The Peoples Climate March took place on Trump’s 100th day in office, and came on the heels of a series of executive orders from the White House aimed at stripping away environmental policies implemented during former President Barack Obama’s tenure.
Trump has started dismantling Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which aims to curb carbon emissions by imposing strict regulations on electric plants. He has also signed orders encouraging offshore oil drilling, and rolled back a rule prohibiting coal mining companies from dumping debris in public waterways. The White House is also working to overturn a complex Obama rule requiring federal agencies to take into account the impact of climate change when implementing policy.
There were paper mache puppets of Trump and Scott Pruitt, Trump’s chief of the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt has close ties to large polluters, including Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries, and he has inaccurately claimed that carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming.
While some of participants at the rally held the signs with bleak messages, most were upbeat. Many urged Trump to remain in the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement, which locked in ambitious climate commitments from 144 countries across the world.
Many signs simply said, “There is no planet B!” One borrowed a line from the Star Wars movie franchise, proclaiming “May the forest be with you.”
Marchers banged on drums and chanted rhyming couplets excoriating Trump’s policies. When the march passed by Trump’s new hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, thousands made crude hand gestures and booed loudly, cried out “Shame!”
Attendees from Ben & Jerry’s displayed a large paper mache Earth melting on top of a waffle cone. “If it’s melted, it’s ruined,” read a sign on the cone.
The march was peaceful. Police officers posed for photos with demonstrators.
Hundreds of Vermonters traveled by bus, train and rail to the nation’s capitol for the Saturday march. U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., hosted constituents for an early breakfast gathering near the Supreme Court, a similar event to one he held in January before the women’s march.
Leahy told the crowd, “You don’t have to convince the three members of the Vermont delegation, we are on your side.”
“Hallelujah!” one woman shouted.
“We have climate change deniers in the Congress, as usual,” Leahy continued, sounding exasperated. “We sure as heck as do in the [Trump] administration. They have put, into key positions, people who are so anti-environment they wouldn’t get elected dog catcher in Vermont.”
Leahy wore a polo shirt bearing the logo of the ECHO Center in Burlington, a museum focused on the ecology of Lake Champlain. Leahy has helped secure millions of federal dollars to help clean up the lake. During a press conference at the ECHO Center in March, Vermont’s senior senator warned that Trump’s environmental policies, if implemented, would take a “machete to essential investments in our communities.”
The White House is recommending a 30 percent reduction in EPA grants to states, while agency staff would be cut by 20 percent. These cuts would phase out of a number of federal programs, many of which are implemented in Vermont. They include grants for brownfield cleanup sites, as well as federal assistance through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and the Clean Water State Revolving Fund.
EPA money that supports cleanup of Lake Champlain is also in peril. The estimated federal contribution for phosphorus runoff mitigation is $1 billion over a 20-year period.
Leahy, who serves as the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, has been in late night, one-on-one negotiations with Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., for days. Leahy said Saturday he had negotiated with Republicans to remove roughly 110 “poison pill” funding measures, including money for a southern border wall.
He told the gathered crowd that he had been up until 1:30 a.m. negotiating spending levels for the rest of the fiscal year, and he returned to negotiations shortly after hosting the breakfast.
The breakfast featured Vermonters of all ages and backgrounds, including dozens of students from the University of Vermont.
Amy Seidl, who teaches at UVM in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, said the school’s bus to the march sold out in under 10 minutes.
She said that while organizers thought they had rented a charter bus, a big yellow school bus showed up, and students crammed in to ensure they got to Washington.
“The contortions of the people on this bus was amazing,” Seidl said. “Six-foot tall men, small double-seats, people lying in the aisles.”
Seidl, who has taught at UVM for six years, said Trump’s election was a pivot point for many students.
“If young people are pessimistic about today’s leadership, they are optimistic about how engaged everybody now is,” Seidl said. “I see a beautiful optimism, where students want to transcend federal leadership and Trump’s government. If there was complacency before, young people are now standing up for their rights.”
In recent weeks, UVM students have testified in the state legislature in favor of a carbon tax, and a new student group, UVM Stands, has formed on campus to address climate issues. Seidl also said many of her students were heartened by a recent presentation in Burlington from Todd Stern, the chief negotiator at the Paris climate agreement.
Kim Frampton, a UVM sophomore focused on environmental studies, was able to vote for the first time in 2016, and the results have spurred her to action.
“This election was really formative for me and lots of young people,” she said. “I’m very distressed by the way this administration is headed, but also optimistic. We have a problem with our government, but we can change that.”
Jessica Nejame, a sophomore studying political science and environmental studies at UVM, said her passion was sparked a few summers ago when she went with friends to Long Island Sound.
“I was out in a harbor, on a paddleboard, with a bunch of my friends,” Nejame said. “We were laying back, watching the colors in the sky and I had this moment where I realized I didn’t want to have to tell the next generation that the world was once a beautiful place, but is no more.”
Jillian Scannell, a freshman studying Environmental Studies, started UVM Stands after Trump’s election. She said that the group has continued to attract members, and that she wants to keep it active throughout her college career.
“We have a nine hour bus ride back up to Vermont, so we are going to talk about our next steps,” Scannell said. “But, looking into the future, we want to continue our activism.”
