Citizens Climate Lobby Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz for Bernie are joining forces to create two actions during the week of the Global Climate Strike, Sept 20-27.  The first action on Tuesday, Sept. 24 had over 50 participants creating a forest of climate headlines up and down Pacific Ave.  The second action will take place Thursday, Sept. 26 from 5-6:30 pm on Cooper St.  We’d love everybody to join us!

Participants will be forming a forest of climate crises and climate adaptations/solutions headlines.  Each of us will hold a sign with an actual climate crisis headline on one side, and an actual headline describing efforts to intervene or mitigate or adapt to the crisis we’re now on experiencing on the other side.  If you weren’t able to make your sign already, we have about 20 signs available to use.  Each sign is unique, with no repeat headlines.  

So what makes it a forest?  Our formation.  We will deploy ourselves all along the block-long street and meander around the corner if we are too dense a forest for passersby to navigate.  We will space ourselves like trees in a forest so people going about their business will have to weave their way among us, like walking through a forest.  

In our pocket whoever can will have a cell phone whose alarm is set to go off at some point during the 1.5 hours that we will be rooted on the sidewalk.  As our alarms multiply, so will the effect of walking through the headlines forest.  If you are unable to stand for 1.5 hours, it would be great to bring a little stool or chair to root yourself to. Some trees are young and just springing up.

We also need at least 6 (or more!)  people who won’t carry a sign but will be handing out quarter sheets to the people weaving their way among us.  Those participants will be interacting with people if they so wish, but the rest of us can just be trees, not looking to talk to anyone (you know how trees are).  The quarter sheets will advertise local groups like ours and others that people can get involved with.  If you’d like to be one of those people, let me know when you RSVP. 

If you are interested in being in this action,  please email Lmarin@cruzio.com.  Tell me if you are borrowing a sign in order to be a tree or handing out quarter sheets and welcoming passersby to the forest.  If you let me know you are coming, you will be sure to receive the instructions I’ll be sending to everyone participating prior to the event.  It’s not a bad idea to include your phone number as well.

I hope you will join us.  The more of us trees on the sidewalk, the more we will be able to impress the public with the plethora of news coming out now about climate disruption, something nobody should be able to ignore any longer.

If you haven’t already, I strongly suggest signing up for Magi Amma’s Climate News Roundup at http://hotair.magiamma.com/ This is a rich and skillfully curated collection of climate news that is a resource for all of us.

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