Step It Up 2007 at William and Mary

[Ed Note: Pictures to come soon, hopefully.]

I volunteered at Step It Up 2007 at William and Mary today.  For those of you who don’t know, Step It Up is a nationwide climate change rally held on April 14th, 2007.  On this “National Day of Climate Action,” people all over the country held rallies (there are over 1,400 total rallies, at least one in each of the 50 states) calling for Congress to take action now on mitigating climate change, and asking them specifically to reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2050.

The day began at 8am.  I helped lug some tables and chairs from William and Mary’s campus center over to the Wren Courtyard, the area the event was being held.  Next, I helped carry some tall bamboo from the small bamboo forest we have at William and Mary over so we could hold up signs promoting the event high enough so the farmer’s market across the street could see.

After the bamboo was acquired, I walked over to the farmer’s market across the street with a few members of William and Mary’s Student Environmental Action Coalition to pass out fliers informing people that our climate change rally was just across the street and we would have speakers, free food, and free compact fluorescent lightbulbs.

Most of the people I tried to hand out fliers to were pretty polite, regardless of whether they accepted the fliers or not.  However, there was one gentleman who started yelling at me when I asked him if he’d like to stop by the rally.  The conversation goes as follows:

Me: Excuse me, sir, would you be interested in walking across the street to check out a climate change rally we’re having in the Wren Courtyard?  We’re asking Congress to cut CO2 emissions to help mitigate the problem of climate change, and we have speakers, free food, and free compact fluorescent lightbulbs available.
Man: So exactly how much carbon dioxide should we emit?
Me: As little as is feasibly possible, sir.
Man: You don’t know.  Nobody knows.  Global warming is a big lie!  It doesn’t exist!  [at this point the guy is yelling pretty loud and his son, who is standing right next to him, looks really embarrassed, as his father storms off, stomping his feet]

I’m not sure how you go from the idea that if someone doesn’t know exactly how much CO2 should be emitted that global warming doesn’t exist, but oh well.   Of course, the man didn’t want to actually talk about climate change, he just wanted to say “NO WAY” and leave.

On both sides of the debate, it’s a shame when people won’t hear what the other side has to say.  If you believe climate change is a real issue and that we should do something about it, you should still pay attention to what the skeptics have to say, because at the same time, we don’t want to mitigate too much more CO2 than is necessary, because mitigating CO2 costs money.  On the other side of the coin, if you’re a skeptic, you should pay attention to what proponents of CO2 mitigation have to say, because if it turns out that climate change is as disastrous as many predict, then perhaps it would be better to take action than to do nothing.  It’s almost as if people pick a “team” and refuse to acknowledge that the other “team” has anything valid to say.

Anyways, overall, the rally was great.  It was raining, so I didn’t think that many people would come out, but there were actually quite a few people that came out, and many who were very enthusiastic about the cause.  It will be interesting to see the national reaction to Step It Up, as many events occurred around the nation today.  Hopefully this will reveal to Congress and the administration that American citizens are truly concerned about climate change, and will vote for politicians who will do something about it.