"The shoes are marching for us" 1 Favorite 

A 7-year-old's sneakers. An accountant's slippers. Gold heels with spikes and a piece of paper carrying a message: "Invest in renewable (energy) ... now."

Thousands of shoes stood in silent protest on Sunday in Paris.

Their owners, climate change activists who have descended on this city for a major U.N. climate summit that starts Monday, were banned by authorities from holding mass marches because of security concerns after the November 13 terror attacks, which killed at least 130 people.

But activists didn't let that stop them from making their message heard.

"The shoes are marching for us," one Parisian man, René Stroh, told me.

I came upon the display, which had the feel of a public art instillation in front of the Place de la République, not far from the site of the recent shootings. It was the perfect, somber response to the ban on mass protests ahead of the COP21 U.N. climate change talks. Handwritten messages on the shoes called for the world to abandon fossil fuels and avoid the most disastrous impacts of climate change. (by John D. Sutter)