Global Media Gaga Over Gorgeous Climate Mascot
Frostpaw, the Center for Biological Diversity’s climate mascot, took Wall Street and the nation by storm this week, setting YouTube, Twitter and Facebook afire; headlining newspapers around the world; and appearing on ABC, CBS, NBC and MSNBC. He was even profiled by The Washington Post.
On Sunday he marched with 400,000 people through the streets of New York City in the biggest climate protest in history. Worldwide more than a million people took to the streets, urging world leaders to commit to bold, concrete climate action at this week’s United Nations summit.
Also marching in New York were more than 200 people — including indigenous activists, Buddhist nuns and Catholic nuns — who rode the Center-sponsored People’s Climate Train cross-country to make their voices heard.
On Monday Frostpaw (aka Peter Galvin, the Center’s cofounder and director of programs) and I joined thousands of protesters in the Flood Wall Street march. Surrounded by a phalanx of police, bewildered stock traders and delighted New Yorkers, we marched from Battery Park to the famous Wall Street bronze bull, then on to Wall Street itself. Our message was this:
Carbon pollution and carbon profits are killing the planet. They are baking the Earth, acidifying the ocean, destroying human communities and driving species extinct. The poor are being hit the hardest and fastest, while the wealth-brokers and industry captains of Wall Street continue to rake in short-term profits from polluting the planet. The people will no longer let coal, oil, gas, transportation and agribusiness lobbyists block desperately needed action to stop greenhouse gas pollution.
But we did more than march — we laid our bodies down and got arrested for disturbing business as usual on Wall Street.
Peter and I were proud to join arms with thousands of people seeking climate justice for all and willing to risk arrest to bring our message to Wall Street, because that’s where it needs to be heard loudest. A night in jail is a minor inconvenience compared to the pain of villages overwhelmed by rising oceans; farmers ravaged by drought; hundreds of thousands forced to migrate by lack of water and destroyed infrastructure; and billions lacking the resources to deal with a dangerously heating, unstable climate.
Frostpaw’s humor, beauty and creativity brought worldwide attention to the protest, global warming and Wall Street’s blocking of climate action. Thousands of New Yorkers snapped his picture with cell phones — many of them hugging, kissing or posing their children with him — and posted them to Facebook and Twitter. His message and dramatic image made the front page in newspapers from New York to Dallas to France and India. National and international TV news programs interviewed him as he calmly explained why he traveled from the Arctic to Wall Street to talk to the people destroying his home and family.
Check out this video of the Wall Street protest, as well as these great stories in The Washington Post (“The polar bear who took on Wall Street”), The Guardian (“From activism to arrest: One polar bear’s adventure with Flood Wall Street”) and Deutsche Welle: (“Climate bear ‘Frostpaw’ says public uprising needed to fight climate change”).
Then watch this great Wednesday night studio interview on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes.
And check out more photos of the action in our Frostpaw slideshow and take action to save polar bears now.
