It's Getting Hot In Here

It looks like a headline from The Onion, but it is entirely true:

Hundreds of Millions Remain Peaceful In Face of Annihilation

As the story of the Discovery Channel hostage-taker makes it’s way through the media, those opposed to the sane management of the earth’s remaining resources will undoubtedly take the opportunity   to disparage all of the millions of environmentalists around the world and their ideas. [Update: they already are] However, I will argue that the opposite interpretation is more appropriate.

Organized by 350.org, October 24th 2009 was "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history," according to CNN, with 5200 actions in 181 countries. No incidents were reported.

There have always been poor, misguided souls whose mental afflictions have led them to take as their own the cause of some group or another and turn it into something violent. No great effort of people, no movement for justice has ever become large without trapping in it’s gravity the occasional lunatic.

It is not surprising, then, that on Wednesday, one such man did something crazy in the name of environmental stewardship. James J. Lee, strapped with explosives, stormed into the Discovery Channel’s headquarters, took 3 people hostage, and was eventually killed by police. Injuries were limited to the hostage-taker and the types of  ideas he claimed to stand for.

What is surprising, is how starkly Lee’s actions stand out against the backdrop of the efforts of the worldwide environmental movement. Continue reading ‘Lone wacko reminds us how sane the environmental movement really is’

This week on November 3^rd, polls will open in communities across America. The ballot may not be filled with Presidential or Congressional candidates and the money spent on the campaigns is substantially less, but voting is still essential. Local politicians shape the communities we live in and should be taking action to mitigate and adapt to climate change and to ensure that our community’s energy sources are safe and clean.

A couple events this week have made me inspired by the work of local politicians and the importance of strong communities. The first occasion was the Asheville 350 rally in which over 300 people turned out in a city of 75,000 and listened as the mayor and I issued a call for bold climate action.

The second occasion was at our UNC Asheville environmental club meeting this week where a city council candidate came to ask for our votes and tell us about all the incredible sustainability projects she was already working on in city council.

However notable this one visit is, it was compounded by the fact that she was the third city council candidate to ask to speak to our club this month.

They get it. They know that young people are fed up with seeing job losses, dirty energy, and runaway climate change direct our future and that they will be voted out if they do not seek solutions. Continue reading ‘Vote Locally – Think Globally’

Written by Chris Connolly and Amara Possian.

The media response to the youth protest that disrupted Question Period in the Canadian House of Commons on Monday has completely missed the mark. As participants of Power Shift Canada, last weekend’s climate change summit that brought together over 1000 young Canadians to engage legitimately with our democratic institutions, we feel obligated to respond.

It would be easy to discredit the media’s representation of our fellow youth as an unfair caricature, but that would be beside the point. What’s striking is not that there was an eruption of overt civil disobedience. What’s striking is why. Continue reading ‘It’s time to listen to the youth climate movement’

Editor’s Note: Hey everybody, I wanted to share a post I wrote up for the TckTckTck campaign that I think is a reflection on how a lot of us were feeling after the 350.org international day of action. -Richard

The 350.org international day of climate action this Saturday, was the second in a series of ground-breaking, record smashing days of citizen action around the world on climate change. It is simply amazing that the day of action was only one part of a drumbeat of worldwide and local climate events that have been building towards an enormous outpouring of climate action and activism at the Copenhagen climate talks. This December 12^th, a huge and growing global movement made up of ordinary citizens in almost every country in the world and international civil society will send a resounding message to the world leaders and negotiators in Copenhagen that the public is ready for them to sign a fair, ambitious, and binding climate treaty.

September 21^st, saw an wave of climate action, as local organizers around the world held over 2,600 events in over 120 countries, where people gathered, made noise to wake up the public to climate change, and called their political leaders to demand action this December at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen. Less than one month later, 13,599 bloggers from 156 countries, wrote about the need for climate action to a collective audience of over 18 million people for Blog Action Day. This weekend, supporters of 350.org and of strong action on climate change organized over 5,200 events in 181 countries. Notice a pattern?

Time is running out for action on climate change. Leading scientists have been warning that climate impacts are accelerating. This year we don’t have a movie like ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ raising awareness on climate change and magazines popping out green issues. Yet, I am more hopeful that we will see real action from world leaders than I have been since I started following the issue of climate change. Why?

