The Carbon Sink Lives! Climate Change Rally on Monday

LARAMIE —  A rally and dramatic presentation regarding climate change will be held at noon Monday, April 15, on the University of Wyoming campus in the public, free speech area of Prexy’s Pasture.

The rally will call for truth and action on the climate crisis facing our country and the world. and will begin with brief testimony from climate change witnesses that include:

• Dalya Johana Smith Meacham, a 16-year-old high school student from Paradise, CA who survived the Camp Fire that destroyed her town.
• Juwan Willow, a Native American student at UW speaking about the effect of climate change on Indigenous peoples and culture. He will also read a message from the President of the Oglala Sioux Nation.

UW students will read accounts from witnesses who could not be present. Statements addressed to the rally from Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Jennifer Francis, two of the world’s leading climate scientists, will also be read.

Following these testimonies, there will be a dramatic, human re-creation of Chris Drury's controversial Carbon Sink art installation of 2011-2012. Using beetle-kill timber, this work of landscape art portrayed the damage that the burning of fossil fuels is doing to our planet. Under pressure from state legislators and the fossil fuel industry, the art installation was removed.

The re-creation will use people in the place of timbers to represent the threat of climate change. There will be some audience participation. A mock funeral and the assembly of a monument to Humanity will follow. The rally will conclude with a call to action.

The event is scheduled to last one hour.

The entire event will be filmed. UW student Kyriessa Lane will produce a documentary so that this event will have a lasting impact.

For more information about this event, contact Mike Selmer at 240-508-0743.