Sept. 17, 9 am-- community on the train

9 am, Sept. 17

Got on the train in Denver last night after a “Whistle-Stop Rally” and sendoff by a hundred or so folks at Union Station. There are approx.. 170 “climate riders” on the train; lots of them are wearing blue “People’s Climate Train” T-shirts.

Quite a variety of us on this train. Last night it was the younger people who were most in evidence. At 8 PM I went to an education session presented by a couple fo the younger people from Colorado, they were teaching about the impacts of oil and gas development on Colorado’s environment, economy, and politics. In one car there was a very energetic group of young people dancing to music on someone’s phone.

I was awakened at 7 am this morning by the breakfast announcement over the intercom. Decided to head to the dining car for the first seating. I had breakfast with a middle-aged couple from Portland, OR, who are also on their way to NYC for the Climate March. She is a Unitarian minister. Seems like we somewhat older folks are up for the early breakfast shift this morning. Walking through the coach cars on the say to the dining car, I saw a lot of younger people who were still “out”.

There’s a great energy and sense of community on the train.  People talking energetically, meeting and greeting each other. Much different than traveling by plane, when people are squished together for a couple hours and communal conversation is pretty much non-existent. Just now two women sat down with me at my table in the lounge car.  One is from San Diego, the other from “the Bay area”.Louise has on a hand-embroiderd “350.org” shirt, and is just not taking a picture of Olivia, who is holding a small whiteboard on which she wrote a message to be shared on Louise’s Facebook page. And just now she took my picture, as well.  My message:  “The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth. Whatever we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves.”

There are various sessions scheduled throughout the day.  I saw a sign for free massages;  after a night trying to sleep in a coach seat, I just might have to take advantage of the offer.

In case you don’t know, not only is there a large march taking place in New York this weekend,  there are hundreds of other events taking place all over the world. You can see a map locating all the events at www.peoplesclimate.org.

In a couple hours we’ll be passing not far from Wartburg College, for which I work as co-director of the college’s urban-semester program in Denver, CO.I’m privileged to work for such a fine church-related liberal arts college, but I’m doubly privileged to be living and working in Denver. People on the train from the west coast have been commenting about the beauty of travelling through Colorado by train.

Big shout out to my man James, from San Fransisco, who just sat down with me and has a WiFi hotspot and let me sign on using it (no WiFi on the train itself). James has a start-up company called Bay Efficiency which is doing energy audits and efficiency plans for commercial buildings in the Bay area. Look him up!