By Chippewa Valley Post staff
Five local organizations will sponsor a Sunday afternoon rally focused on climate change, a day ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference that starts Monday in Paris.
The UN conference will bring together government leaders from around the world to discuss a global climate agreement. The conference will be the biggest gathering of its kind since 2009, with representatives from nearly 200 countries expected to attend. It is scheduled to run from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, with a goal of reaching a legally binding and universal agreement on climate change.
The free Chippewa Valley event is part of a global effort to focus attention on the Paris talks. It will be held from 2 to 2:30 p.m. near the solar installations behind the Chippewa Valley Technical College (CVTC) Energy Education Center at 4000 Campus Rd. in Eau Claire.
Jason Duba, an assistant transportation planner at the West Central Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, is the lead organizer for it, under the overall umbrella of 350.org. That group’s mission is to build a global movement dealing with climate change.
The local event on Sunday will feature a brief talk by Prof. Jim Boulter on the Paris Climate Talks and possible actions that can be taken at the neighborhood level. Boulter is director of the Watershed Institute for Collaborative Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
The Institute’s goal is to promote environmental awareness, and faculty associated with it collaborate to develop healthy, just and sustainable human and ecological communities according to Duba. He added that 350.org proposes that 80% of fossil fuel should be kept in the ground along with investing “in a just transition to 100% renewable energy.
”Local groups in the Chippewa Valley are coming together to sponsor this event and to encourage our leaders to work for this climate solution,” Duba said.
The five local sponsoring organizations are the Sierra Club, Transition Chippewa Valley, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Eau Claire Climate Action Now, and Progressive Students and Alumni. All will have representatives at the Sunday rally.
“Climate change is most certainly a global phenomenon – both in impacts and in engagement,” Boulter said. “This is why it’s so important that we gather together here to mark this crucial moment in time in solidarity with sisters and brothers around the globe.”
Boulter also serves as the co-coordinator of the Eau Claire chapter of Citizen’s Climate Lobby, which advocates for carbon fee and dividend legislation.
““What we need is a wholesale reorientation of human society away from fossil fuel use. And that cannot be accomplished without governmental intervention,” Boulter said.
Duba said that carbon fee and dividend legislation would place a steadily rising fee on the carbon dioxide content of fossil fuels, with the revenue from that fee going back to households. Additional information about this proposal can be found at https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend.
More information about the Sunday rally, a map, and an optional RSVP are available at http://act.350.org/event/global-climate-march_attend/11561.