The Walk for Climate rally was held on Sunday, Sept. 22 at Courthouse Plaza on Eighth Street and Walnut Street. The event featured speakers followed by a 5k walk around downtown Columbia and campus.

The event was hosted by Mid-Missouri Peaceworks and co-sponsored by the Mid-Missouri Group Sierra Club, Renew Missouri, Columbia Earth Day Coalition, Citizens Climate Lobby of Jefferson City, Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation, Mid-Missouri DSA and the League of Women Voters of Columbia-Boone County.

During the rally, various speakers discussed climate actions and issues in Missouri and globally.

The issues discussed included efforts to promote clean energy in Missouri, the importance of voting for climate action in upcoming elections and the interconnection of war, peace and environmental justice.

Mark Haim, Director of Mid-Missouri Peaceworks, said the rally aims to address the urgency of climate change while considering the issue in the upcoming election.

“We don’t support or oppose specific candidates, but we encourage everyone to find out where the candidates stand on issues, and in particular on the issue of climate change,” Haim said. “It is critical what comes out of this November’s elections on all levels, federal, state and local.”

During the rally, Carolyn Amparan, Chair for the Sierra Club’s Mid-Missouri Group Executive Committee, spoke about ongoing efforts by Columbia for renewable energy and highlighted what voting for the climate entails.

“It means knowing your candidates and knowing if they’ll take climate action to protect the climate that we’ve lived with for 10,000 years, because we don’t know what we can expect from our future climate when we put all this greenhouse gas pollution into the atmosphere,” Amparan said.

Roughly 60 community members gathered at Courthouse Plaza with signs and walked around downtown Columbia and the MU campus.

From 2015 to 2021, the city of Columbia decreased greenhouse gas emissions by 1.5%. For some residents, this is not enough. Jeff Stack, one of the coordinators for Mid-Missouri Fellowship of Reconciliation, stated that his participation in the climate rally was just one way to voice his concern for climate change.

“It’s a really small step to try to show my concern for the lack of progress that’s underway [and] to try to minimize climate disruption,” Stack said.

Stack is not the only citizen who is concerned about the lack of progress. Luke Jensen, a community member at the rally, also voiced the importance of raising awareness.

“Climate change is a really dire issue,” Jensen said. “I feel that spreading awareness and just getting out and at least doing something and not standing by is a good thing and I hope to at least make a small difference with the people here.”

Organizers of the event invited political candidates from both major parties to speak about their stance on climate change at this event.

“Unfortunately, not a single Republican responded with any interest, and Democrats, most of them said, ‘we’ve got another event going on,” Haim said. “When we asked them if they could send surrogates, they didn’t.”

Without political candidates present, organizers had to find other types of leaders to speak on the topic. Organizers chose to focus on climate issues in relation to the upcoming election, without endorsing or supporting any particular candidate at the local or state level.

“So it’s not that we’ve got a party preference,” Haim said. “We’ve got a preference for clean energy. We’ve got a preference for climate action. We’ve got a preference for doing what needs to be done and getting it done now or as soon as possible.”

Molly Jones, another Columbia community member, led chants with a megaphone during the walk. Chants like, “No more coal, no more oil, keep that carbon in the soil,” and “hey hey, ho ho, climate change has got to go,” were heard in the streets.

This year’s climate rally and walk attracted attention from locals who could be seen chanting words of encouragement and honks of support to participants as they passed and drivers who repeatedly honked and chanted out their windows as they passed.

Edited by Julianna Mejia | [email protected]
Copyedited by Claire Bauer and Hannah Taylor | [email protected]
Edited by Emily Skidmore | [email protected]