USA Today On Keystone XL Rally: ‘Tens Of Thousands Demand Action On Climate Change’

So that was a heck of a rally. I welcome readers who attended to share their thoughts and pics.

If you missed it, you can get details from USA Today‘s story “Tens of thousands demand action on climate change.” Or from the Sierra Club news release, “More Than 35,000 Strong March on Washington for Climate Action.”

And then there’s always the Climate Progress twitter feed — my first mass tweeting from an iPhone.

I loved the combination of passion and knowledge that was driving the day. I had the chance to talk to a bunch of the speakers and was impressed by the strength of their commitment on climate in general and Keystone XL in particular.

Van Jones made clear that all of President Obama’s other accomplishments would be wiped away if he approves Keystone, since future generations are going to judge all of us on the basis of the actions we take on climate.

I was very impressed with the celebrities who came, that they had substance to go with the style. How great to have Rosario Dawson explain that it is called “tar sands” and not “oil sands.” And in chatting with her afterwards, it’s clear she also understands the spectrum of clean energy solutions.

And Evangeline Lilly (aka Kate Austen from Lost) was there as a Canadian to apologize to all the Americans in the audience for her country’s ceaseless efforts to send the dirtiest of fuels our way. I have seen every episode of Lost but lost my nerve to tell her how much I enjoyed her show except for the last five minutes, that is. It’s not like she was one of the writers…. But I digress.

I had a long talk with Tom Steyer, the billionaire hedge-fund manager who helped lead the “No on Prop 23? campaign to save California’s climate law in 2010. He is also on the board of CAP. He is full throttle that we have to act — and act now — if we are to avert catastrophe. He said to the crowd that he has spent a lot of time reviewing investments and Keystone is a bad investment for this country.

It is good to see a movement with passion from the top all the way down to the roots.

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Thousands Of L.A. Citizens Choose Groceries Over Handguns

(Photo Credit: Rick Loomis/ Los Angeles Times)

Thousands of Los Angeles’ citizens lined parking lots yesterday in a chance to exchange their guns for groceries in a city-organized buyback program. The event, normally an annual Mother’s Day event, was pushed up to Wednesday by L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the aftermath of the tragic shooting in Newtown, CT.

City officials offered up to $100 in gift cards to a local grocery chain for rifles, handguns, and shotguns, with assault weapons fetching more, up to $200 in cards. Despite moving the date, turnout was extremely high, with the two parking lots where the buybacks took place finding themselves overcrowded at times by eager sellers. In fact, the city found itself surpassing last year’s total of 1,673 guns by yesterday afternoon:

Many came bearing more than one gun. They pulled 22 pistols from the trunk of one white Honda, a haul that earned the driver $1,000.

Two men in a pickup truck with two children in the back seat handed over a rifle, a pistol and a MAC-12, altered with a silencer.

While the majority of the guns retrieved were handguns and other small-scale weapons, at least “a few dozen” assault weapons were taken off the streets as well. One of the first guns purchased in the buyback was a Bushmaster rifle of the same model as those used in the Conneticut shooting and a planned attack in New York where two firefighters were targeted and killed.

Since its inauguration in 2009, the gun buyback program has purchased over 8,000 guns from L.A. citizens, according to Mayor Villaraigosa. While gun buyback programs are not the most effective way to lower gun violence, they do reduce the supply of firearms in a community. Several other communities will be running their own in the near future, including Newtown’s neighboring city Bridgeport.

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