Climate strikers plan to halt D.C. traffic again this Friday

The organizers behind this past Monday’s “#ShutDownDC” protest that brought traffic to a standstill at key city intersections to call attention to climate change are preparing to demonstrate again tomorrow. Activists say they are building on the momentum from the earlier action, in which roughly 2,000 people from a variety of groups are said to have participated and almost two dozen intersections were blocked for some amount of time.

“Monday’s #ShutDownDC mobilization was a huge step forward, but we still have a long way to go to create the level of disruption that we’ll need to force the politicians and rich power brokers to abandon their program of delay and inaction so we can move forward with a bold program to address the climate crisis,” the organizers say on their website for the event. They are planning to meet at McPherson Square at 7 a.m., according to an update sent out by text message Wednesday night. That would position them near dozens of busy downtown roads.

Details about the specific locations where the protesters aim to demonstrate have not been released. The additional strike comes at the end of a week of global climate action, timed to coincide with the U.N. Climate Action Summit. Last Friday in D.C., thousands of students and others marched to Congress to demand that officials work to mitigate climate change. After the summit occurred Monday, the U.N. released a report Wednesday finding that sea level rise and more extreme weather threaten coastal zones occupied by 680 million people.

Update, 4:15 p.m.:

The climate activists say they will march from McPherson Square to four specific locations downtown: the Trump Hotel at the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue NW as well as the offices of WellsFargo, BlackRock, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

#ShutDownDC organizers