Two vans and a big bus filled with truly great people—the new Climate Riders—on their way to New York City for the People’s Climate March pulled up to the First Watch for breakfast this morning in Columbus, Ohio.

Twenty-four hours on the road each way to march for a few hours against the corporations that are killing our planet.

Kansas/Missouri Climate Riders stop for breakfast in central Ohio on their way to NYC. Local author Harvey Wasserman is kneeling in front in his “Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth” t-shirt. Photo credit: Samantha Allen

“I hate the Koch Brothers,” one of them tells me over pancakes. “They are wrecking the Earth for all of us.”

Another, Chris, borrows my bike to ride down the street to a bakery, then does it a second time to feed the drivers.

I’ve come just five miles from my house on the east side of Columbus biking about a half-hour on my two-wheeler through the flatlands of Ohio’s state capital, where a corrupt, climate-killing legislature has been working to outlaw renewables, ban the sale of Tesla cars, kill passenger rail service, subsidize dying nukes and embrace fracking with all its corporate might.

These good folks have come from Kansas and Missouri. Overnight to Columbus, then all day to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where they’ll stay the night. Then two more hours into the city tomorrow morning. March through the day. Get back on the bus and into the vans around 9 p.m. Then ride a full day back to the far midwest.

Many have taken unpaid days off from work to do this. Some would like to stay a while in New York City but can’t afford it.

But they’ve all come to send a message to the corporate climate-killing billionaires.

“We need to make an impact,” one tells me. “Things gotta change.”