Around 30 people gathered at Union Square in Manhattan at 12:18 pm on Monday to make simultaneous cell-phone calls to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking them to support a strong international treaty to slash greenhouse-gas emissions and stop global warming. The event, organized via text messaging, was part of a global Climate Wake-up Call to world leaders, with similar gatherings happening at 12:18 PM local time in more than 2200 locales in 128 nations.
Many of the callers at Union Square encountered busy signals and full voice mailboxes — suggesting that calls were being made from hundreds of similar “flash mobs” up and down the East Coast at the same time.
The time is symbolic of the date December 18 — the last day of this year’s international climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen.
Advocacy group Avaaz.org has been getting live reports on Wake-up Call events around the world.
