Global Climate Convergence Quotes

Richard Monje, Vice President of Workers United, opened the forum saying, “We are committed to working together across sectors to understand each other’s struggles and cultures to break down barriers and respectfully build alliances to make this convergence and the first Earth Day to May Day actions successful to build toward 2015.”

Tim DeChristopher, a climate justice leader recently released from a two year jail term for protecting fragile public wilderness from illegal, destructive fossil fuel extraction said, “It brings me a lot of hope to be in this room of people filled with ideas for the change we want to create in line with our shared values. It is no longer possible to maintain the status quo. It is so vital that we come together in this convergence of all our movements to commit to build the world we know is possible.”

Sheri Mitchell, Indigenous leader and attorney from the Penobscot Nation said, “This convergence is a manifestation of the Rainbow Warrior Prophecy, told to me many years ago by a Hopi Elder, that when that time of great crisis arrived people from every corner of the world would rise up... I am honored to stand here with you knowing that I do not do this work alone.”

Chris Williams, author and organizer for System Change Not Climate Change, added, “What we have been doing up to this point has not been working. Clearly we have to come together in a new political movement. We need to think about how we change our values --- to value human relationships and our relationship to the planet and nature.”   

Deeq Abdi, a youth organizer, student and poet from the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign called out to the young audience saying, “It’s our turn. We need some young leaders to come up and help take the movement forward... We are all fighting the same machine - corporations, capitalists and the people who are destroying the planet slowly, but surely.”

Margaret Flowers, healthcare and anti-TPP activist of PopularResistance.org, commented, “I learned from my fight for single payer healthcare that we cannot sell out our agenda to a political system that is corrupt. History tells us that if we come together and work strategically that people power is much stronger than the power we face. It is up to us to determine what we put on the table. We have to engage in deep political education and at the same time continue to build the alternatives that are now happening in communities across the U.S. and across the world.”

Mic Crenshaw, cultural worker and chair of the Political Committee of the Hip Hop Congress, led the audience in call and response before his spoken word performance, saying, “Revolution is right here, people's power is right here, liberation is right here, in every city, every hood and every block… everywhere.”

Jill Stein, physician and environmental health organizer, summed up, “Working together across fronts of struggle and national borders allows us to harness the transformative power we already possess as a thousand separate movements sweeping the globe, rising up to stop the global assault on our economy, ecology, peace and democracy. The growing climate disaster intensifies all these struggles --- worsening the attack on workers’ rights, poverty, resource depletion and war that further drive climate change. We are all in this together. We must act together and we must act now.”