Major Climate Action on Walkway Over the Hudson

For immediate release: October 21, 2015

Contact: Cliff Weathers, Communications Director
Phone: 914-478-4501, ext. 239
Email: [email protected]

Organizers call on delegates to UN Paris climate talks to commit to “urgent carbon reductions.”

Who: Notable speakers are joining Friday’s climate action, “Walkway to Paris.”

What: The event presses for radical reduction in greenhouse gas emissions causing climate chaos. This requires local, state, national and international action, particularly at the United Nations Climate Conference November 30-December 11, 2015 in Paris.

Where: Walkway Over the Hudson, (Highland-Poughkeepsie, NY) with participants entering from both sides to engage in “rolling conversations.”

When: Friday, October 23rd, 1 p.m.-5 p.m. Press conference at the Walkway’s middle “bump-out” from 3 p.m- 4 p.m. Speeches and performances follow.

Why: Participants urge President Obama, the U.S. delegation, and world leaders heading into the Paris climate talks, commit to urgent reductions in carbon emissions, including CO2 and methane, a powerful greenhouse gas emitted during shale gas and oil drilling, fracking, processing, transportation and use. Demands include commitments to keep 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground and a just transition to 100% renewables by 2050.

Organizers: New Paltz Climate Action Coalition. Co-sponsors include Riverkeeper, Catskill Mountainkeeper, Clearwater, Coalition Against Pilgrim Pipelines, Citizens for Local Power, Protect Orange County, Protecting Our Waters, Scenic Hudson, many more.

Featured speakers and performers:

• Victorio Roland Vargas Mousaa, representing First Nations perspectives on climate. Roland performed the original opening ceremony of the Walkway with Pete Seeger. Roland, who began working with Clearwater in 1969, will open our program at 4 p.m. He will perform with his partner, Mindy Fradkin (aka Princes Wow), the last song Pete Seeger wrote with him, “Now Is The Time.”
• Jen Metzger, Councilwoman, Rosendale and Co-Director, Citizens for Local Power.
• Jeffrey Freedman, climate scientist, Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, SUNY Albany.
• Wes Gillingham, Co-Founder and Program Director, Catskill Mountainkeeper.
• Pramilla Malick, a community organizer and mother of 4 from Orange County leading fights against fracked-gas infrastructure in New York State. Pramilla represents Stop The Minisink Compressor Station and Protect Orange County.
• Ted Hall III, an educator, researcher, urban farmer, is an alumni of Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, and Bard College, where he co-initiated Sustainability commitments and curricula. Ted also organized key groups of the Occupy Movement.
• Jeremy Cherson of Riverkeeper will speak at Center Stage and will represent the Coalition Against Pilgrim Pipelines from along the Walkway. Representatives from Clearwater Environmental programs will also speak.

Visuals: Flags of 192 countries; banners, letter to President Obama, ribbons, large crowd, extremely diverse presenters, musicians, brass band. Buses from SUNY New Paltz and Bard; contingents from Vassar and other colleges.

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/754176838020827/