Greenpeace

As the Story Tour continues to roll across the country, they’re not only finding a variety of ways global warming is affecting people, they’re finding a variety of events drawing people out to talk about it.

Urbana-Champaign saw two Story Tour events. On Thursday, August 28th, the truck powered over 3 hours of music. And on Friday, August 29th, the Rolling Sunlight set up in downtown Champaign.

The concert on the 28th provided a fun venue to bring people together and introduced us to some wonderful new members of the community. On Friday, state representative Naomi Jakobsson came to share her story after hearing about the concert the day before, and we also had an appearance by Democratic challenger for Congress Steve Cox, who
rode his bike to the event and pledged his support for science-based legislation to combat global warming.

It was great to see people so eager to share their stories. Folks were literally lining up to make sure Congress heard their stories. Events like this really accentuate the fact that people in east-central Illinois are doing their part to stop global warming. Nearly everyone
who attended the event walked or rode a bicycle, and all the energy used by the bands came through the squeaky clean solar panels atop the Rolling Sunlight truck.

We heard stories about people shopping at the farmers market, composting and recycling, riding their bikes more, and eating meat less. We also heard a lot about how much this community wants to see Congress take the lead on this very non-partisan issue. What we really need now is strong leadership in Congress on this issue.

More than anything, I think the two events we had here in Champaign-Urbana show that this community is trying to do it’s part. We just hope Representative Tim Johnson is ready to lead.

- Drew Chiaro
  Greenpeace field organizer, IL-15