My friend Elliot and I play outside the Plaza at the Extinction Rebellion gathering.

Saturday was the first NY Extinction Rebellion event in the US. I have a death shroud, so I had to go. You shoulda been there! Rev Billy started people singing and dancing and then they all marched down to Rockefeller Center. Because of my costume and my need to help Elliot move all his props with the crowd, I didn’t head down, but I missed two events of note. First, the protesters SHUT DOWN Fifth Avenue in front of St. Patricks Cathedral. The cops had to arrest the people carrying the banner, and it was quite a moment. 

But then there was this:

apologies to whoever took this for sharing. contact me and we’ll credit you.

Anyway,  Several brave activists took over the Rockefeller Center skating rink and someone draped the Prometheus statue with a banner. It was activism at its finest, and it advertised future actions in April. While this was going on, several protesters spread themselves out on the ice in the pattern of the Extinction symbol. I’m told that nine protesters were arrested for the usual (disorderly conduct, blah blah). 

A couple things I want to share here:

• I’m redesigning my Extinction Symbol sticker, which any of you can recreate. I’m updating it with the 4/15/2019 date for the future protests promised in the Prometheus banner. Remember, these stickers are not to be used as devices for vandalism–you wouldn’t want to cover a local gas guzzler with stickers because that wouldn’t be right. Even putting them all over gas pumps would be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
• they all knew flyer. I made a bunch of nifty flyers for the day. One of the reasons I joined on with Extinction Rebellion is that they have made a demand for Transparency from the government and corporate leaders. We didn’t just find out about global warming a couple years ago. The scientists who pioneered the research on global warming started noticing in the 19th century that the earth was getting hotter (and more moist). Dr. Guy McPherson (who I quote here) has been open about saying that if HE knew there was a problem decades ago, the people in charge also knew. Hence, a flyer. Click the link to download (it’s in PDF format). 

The flyer is a short history of how long we’ve known. It echoes many of the issues I brought up in a blogpost last fall, based on the infamous on-air 2008 fight Jon Stewart got into with stock adviser/prevaricator Jim Cramer.  The economy and the environment are intimately created, as this old meme reminds us:

My article tried to make the connection between lack of transparency on the economy (many feel we’re heading into another economic crash brought about by the same factors that gave us the 2008 meltdown) and the coming environmental disaster. My old canard was ‘They don’t plan to tell us’. but I think we need an honest accounting of what the people in charge know. 

So see you in April at the protests? I’ll be in a death shroud.