The Young Push for Changes on Climate

Andrew Revkin highlights the youngest folks who push for action on the climate in his New York Times science blog Dot Earth. Here is an excerpt:
I first encountered lots of young people focused on global warming at the 2005 round of climate-treaty talks in Montreal.
Youths protesting at 2005 climate talks, by Andrew C. Revkin
Amid the throngs of diplomats and lobbyists and politicians in gray suits were sporadic demonstrations in which dozens of college students and 20-somethings chanted climate-ized versions of John Lennon songs (“All we are saying, is give youth a chance…”).
The message was that it was their climate being hijacked by today’s decisions, or lack of decisions, on what to do about emissions linked to rising temperatures.
Now the movement, much enlarged, is invading Washington, where several thousand young people from around the country have assembled for a meeting on climate and energy today, called Power Shift.
They are pushing an ambitious agenda: freezing carbon dioxide emissions and coal use, cutting the nation’s energy used 20 percent by 2015, and setting the country on a course toward cutting emissions of greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050. The goals largely mirror those of a new coalition of campaigners called 1Sky.
There’s more. Saturday is the day of the second annual “Step It Up” nationwide climate demonstration and teach-in (for all ages), aimed particularly at candidates for president and Congressional seats.
Monday is devoted to a mix of ’60s-style rallies and K-Street-style lobbying, with hundreds of students and young adults fanning out on Capitol Hill to testify at hearings and press their representatives to adopt an aggressive climate stance.
These campaigners have organized through campus groups and a galaxy of Web sites with names like itsgettinghotinhere.org, campusclimatechallenge.org, and energyaction.net.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.htm
Enjoy discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/

Low Carbon Diet Challenge

Cool America

Empower Your Community to go on a Low Carbon Diet

Host a Global Warming Café workshop this spring and be part of a catalytic movement to seed the grassroots and mobilize the political will for change!

Dear friend,

Imagine for a moment that for the next three months, Americans came together to do something about global warming. Imagine small and large groups gathering in our places of worship, town halls and community centers, to speak their minds and hearts about the global crisis facing us, and commit to taking action to turn it around. Imagine them being given the tools they need to reduce their own carbon footprints and the strategies to empower their communities to do the same. Imagine all of this leading to a collective pledge of millions of pounds of carbon reduction – and a powerful call to our elected officials to create bold carbon reduction legislation.

Now imagine you are a part of it!

This spring promises to go down in history as the three months that America leapt into action on global warming. Between April 14 and July 7, 2007 a series of four major events have created the backdrop for an unprecedented response to the climate crisis that threatens our future.

April 14: Step It Up 2007’s “National Day of Climate Action” is organizing over a thousand local actions to send a message to Congress to cut carbon 80% by 2050.

April 22: Earth Day 2007’s “A Call for Action on Climate Change” is organizing thousands of events worldwide promoting education and advocacy for carbon reduction on all levels.

June 5: United Nations’ World Environment Day 2007’s: “Melting Ice: A Hot Topic” is a call to individuals and communities worldwide to seek solutions to climate change.

July 7: Al Gore’s Live Earth “Concerts for a Climate in Crisis” on all seven continents is reaching out to 2 billion people with the message that the future is in our hands. It is time to act.

Each of these major events has the potential to be catalytic all on its own. But imagine what could happen if they were all linked together. We did. The result is our Cool America Campaign. We’re inviting you to join us in setting the course for our future.

In partnership with Step It Up 2007’s “National Day of Climate Action,” and in celebration of Earth Day, World Environment Day, and Live Earth, Empowerment Institute invites you to put your community on a Low Carbon Diet by hosting a “Global Warming Café” between April 14th and July 7th.

Based on the successful World Café large-group dialogue format, the Global Warming Café is a 4-hour participatory workshop that anyone can host to empower their community to become part of the global warming solution. Its easy-to-implement design engages participants in a heartfelt conversation about global warming, and then invites them to take personal action to reduce their carbon footprint through the Low Carbon Diet program. For those who are inspired to take action beyond their own household, it also provides the tools to launch a “Cool Community Campaign” to mobilize their community to reduce its CO2 footprint 20% by 2010.

We’ve put together a Café Organizers’ Toolkit on our website, where you can find everything you need to make your Café hosting experience almost effortless: a Café leader’s script, Low Carbon Diet slide show, a customizable event flier and press release, and reports and media coverage from recent Cafés. We’ll also be hosting free “Cool Community Tele-trainings” on April 4th, May 2, May 29 and June 26, which will include training in hosting a Global Warming Café.

Our Cool America Campaign goal is 1,000 Global Warming Cafés between April 14th and July 7th. You are invited to host one on any day during that time period, but we’re encouraging as many people as possible to host their Café on or around one of the four big days: 4/14, 4/22, 6/5 or 7/7. This will help you to generate participation, and will draw more media coverage.

