NORTHAMPTON — Two years ago, leaders of more than 100 countries, including the United States, agreed to fight climate change with the Paris climate accord.
Since that time, President Trump has announced a U.S. withdrawal from the global pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions. However, despite the president’s announcement, students, activists and the mayor of Northampton want the world to know that they are still in the fight against climate change.
On Sunday night, more than 100 people met on the steps of Northampton High School and marched to City Hall, urging government action — specifically from Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and the Trump administration — against global warming.
The march, under the banner “Reclaiming Our Future,” is part of a statewide effort to convince Baker to adhere to the Paris climate accord in Massachusetts, irrespective of what the U.S. does at the national level. It took place on the eve of the United Nations climate conference in Bonn, Germany, which, according to the U.N., is the “next step” for governments who agreed to the Paris climate accord.
Students from Amherst Regional High School, Northampton High School, local colleges and other young people joined Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz in leading the march, while a trail of activists and concerned citizens followed. They marched through the rain holding signs reading, “Now!” and “Youth Rise Together,” to chants like, “Climate is under attack; what do we do? Stand up, fight back.”
“It’s important that cities like Northampton send a strong message that, despite the president’s thoughts, we are concerned,” Narkewicz told the Gazette, calling climate change a “No. 1 crisis.”
Narkewicz criticized Baker at the event, saying that a governor who cares about climate change would not be cutting PVTA funding.
Marty Nathan, a member of the steering committee for Climate Action NOW whom Narkewicz introduced as his favorite Northampton “rabble-rouser,” also feels that the Republican governor is not serious about fighting climate change because he continually supports pipeline building in places like Weymouth, Greenfield and Sandisfield.
“He (Baker) has never met a pipeline he doesn’t like,” Nathan said.
Narkewicz said he found it encouraging to see so many young people marching in support of clean energy, and symbolic that they would do so the night before the climate conference in Bonn.
“For this generation, it’s so important. It’s their future that is at stake and their children’s futures that are at stake,” Narkewicz said.
According to Esperanza Chairez, a junior at Amherst College, the science surrounding climate change is clear, and members of her generation should band together to fight against it. She is frustrated with government inaction and says both the Paris climate accord and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol have been ineffective at combating climate change. The planet, she said, is suffering the consequences.
“Florida will be under water by the time I’m 35, according to some projections,” Chairez said.
Leif Maynard, a junior at Amherst Regional High School, holds a similar opinion, and said he marched to tell Baker the time for action against climate change is now, and that government complacency will not be tolerated.
“I love my home, and it’s moments like this right here that make me love it most,” Maynard said to the crowd. “Look at the faces around you. This is what global warming endangers.”
Maynard said that the president’s “dirty power plan is a direct affront” to Northampton, and hurts places that have suffered recent natural disasters like Puerto Rico and Haiti.
Aislyn Jewett, a sophomore at Northampton High School, said politicians may claim to be interested in profit and economics when supporting fossil fuel usage, but ignore the economic concept of externalities — the sometimes-unquantifiable costs to society. She said that the deaths of animals, and the disproportionate damage that natural disasters do to low-income communities are both externalities of continued reliance on fossil fuels and a changing climate.
When marchers arrived at City Hall, they heard several speeches, including that of Hampshire College Professor Michael Klare, who came to talk not about climate change, but about nuclear war. He said that the issues are related, though, and that the $1.5 trillion to be spent on modernizing the nuclear weaponry of the United States means $1.5 trillion that will not go toward things like clean energy.
The event was sponsored by Climate Action NOW and Springfield Climate Justice Coalition, and co-sponsored by 29 other organizations.
On Monday, the second leg of the event, billed as “Stand Up, Charlie,” will take place in Springfield. It will be held in front of the state office at 436 Dwight St. from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m.