As the world begins to truly reckon with the immensity of the threat, and our movement grows to the scale of the problem, we ask ourselves what could move millions of us through our fear and grief and into action? What, in a word, is the Climate Justice movement's equivalent of the AIDS Memorial Quilt? Our answer: The Climate Ribbon — a massive public art installation and ritual space to grieve all that we stand to lose to Climate Chaos.

On September 21st, 2014, as the United Nations prepared to meet for yet another summit on climate change to produce yet another hollow treaty, over 400,000 people converged in New York City for what was the largest march against Climate Chaos in world history. The launch of the Climate Ribbon was the culminating art installation at the People’s Climate March: a Tree of Life sculpture hung with thousands of ribbons telling stories about everything we most cherish that Climate Chaos threatens to wipe away: The Gulf Coast, next year’s harvest, the future of our children’s children, the bees, clean air and water…

The Climate Ribbon project invites people around the country, and the world, to share these stories and thread them together. Collectively, these ribbons compose a kind of “people’s treaty,” inspired in part by Northeastern Native American quahog and whelk shell wampum belts that signify the mutual exchange of trust that takes place when commitments are made between peoples.