At the end of each Café, we’ll invite everyone who is attending to make a personal CO2 reduction pledge. We’ll collect the CO2 reduction pledges made at Cafe's around the country, and enter the pledge totals from each Café on our website. If we’re successful in hitting our goal of 1,000 Cafés, this should result in a collective pledge of over 250 million pounds of carbon reduction.

This pledge will then be delivered to our local, state and national elected officials with the message: “As Americans, we have collectively committed to reduce our individual carbon footprints by 250 million pounds. We’ve begun doing our part for the planet and we need your help to take this all the way. Be bold. Create ambitious carbon reduction legislation. Together we will change the world.”

Make this spring a turning point for climate action in your household, in your community, and with your elected representatives – host or participate in a Global Warming Café. Visit http://www.lowcarbondiet.net/ to learn more and register your Café. And please help us spread the word by passing this message on to your friends and colleagues. Be the solution!

Sincerely,

David Gershon
President, Empowerment Institute
Author, Low Carbon Diet

P.S. For information on partnering with this campaign, contact: www.irejn.org.

Bill McKibben: Momentum is Building

In Alternet, Bill McKibben says that sees signs of hope that the momentum to solve the climate crisis is building. Here is his editorial in its entirety:

When we started Step It Up 2007, all of 10 weeks ago, 80 percent cuts in carbon emissions by 2050 seemed at the very outer edge of the politically possible. A week ago, youth climate activist Courtney Fryxell, who is helping organize one of the Washington rallies for April 14, asked John Edwards point blank if he'd commit to 80 percent carbon cuts by 2050. "Yes," he said -- and with that earned himself real respect as the first of the major contenders out of the gate on this issue.
He won't, I think, be the last. Because what he was responding to was a surge in grassroots political activism all around this country. For instance, a few hours before Edwards talked, a group of intrepid religious climate activists in Massachusetts set off for a 10-day march to Boston -- it was enormous fun to applaud them as they left the church to start their journey because they symbolized the way that faith communities have come to this cause in the last year.
The next night in D.C., 800 people gathered for an evening organized by Mike Tidwell and Ted Glick, tireless activists from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, who for five years have been holding much smaller gatherings, slowly building the movement. The huge throng, cheered by the music of Emma's Revolution, clearly sensed the turn in the weather. Meanwhile, Laurie David and Sheryl Crow are circling the country putting on shows; Al Gore just testified before Congress; everywhere the force is building.
For many years, speaking at one college or church or library after another, I'd tell people about global warming and they'd say: we can't break through the wall of special interest and inertia that keeps the solutions bottled up. And I'd say, that's right, we can't. Not yet. But eventually the day will come when events -- Hurricane Katrina -- provide an opening. And when that opening comes, we'll need every network, every plan, every small model to build on. So we'll be able to seize the moment.
That's what's happening. Across the country, people who have been working for years and people who have just started worrying about global warming are quickly joining forces. Step It Up is only the most dramatic example -- earlier this week we went past the 1,000-rally mark; April 14 is going to be one of the most dramatic days in American environmental history. People in every state will be raising their voices, and when that happens the power will help speed this new consensus into being.
The battle won't be easy, of course. But finally Exxon has some opponents they can't ignore. Momentum counts, and momentum all of a sudden is squarely on our side.

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.

Keep Stepping it Up

That's the message Bill McKibben is putting out through this New York Times puff piece about his Step it Up 2007 local demonstrations on Saturday, April 14.

“We don’t have a movement,” [Bill McKibben wrote in a recent article on Grist.org]. “The largest rally yet held in the U.S. about global warming drew a thousand people. If we’re going to make the kind of change we need in the short time left us, we need something that looks like the civil rights movement, and we need it now. Changing light bulbs just isn’t enough.”

All the scattered “actions,” as Mr. McKibben and Company are calling them, are to be photographed, with the results put up on the Web on the evening of April 14.

On March 14 Bill was also a guest on "On Point," an NPR show produced by WBUR in Boston. He participated in a debate about switching to a local, sustainable economy, based on his new book Deep Economy.

Learn more about Step it Up 07, join or create a local action at www.stepitup07.org.

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Light and Power. Visit us at www.irejn.org.

US National Climate Change Demonstration Apr. 14 2007

Hundreds of nationwide rallies will be held on April 14, 2007 to encourage the US Congress to commit to cutting Carbon emissions 80% by 2050. This event is being spearheaded by Bill McKibben, a well-know environmental and Christian writer. His 1988 book The Death of Nature is a seminal work about climate change. Learn all about the event and sign up your organization at http://www.stepitup2007.org/

Visit us at www.irejn.org