I think it was Bay Area 350.org that offered me a volunteer job during this climate action thing. Turned out during volunteer orientation that they wanted me to stand in front of BofA and urge the marchers to leave a walkway for everybody else to go by. Since I was already wearing my own orange Giants shirt they didn't give me a monitor shirt, which was fine by me.

        

It was still early, so I just took pictures for a while. Lots of activists with messages to get out to be seen!

  

     

Somewhere in there somebody gave me a press release that explained what the whole event was about. Click here to read that.

Bit by bit the area was filling with people who wanted to use their Sunday afternoon to stand against the Keystone XL pipeline.

        

  

     

     

     

Victoria said "I know at least your picture will be seen by some people." I felt complimented for a while after hearing that!

  

     

     

     

     

  

  

     

  

     

     

     

  

     

     

     

     

  

        

About this time the crowd was thinning. Everybody was headed for Justin Herman Plaza to listen to the speeches. I joined them.

     

There were lots of speakers, most of them were brief moving and clear. Unfortunately about all I remember is that Supervisor Avalos was one of them, and they all thought that the march had a great vibe and the Keystone XL pipeline needs to be fought into nonexistance.

  

The message of this sign came across to me as "We need to find ways to work with mother nature on this."

     

        

        

     

  

  

     

     

  

I managed to get to the train station just in time to wait 55 minutes for the next train. Before too much time passed I found myself talking to these two about the march. All of us had enjoyed it. Then the woman started talking about the joys of weeding out invasive species that choke out important keystone species of the local ecosystem. She is proud to be working on clearing the annual oat grasses out of this one valley so the native bunch grasses can once again provide shelter for young oaks. The hour passed quickly.

The next day there was a good story about the event on the news. A few days later my friend Jonathan from New York sent his picture from the real rally in DC: