But the march also was buoyed by another group of
rabble-rousing upstarts: environmentalists. Fresh off
their own nonviolent stand outside the White House -
where they spent two weeks protesting the proposed
Keystone XL oil pipeline - the re-energized U.S.
environmental movement has now found an even bigger,
broader stage. And like most factions of Occupy Wall
Street, it seems perfectly happy to share that stage
with other interests.
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"A few hundred" climate activists joined the Wall Street
march, according to 350.org communications coordinator
Molly Haigh, who says the Keystone XL protests have
revived a latent zeal in the U.S. environmental
community that's now dovetailing with Occupy Wall
Street. "I think it's been really huge, in terms of
generating a feeling of affinity," Haigh tells MNN.
"Obviously, 1,200 people were arrested as part of the
Keystone XL protests, so for a lot of those people it's
amazing to see this sort of awakening happening so
soon afterward. And some of the same folks who were
at those protests are coming back out, so it's really
exciting."
One of those folks is Justin Haaheim, a lead organizer
for 350.org in Connecticut who was arrested Aug. 31
during the Keystone XL protests and also attended the
Wall Street march. "It was one of the most inspiring
things I've seen in a long time in terms of the
environmental movement," Haaheim says of the
march. "I was surprised by how much there was a really
common message among all the protestors. It would be
really easy for something like that to have a million
different messages, but it was encouraging to see that
the environmental message was very widespread
and very meshed in with the broader Occupy Wall
Street movement."
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"They have profited off of the torture, confinement,
and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals,
and actively hide these practices."
