By Tinia Pina

Yesterday’s Forward Climate Rally gave hope.  It gave hope that we can collectively as individuals still seek the change that we want to be.  More importantly, it depicted the change we want to have in place now for the well-being  of our future generations.  I and other family and friends of Re-Nuble and other climate change advocates represented a variety of voices across all ages, demographics, and economic segments.  The sheer representation of 40,000 people in DC demonstrated that climate change is not a politically driven motive but instead a concensus showing our grave concern that burning fossil fuels is, in fact, heating the plant, our consumption is unsustainable, and we need to act on resiliency for the sake of our existence.

Below thirty degrees Fahrenheit, the blistering wind chills didn’t hold back our passion to make sure that all of D.C. heard our cries to act now.  We continue to ask for immediacy in policy creation such as placing a tax on carbon, levying higher environmental regulations to environmental polluters, and expanding the clean energy industry despite the looming impact that D.C.’s sequestration policy may bring.  These next few weeks will be interesting to see if Congress took our pleas seriously and decided to support or cut the funding necessary to sustain federal programs instrumental to our climate movement.

We can only hope for the best.

350.org’s Playback of the Forward Climate Rally