to the summit and President Barack Obama is expected to attend.
Vermont has a long history of working to fight climate change. Gov. Peter Shumlin has committed the state to getting 90 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2050, including transportation.
Many Vermonters, communities, schools and colleges are working to reduce their energy use. Two of Vermont’s electric utilities now get 100 percent of their power from renewable sources while others are working toward that goal.
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