Environmental author Bill McKibben has been proclaiming the message of global warming in his loudest voice for nearly two decades, only to have it fall on deaf ears. Today, even as our politicians awaken to the scientific truth that the entire planet is at stake, they are too slow to act. It was this sluggishness that prompted McKibben and six graduates of Middlebury College—where McKibben is scholar in residence—to found a movement, Step It Up. The group organized 1,400 simultaneous rallies in all 50 states on April 14, calling for an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. That goal, once seen as radical and out of reach, gained wide support following the April action. Besides receiving the support of all the leading Democratic presidential candidates, pending legislation in the House and Senate experienced a critical boom of co-sponsorship (HR 1590 has 142 co-sponsors—none of them from WNY—and S. 309 has 19 co-sponsors). Encouraged by that success, Step It Up’s organizers decided to organize another event for this Saturday, exactly one year before we elect our next Commander-in-Chief. Calling for new, proactive leadership, each event is to be held near a site that commemorates great leaders of the past. And that, according to local organizer David Kowalski, is why Buffalo’s rally and march will start at the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site. The march starts at 11am and will proceed south on Delaware to the McKinley monument in Niagara Square. A rally with speakers will follow.

Saturday, November 3 at 11am. Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site

(641 Delaware Ave.) Free