Asked in Town Talk to rate their concern about climate change on a scale of 1 to 10 (Town Topics, May 14), area residents mentioned numbers from 7 to 11. One young Princeton mother was “a 10 concerned” because “we’re not prepared” and “it doesn’t seem that anyone is doing anything about it, which is the scariest part.”

On Sunday, September 21, hundreds of thousands of people committed to “doing something about it” will join the Global People’s Climate March, an unparalleled worldwide mobilization on climate change; the epicenter of the international event will be Columbus Circle in New York City, where as many as 100,000 marchers are expected to gather at 11:30 a.m. One objective is to bring the issue to the attention of world leaders at the United Nations Climate Summit that convenes on September 24.

Helping to make sure Princeton is well represented Sunday are Caroline (Callie) Hancock, group leader of Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), and CCL’s “one-man publicity machine” author Huck Fairman, who reports that  Sustainable Princeton’s September 9 newsletter numbered the organizations involved at 850. Area colleges and universities, notably Princeton and Rutgers, are organizing buses for students, faculty and staff; churches bringing groups to the march include Unitarian Universalist Church and Christ Church. Sustainability Coordinator at Princeton Day School Liz Cutler reports that groups from the PDS community and elsewhere will be taking a train together (for a reduced rate). Said Ms. Cutler, who teaches English at the school, “My grandchildren will ask, what were you doing when you knew there was a problem, and what will I say if I don’t do anything now?”

Among CCL members boarding the train to New York is retired Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory physicist John Schivell, who said he and his wife are going to the People’s Climate March “because we feel it’s time to get something done now!”

Editor of Princeton Nature Notes Stephen Hiltner, who alerted area residents to the New York event in the September 10 Town Topics Mailbox, calls it “a crisis of the collective. We’re allowed to collectively create a huge problem like climate and sea level destabilization, but because of the ideological bias against intentional collective action, we aren’t allowed to work together to solve the problem.”

From all accounts, Sunday’s march will be the ultimate in collective action, billed on all sides as “the largest demonstration on climate change in history.” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said, “This isn’t just about getting a bunch of people to New York to march for an hour then go home. This is about making sure that the tipping point in the fight to halt climate disruption tips in the favor of the average citizen and clean energy prosperity, and that the world’s leaders see that the support to do so has reached a level that can no longer be ignored.”

Detailed information about the parade route can be found at Peoplesclimate.org. Local residents looking for information about groups attending can contact Callie Hancock at climatecallie@gmail.com or Liz Cutler at lcutler@pds/org.