Hello Jonathan:
What a magnificent day in Montreal. It was a bit hard to think, on such a cold and windy day, that the issue was global warming, but it seems nobody was deterred.
We began in the morning at the US consulate wheregroup of about 100,mostly young people from the US, gathered to deliver a petition with over 600,000 names of US citizens demanding real action on climate change.
The event was organized by Ted Glick who did so much to make this international event a success, and the petition had been jointly circulated by 4 US environmental NGOs. The US officials decided the crowd - the sweetest bunch of kids you ever saw - constituted a security threat, so a scheduled meeting with reps from the NGOs was cancelled. I think they were asked to slip the petition under the door (just kidding).
The march itself was organized to begin at two points in Montreal and converge at the conference centre where the climate change negotiations were taking place. When we arrived at Square Dorchester there were about 1.000 people in the park. Nobody knew how it would go or what to expect in terms of numbers, but people I spoke to seemed to agree that 5-10 thousand would be a real success. But people came pouring off the Metro with home made signs and banners there were no mass produced banners or signs on the march, an indication ofhow grass roots the whole thing was. Soon it became impossible to tell how big the crowd was. Some organized groups - Anglicans for Climate Action,UFP, PQ, NDP, a few union banners - but mostly families and groups of friends. All ages of course, but many, many young people. The park overflowed and the crowd filled Peel Street and part of St Catherine St. Every body began grin at each other, the sure sign that their optimistic expectations were being exceeded. A marshal told me that the gathering across town was huge too. When the march began to stretch out along Ste Catharine it became clear our contingent numbered in the 10_s of thousands. I was at the head of the march when the two groups converged - people whooping and embracing and marching arm-in-arm to the conference centre. Our group was chanting “Woooo, it_s hot in here. Too much carbon in the atmosphere!†Organizers pegged the numbers at 40,000 and I have little doubt they are right. The whole city centre was full of people smiling and talking to each other, wearing buttons and stickers demanding real action on climate change.
I_m attaching a couple of pix I took. The crowd shot is about half way through the march, and the end is not yet in sight down Ste Catharine.
Finally, there were a few buses from out of town, but this was a success because the people of Montreal took action.
More later Jonathan.
