192 Political Ecologies On Sunday, September 21, 2014, two days before world leaders met at the United Nations for an emergency climate summit, more than four hun- dred thousand people gathered in New York City for the People’s Climate March. Together they moved through Central Park West like a colossal cloud. Advancing past the Museum of Natural History, flowing around Columbus Circle, and funneling through Times Square, the group would stop at differ- ent locations, sometimes standing for a moment of silence to remember the victims of climate change, sometimes to sound a “climate burglar alarm”— a collective warning against the fossil fuel industry and politicians intent, as the protesters saw it, “on stealing our future.” The march was convened by a coalition of organizations and was intended to bring together a community concerned with the impact of anthropogenic climate change. Beyond its sheer size, the most distinguishing aspect of this community was its diversity of purpose. Since the green movement emerged in the 1970s, protests have shifted focus: from the environment to the climate, from the immediate to the totalizing, from the ethics of saving to the ethics of protecting. Where envi- ronmentalists once led the protests, today we see a broader base of support. Indigenous leaders and social justice organizers now join in leading the Cloud Formations: Climate Change and the Figuration of Community Carson Chan “I see a face. Do you see a face,” Flaka Haliti, 2014. Courtesy of the artist. Many of the ideas in this paper were developed in conversations with Sria Chatterjee, Esther da Costa Meyer, and Kimia Shahi. An early version was presented at a conference called “Dealing with Climate Change: Calculus & Catastrophe in the Age of Simulation” (June 25–26, 2015), hosted by Leuphana Uni- versity, Lüneburg, and convened by Isabell Schrickel and Christoph Engemann. Con- ference respondent Ulli Vismaier’s suggestions helped me expand my scope, and Curt Gambetta’s point- ers helped focus the argument. 1 “Special 3-Hour Broadcast of the People’s Climate March,” Democracy Now!, September 21, 2014, http://www. democracynow. org/live/peoples_ climate_march. 2 Paul James and Manfred B. Steger, “Levels of Subjective Global- ization: Ideologies, Imaginaries, Ontol- ogies,” Perspective on Global Devel- opment and Technology 12 (2013): 19.