A crowd numbering in the hundreds converged in the downtown core on Sunday afternoon as part of the People’s Climate March, a series of demonstrations hosted around the world to raise climate change concerns.
“It’s not an indigineous problem, it’s not a third world problem, it’s everybody’s problem,” said demonstrator Ashli Soto. “It’s humanity.”
The Olympic Plaza congregation, which included Liberal MLA David Swann and Green Party leader Janet Keeping, voiced their desire for Calgary, Alberta and Canada, to become leaders in emission reduction.
Alberta’s lightning rod environmental issue, the oil sands industry and its impact on the environment, was discussed at length at Calgary’s rally and at rallies around the globe.
Cody Battershill, with the pro-oil sands group Canada Action, says it's neither fair nor accurate that Alberta's oil industry be everyone's greenhouse gas punching bag.
“Canada is about one and a half per cent, 1.6%, of the world's greenhouse gas emissions,” explains Battershill. “The oil sands are about 0.15% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. It has been called not peanuts, but fractions of peanuts.”
The People’s Climate March coincides with the United Nations’ Climate Change Summit in New York which will begin on Tuesday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not attend the event but Canada’s Environment Minister will be present.
