Speaking of people who make it difficult for us to maintain our well-earned cynicism, Saturday’s Step It Up 2 climate rallies were, by all accounts, a grand success. Following up on the first Step It Up in April, the movement — spearheaded by author Bill McKibben — spurred some 1,000 rallies across the U.S. From gorilla-suited speakers in San Francisco to John Edwards keynoting in New Orleans, the public came together to urge creation of more “green-collar” jobs, a moratorium on new coal plants, and reduction of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Meanwhile, 5,500 enthusiastic students gathered for an all-weekend Power Shift climate conference in Maryland, and today have moved to D.C. for a day of global-warming lobbying.
