Over Labor Day weekend, 2006, hundreds of people joined writers Bill McKibben and John Elder for a five-day march from Ripton to Burlington in an effort to raise public awareness of global warming. This powerful example of community and grassroots action ended with a rally in which over 1,000 people gathered at the Burlington waterfront to meet with the Vermont candidates for U.S. Congress and governor, and ask them to sign a pledge that they would take immediate, meaningful action on climate change if they were elected to office.