Climate Strike: Sidewalk Protest for Climate Crisis in Santa Cruz, Sept. 26

CLIMATE STRIKE: "Forest" of People with Protest Signs of Climate Crisis News Headlines

When: Thursday, Sept. 26 @ 5 PM - 6:30 PM

Where: busy blocks of Pacific Garden Mall in Santa Cruz

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 two actions will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 24 noon-1:30 and on Thursday, Sept. 26 from 5 - 6:30 pm. Both will occur on busy blocks of Pacific Garden Mall. We’d love everybody from any group and no group to join us!

A 'FOREST' of SIGNS:

Participants will be creating 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 experiencing on the other side. You will choose both headlines that you would like on your sign. Each sign will be unique, not repeating the same headline from the same publication as another participant. You will be provided a link to an organizing document to see which headlines have already been claimed and to claim your headlines as well.

So what makes it a forest? Our formation. We will deploy ourselves on both sides of a busy block of Pacific Ave on Tuesday and on Cooper St. on Thursday. 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. Some of us will be clustered and some will be spaced out randomly, like a forest. In our pocket each of us 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.

NEED HANDBILL VOLUNTEERS:

We also need at least 6 people for each day who won’t carry a sign but will be handing out quarter sheets to the people weaving their way among us. You will be interacting with people if they so wish, but the rest of us will 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 in the notes part of the document (the last field).

If you are interested in being in this action, please follow the link and sign up on the interactive document. Be sure to fill out all the fields.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FBVDv5KosMrg63I-1cCjNeoaK9AMga5MjmHvAgqgvHg/edit#gid=52961842

The organizing document will lead you through the steps of choosing your headlines, choosing whether you’d like me to print your sign or do your own printing, and determining the size and make-up of the signs, clothing, etc. If you can only do one of the two actions, that’s fine. Just let me know that on the organizing document. 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.