“It’s time to take a stand, Congress lend a hand! If you have a soul, just say no to coal!” A group of 30 Wesleyan students chanted the slogan on Friday afternoon while marching down the streets of Hartford. Waving signs and banners and playing drums and maracas, the group walked from Senator Chris Dobb’s office to Senator Joe Lieberman’s office rallying for climate change legislation.
The march was organized by the Wesleyan 350 Group—a subgroup of the Environmental Organizers’ Network (EON). The number 350 represents the safe upper-limit of atmospheric carbon dioxide in parts per million (ppm).
The march started at Dodd’s office in downtown Hartford, where students met with a representative from the office to ask her questions about the Senator’s policies on climate change. Dodd is a strong supporter of climate change legislation and is currently on record supporting the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions through the Clean Air Act.
The focus of the march was to convince Lieberman, one of the key climate change bill drafters, to support stronger climate change legislation. Over the course of the ten-minute march from Dodd’s office to Lieberman’s office, students chanted slogans and handed out fliers to passers-by.
At Lieberman’s office, students expressed disproval of a recent development in the drafting of the Lieberman-Kerry-Graham tri-partisan bill on climate change. Lieberman recently reported that he wants to limit the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, which had been a key part of the Clean Air Act.
Students chanted, “Listen Lieberman to what we say! Please protect the EPA!” as they marched toward his office, stopping directly in front of the gold spinning doors while continuing to chant.
Dan Fischer ’12, one of the main organizers of the march, immediately started chalking “EPA” in giant letters on the sidewalk in front of the entrance. The original idea for the demonstration had been to write, “For our economy, for our planet, protect the EPA” and place ice cubes in the letters of the EPA to represent the widespread melting of the planet’s ice and the EPA’s authority.
Fischer was instantly met with resistance. Two men wearing suits came out of the office building and began to harass him and pushed him away from the sidewalk. The property manager and several guards who were on duty confronted the group with verbal and physical aggression, claiming that the sidewalk was private property owned by Constitution Plaza.
Several students tried to explain that they were participating in a non-violent demonstration. They continued to chant and wave signs to garner attention and support from the surrounding buildings and the people walking by.
“We were in touch with the police ahead of time and they said that it was perfectly okay to have a demonstration on the sidewalk if we stay on the sidewalk and don’t use loudspeakers,” said Juliana Gaertner ’12, a member of the Wesleyan “350” group. “The office owner disagreed and said it was private property.”
Students began to dump buckets of ice on the ground to spell out the letters EPA, and put up orange cones, caution tape, and “Caution: Global Warming in Progress” signs to make sure that no one would slip. The property manager of the plaza, a red-vested burly man in his sixties, stormed over, kicked the ice away and seized the cones and the caution tape. He demanded that we leave the sidewalk because it was private property, or he would call the police. After we refused to leave the front of the office building, the three men went back inside, presumably to call the police. Students continued chanting and talked to interested people walking by.
Toward the end of the demonstration, several staff members from Lieberman’s office came outside to speak with members of the group. We explained to the staff members our hope that Lieberman would strongly defend the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions and strengthen climate legislation that is currently under debate in the Senate. The staff members promised to hand Lieberman our “350” petition, which all of the attendees of the march had signed.
“I think lobbying politically is always a very hard thing,” said Aja Mathews ’13, one of the organizers of the march. “In terms of effectiveness, I think that it [the building workers opposing the march] decreased the effectiveness of the rally. That being said, we met with Lieberman’s staff and explained to them our intent. I think that that will eventually be effective.”
The march was part of an ongoing attempt to raise awareness within the Wesleyan community and the greater Hartford area about climate change and the 350 ppm upper-limit level. A march with Yale, University of Connecticut, and Trinity College students was planned earlier in the year, but was cancelled due to rain.
The Wesleyan “350” Group has also been active on campus. A photo was taken on Foss Hill of several hundred students forming the numbers “350” with their bodies for the “350” call-of-action day in October. As students marched in Hartford on Friday, they carried a banner spelling out the numbers “350” with a collage of individual photos of Wesleyan students holding a “350” sign.
“The march was also really effective in building a community in terms of Wesleyan students with people who are really concerned with environmental issues,” said Erin O’Donnell ‘12, a member of the Wesleyan “350” group. “This is laying the groundwork for what will happen next semester in terms of legislative development.”
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