About two dozen hikers trekked more than 100 miles north then west the last two weeks, ending their “Great Ohio Climate March” on Thursday morning under blue skies outside the Statehouse.
Under the sun, and through bouts of floodwater left by rain, Great Ohio Climate March thru-hikers journeyed from the Athens City Pool to Salt Fork State Park in Cambridge to downtown Columbus. Around 180 hikers from Ohio and elsewhere joined them for varying legs of the march. Third Act, a national environmentalist organization of activists who are 60 and older, led the event.
“We were really looking at what we could do,” Third Act Ohio co-facilitator Mary Beth Naim said in an interview Thursday. “The legislation is not so friendly right now, in the state of Ohio or federally, but we wanted to look at what we could actually do.”
The route was determined some by the location of oil and gas wells, including those situated on state-owned lands. Naim said they saw “the beautiful areas of Ohio, but unfortunately, also some of the areas that really are suffering” because of drilling.
The activists met with scientists and naturalists along the way and were joined by a few Democratic lawmakers to finish, including Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson (D-Toledo) and Rep. Tristan Rader (D-Lakewood).
Rader has been vocal against drilling under state lands, an issue that has brought out environmentalists in force but largely fallen on deaf ears with the legislature.
“True justice means building a fair, sustainable economy,” Rader said Thursday.
Some lawmakers are listening on some other issues, Naim said, like data centers. “There’s starting to be a concern overall with data centers,” she said.
