Düsseldorf, Germany
The Action Day for the Climate in Düsseldorf, Germany, was organised from 13 to 15h on the centrally situated Schadow square.
Rather than a march, it was a gathering and networking event with different speakers and activities to count the city into the globally distributed efforts to encourage leaders at the extra-ordinary climate summit in New York, to show more courage than in past occasions and listen to citizens who want decisive action.
North-Rhine Westfalia with its heritage of now abandoned coal mines and heavy industry has a contemporary climate debt of huge proportions by allowing energy company RWE to extract lignite in huge areas between Düsseldorf and Aachen.
These open cast mines not only transform the landscape for ever, oblige many towns and villages to move in a wholesale manner and change the water balance, but are amongst the biggest fossil fuel polluters by any standard. Click here for visual evidence.
Prof. Dr. Gößling was the principal guest speaker. Accompanied by music kids of all ages could colour a green house (see to the very left of the photo) and there were plenty of other activities in store.
While the tone of several posters and banners was frightful and spoke of the serious concerns about the effects of climate change, there is ample room for being more optimistic and build on the encouraging results of early adopters of climate proof economic activities. The key message is: Together we can do it!
Photos by Livia Bottoni.