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A larger-than-projected crowd of 150, including teenagers, two activists named Tar Sands Sasquatch and Fracking Leprechaun, marched from the Federal Building to the Live Green Salt Lake City Festival at Library Square on Saturday morning. The parade was part of a global, weeklong awareness campaign about climate disruption, organizers said.

Singing songs, banging drums and cheering when passing cars honked their horns in support, the marchers were led by student activists in the iMatter movement. Others in the group were Peaceful Uprising members, a Utah group that lists environmental activist Tim DeChristopher on its board of directors.

"This is the beginning of a movement," said Nathan Zick-Smith, an 18-year-old student at Rowland Hall. Zick-Smith and 16-year-old West High students Sara Ma and Sierra Adler came up with the idea of the "marade" — a hybrid of a march and parade — to demonstrate that youth aren't blind to the climate debate raging in courthouses and government hearings across the world.

The marchers were restricted to the sidewalk after the Utah Department of Transportation asked iMatter Utah to buy an insurance policy, and obtain advance waivers and releases from activists. The youth organization, aided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah, filed a lawsuit against UDOT in response, but a federal judge on Thursday denied the request for a temporary restraining order that would have allowed the marchers to avoid buying an insurance policy.

But being relegated to the sidewalk didn't appear to diminish the spirit of the activists. Ryan Pleune, a 33-year-old Salt Lake City member of Peaceful Uprising, danced about in costume as Tar Sands Sasquatch, wearing boots, ripped clothing and a black wig.

Pleune explained he came up with the character, a refugee from British Columbia displaced because of oil extraction, the night before the march. Tar sands are also known as oil sands, and in the United States, oil sands resources are primarily concentrated in eastern Utah.

The marade also featured a white papier-mâché unicorn on wheels, which was labeled Clean Coal. "Clean coal is in no way clean," said Cori Redstone of Salt Lake City, who helped build the float, adding that clean coal is just as fictitious as unicorns. As part of his character's act, Pleune said Sasquatch was hunting the unicorn.

Pleune was joined on the march by Fracking Leprechaun, played by Steve Wood, 31, of Salt Lake City, who wore a green suit. Fracking is a technique of hydraulic fracturing used to increase the rate at which oil can be produced from shale rock or a coal bed, Wood explained.

Wood, who said his character was a villain, pranced around and handed out pennies to other marchers, telling them that he was giving them short-term profit in exchange for fossil-fuel rights that would lead to the population's ruin. On a more serious note, Wood said he became an activist after seeing his niece and nephew being sent to the emergency room last year because of Salt Lake valley pollution.

Saturday's event was among 47 marches planned in 23 states and six countries, according to iMatter's website. The movement began with 16-year-old Alec Loorz, of Ventura, Calif., who was inspired to create a nonprofit organization for kids to learn about climate disruption after seeing Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth."

In downtown Salt Lake City, as the marchers headed toward the Live Green Festival, they sang "Lean on Me," "This Land Is Your Land" and "Big Yellow Taxi." The march ended at the amphitheater behind City Library where, surrounded by vendors selling vegan dogs and electric bikes, the marchers sang "The Times They Are A-Changin.' "

"It's not over," said Sara Ma, the West High student.

The march ended at the Live Green Festival at Library Square, which featured interactive and educational exhibits, local and organic foods and goods, live auctions, a children's area, eco-carnival games, music and entertainment.

The second annual Tour de Brewtah, in conjunction with the festival, featured bicyclists — some dressed in costume — starting and ending at the festival and making the rounds of local breweries while raising funds for Splore, Utah Clean Energy and the Cottonwood Canyons Foundation.

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