Downtown Rally for the Planet this Saturday

Cary, NC — This Saturday in Cary’s downtown park, local residents and Cary-based environmental advocacy groups will be gathering for a day of speeches, music and discussion.

Nine Groups Collaborating

The event titled, “Rally for Mother Earth” begins at 12 PM this Saturday, October 3 and is the first event hosted by the Cary chapter of the Sunrise Movement. The Sunrise Movement is a national organization of young people dedicated to combating issues like climate change, environmental justice and social justice.

“The Rally for Mother Earth is an opportunity for Cary citizens to express support for action to combat climate change at a local level, and to identify specific opportunities to get involved locally,” said Patrick Trombetta, a founder of Cary Green Energy Coalition.

The Sunrise Cary hub is joining forces with other local groups for the rally, including:

• Cary Climate Reality
• Cary Environment Action
• Cary Green Energy Coalition
• Cary Tree Archive
• Keep the Canopy
• Umstead Coalition
• Project Pando
• Toward Zero Waste

“As a collective group we all feel that addressing climate change is a matter of incredible urgency, as well as fairness to future generations,” said Trombetta.

Masks and social distancing measures are expected for all attendees.

Seeking Action from the Town of Cary

The Town of Cary has a citizen-led Environmental Advisory Board that made two sets of recommendations to the Town in March and June of 2019 — the Carbon Reduction Plan and Tree Canopy Recommendations.

According to Trombetta, the overarching theme of the event is to raise awareness and see the Town of Cary fully implement these recommendations, including:

• A reduction in town-wide carbon emissions of 25% by 2025
• Elimination of carbon emissions by 2040
• Achieving Tree Canopy cover of 56% by 2050

“Full implementation of these recommendations requires an ambitious initiative by the town and that is what we are advocating,” said Trombetta.

The rally will include topics of renewable energy, more sustainable development in Cary, increasing the town’s tree canopy and more. All speakers are local residents and activists of Cary.

Story by Ashley Kairis. Downtown drone photo by Jon Roach, rally graphic courtesy of Patrick Trombetta.

All the Cary news every day since 2009. Subscribe by email.