On Monday morning, more than 1,000 people gathered in Battery Park in something called Flood Wall Street, a demonstration that comes on the heels of Sunday's historically attended People's Climate March. Flood Wall Street seeks to connect the economy with issues of the environment, and, appropriately, its website features the tagline "Stop Capitalism. End the Climate Crisis."
The campaign's mission statement reads:
Flood, blockade, sit-in, and shut down the institutions that are profiting from the climate crisis. Wear Blue.
On Monday, September 22nd at 9:00 am, thousands of people will gather at Battery Park in Lower Manhattan to confront the root cause of the climate crisis - an economic system based on exploiting frontline communities, workers and natural resources. On the heels of the largest-ever march on climate change, we have an opportunity to transform the economic system driving this crisis.
Wearing blue to represent the sea that surrounds us, we rise to the steps of the NY STock Exchange at 12:00 pm, flooding the area with our bodies in a massive sit-in -- a collective act of nonviolent civil disobedience 0 to confront the system that both causes and profits from the crisis that is threatening humanity.
Naomi Klein, the author of "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate," is set to speak before the sit-in. Last week on MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes," she said, "The fact is, if we're going to respond to this crisis, we need to break a whole bunch of the free market rules that these guys hold very dear. We need to regulate. We need to get in the way of the fossil fuel companies."
According to Reuters, at least 200 people have spoken out, saying that they will risk arrest during the event. "This civil resistance, civil disobedience, shows a commitment to the cause," said spokeswoman Leah Hunt-Hendrix. "We are trying to escalate this as an urgent issue and show how Wall Street is profiting from the crisis."
The event is one of a series of events taking place during Climate Week in New York City. The events coincide with the U.N. Climate Summit on Tuesday, Sept. 23.
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