Called Building Blocks Against Climate Change, mass demonstrations – from today until Saturday, Dec. 12 — are planned across the world. They are demanding that international leaders, presently meeting in Paris for a global Climate Summit, implement policies to stop climate change now (http://againstclimatechange.org/).
This project was launched by the Converging Storms Action Network.
In Southern California, a broad array of organizations and groups, coworkers and communities will join in on the final day of global action, Dec. 12, gathering along Wilshire Boulevard, from Vermont to Western, from 1 o’clock to 4 in a chain to be called Building Blocks Against Climate Change.
How is Building Blocks different from past protests? This is called “a new kind of action, a grassroots, decentralized, self-organizing, multi-group, multi-block mobilization.”
Each cluster meets at its chosen site, speaking out on climate however it thinks best.
Potentially, the approach is uniquely powerful. Since the groups will convene on sidewalks, no permits will be needed to gather or to divert traffic beyond barricades. Protestors can interact with the public directly.
Organizers say it is not necessary to agree on points of unity/slogans/speakers. Each participant may decide for himself or herself how to interact, what to do or say, bringing one’s own signs, flyers, demands, and approach.
Groups thereby retain the kind of diverse, grassroots autonomy found in L.A.’s vigil movement. Activists believe they are building what friend Bill Miller called a “come -as-you-are, do-your-own-thing, potluck demonstration.”
Yet protestors can combine efforts in a face-to-face, feet-on-the-ground, simultaneous, sidewalk step-out, raising voices together at the same time, in the same place, on the same issue: Stop Climate Change Now.
