Last weekend in New York, the People’s Climate March came to town. Thousands descended upon the city to promote what some touted as “climate equality,” a curious environmentalist variation of other secular-progressive sacred cows: income equality, gender equality, “marriage equality.” This “equality” thing works well for the left. Might as well try to apply it to climate as well.

“Well over 100,000 people will be filling the streets of New York City,” predicted the organizers at their website, “and the Great March for Climate Action will be among them with all of the energy and stories from the people we have met so far on our cross-country journey.”

There in New York, the faithful held sit-ins, “convergences,” plenaries, “justice summits,” and workshops on topics ranging from “Mobilizing Families and Children for Climate Action” to a “Religions for the Earth” multi-faith service at a New York church offered up by the Religious Left.

There, too, in New York, the climate masses literally littered the streets, chanted “f—k the police,” and engaged in the usual, predictable leftist behavior. Various conservative websites chronicled their assorted antics, their celebrity airheads, and their myriad hypocrisies. No surprises.

The organizers added: “If you’re not coming to New York City, there may be a solidarity march you can join near you.” The website links to a People’s Climate Mobilization page  for information on the nearest planetary-solidarity march.

The self-ascribed mission and goal of the “Great March for Climate Action” is to “change the heart and mind of the American people, our elected leaders and people across the world to act now to address the climate crisis.”

The action commenced well before the display in New York last weekend. It started on March 1, 2014, when “dozens of climate patriots” set out from Los Angeles and began a cross-country trek that will ultimately end in Washington, DC, thus “inspiring action to resolve the climate crisis.” The stops in between New York and Washington will include Toledo, Kent, Oberlin, Cleveland, Youngstown, and (regrettably) my hometown of Pittsburgh.

The marchers have been directed “to adhere to a strict code of non-violence according to the principles employed by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.” Their march is aiming,

“to build the broadest possible public consensus and is focused strictly on the climate crisis. Marchers do, of course, have their own personal stories and perspectives. However, it is important that we stick to the core message, in unison, with our words, signs and public presentations.”

While the organizers claim a focused message, their list of participants and endorsers represents a varied coalition of all sorts of left-wing grievance groups from Berkeley to Greenwich Village -- from Physicians for Social Responsibility to the United Teachers of Los Angeles to something called the Committee of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Yet, shrewdly not listed among the supporters at the Climate March website is Communist Party USA. This must be a savvy PR move by the organizers, given that America’s communists and socialists are enthusiastically involved and doing their part to promote the march. On Monday, The Blaze published a piece with a bunch of photos and videos of Marxists and socialists at the New York City gathering. This included demonstrators from Occupy Wall Street, from the socialist publication, The Militant, and from the International Socialist Organization. The latter hoisted placards declaring, “FIGHT FOR A SOCIALIST FUTURE,” “CAPITALISM IS DESTROYING THE PLANET … WE NEED REVOLUTION, NOTHING LESS,” and more.

The website of CPUSA has a link to the march under the headline “People’s World: The people, Wall Street, and the planetary emergency.”

Particularly vigorous in pumping the People’s Climate March is People’s World, successor to the Daily Worker and the house publication of Communist Party USA. As I write, there are no less than eight articles on the march at the website of the flagship communist publication. These include the two lead articles in the rotating window at the site.

“Some 400,000 climate marchers paint New York green,” claimed one of the more excitable articles. It contended that “people flocked” to the event, including reliable dupes such as the Teamsters and United Auto Workers, locked arm-in-arm with their enormously destructive public-sector union brethren: AFSCME and SEIU, the very worst of the unions.

Among the features at People’s World, one of them, tellingly titled, “Get on board the CT Climate Train,” highlighted the work of a group of comrades from New Haven, Connecticut, where activists have been especially busy. There, wrote the People’s World correspondent, a geared-up coalition of “federal, state, and municipal officials, public and private sector unions, Christian, Muslim, and Jewish organizations, public schools, environmental groups, and peace organizations that have not traditionally collaborated are all finding common ground.”

Indeed, climate-change fighters, unite!

Such is the tone throughout the Climate March coverage at People’s World, which is clearly invigorated by this latest handy manifestation of the class struggle. As one of the articles at the website puts it, the debate over climate change “is ultimately not just a matter of tinkering with our technology and regulatory practices: Climate change is a challenge to the capitalist system itself.”

And that’s precisely its use to America’s communists and their fellow travelers.

Dr. Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His latest book is 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative. His other books include The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor and Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.