Continue reading ‘International day of action heralds the emergence of a global grassroots climate movement’

The title says it all – we’ve gone global. And it’s not just because of Saturday.

Photo courtesy of 350.org (and inspiring people in London, Sydney, and Copenhagen)

I won’t even try to sum up the awesomeness that was the October 24th International Day of Climate Action. Instead, I’m thinking about how this fits into the even bigger awesomeness that is the international youth climate movement:

International Day of Climate Action – Yesterday was the largest day of distributed political activism ever. It was temporarily the top news story globally. While people of all ages can celebrate in making this day happen, youth played a huge role in creating and participating in many of the actions, in spreading the popularity of the day of action, and working behind the scenes (or more likely in the middle of them) as members of the 350.org staff. Continue reading ‘We’re Building a Global Movement’

Hi Everyone!

I’m working with an organization called Artfulchange and we are organizing one of the over 4500 actions happening worldwide for the International Day of Climate Action coming up on October 24th.

Artfulchange is an environmental non-profit that combines music and the arts with environmental action and awareness. We have launched our online carbon neutral benefit concert on this day of action! There is a streaming concert on our website and visitors can purchase MP3 and video downloads as well as art pieces from bay-area artists. All proceeds from these sales will go to benefit Energy Action Coalition, a coalition of 50 environmental and social justice organizations fighting for a movement towards clean energy: http://energyactioncoalition.org/

Visit the Artfulchange website on the 24th (TODAY!) to take part in this day of climate action. If you can’t make it online today, you can visit anytime after the 24th and still take part in this fundraiser to benefit Energy Action Coalition.

For more information: http://artfulchange.org/onlinebenefit.html

Please help us spread the word and make this fundraiser a success for the coalition.
I wish you all a happy and successful Day of Climate Action!

See you on http://artfulchange.org/!

“It isn’t 350, but 288ppm is better. “


Video: Ellard Vasen

As the rain fell on downtown Amsterdam, the Netherlands, we reached 288 People Per Museumplein dancing the Charleston in the shape of ’350 NU’. Translated as ’350 Now’ it was a fun, electric action that joined over 5000 actions across the globe for the 350.org international day of action. MOVE YOUR FEET for CLIMATE ACTION! – voor een BETER KLIMAAT! was followed by a march through the downtown of Amsterdam calling for 350ppm.

Young and old danced the Charleston, a 1920s swing dance, to communicate their desire for a treaty that commits the countries of the world to a target of 350parts per million CO2.

A photographic gallery of the event can be found here.

Images ©Robert vanWaarden

Rising Tide North America and Carbon Trade Watch would like you to join us on the October 24^th day of global climate action to spread the word about the biggest financial scam in history – Carbon Trading.

In order to stabilize the climate before billions of people around the world suffer the consequences, it is imperative that carbon-trading schemes are stopped and real, democratically determined solutions are implemented.

We cannot afford to waste any more valuable time and resources relying on such market-driven strategies to deliver science-based goals (such as 350 ppm of CO2) when so many lives and livelihoods are at stake. If we truly wish to protect people and planet, then we must put climate justice before corporate profits.

However, first and foremost, we need to dispel the misguided notion that carbon trading has anything at all to do with climate change mitigation, or the present and future wellbeing of our communities.

We are proud to announce the launch of www.350reasons.org – a website presenting 350 reasons why carbon trading will not serve to stabilize the climate. You can submit your own reasons for opposing carbon trading via a web-form on this site. We will release the full 350 reasons next week. Continue reading ‘Coming Soon! 350 Reasons Carbon Trading Won’t Work’

It’s just a short 9 days until the International Day of Climate Action on October 24th, where hundreds of thousands people will raise the issue of climate  change urgency to a new level.

Here at Project Survival Media, we wanted to mark the event visually.  So we created a video, featuring Jon Warnow, 350.org’s Internet Director and Organizer of Pacific & Polar regions, to get a better sense of how this wonky policy target of 350 parts per million  relates to the survival of people.

I mean thousands of people aren’t heading to the streets because they’re all secretly wonky scientists.  It’s about what 350 represents to people all over the world in a time of crisis.  It’s stability, safety, and above all 350 means survival.

The footage we pieced together was from youtube — a few different sources that were urging people/journalists to spread the word about these crazy environmental disasters.

Please leave comments to let us know what you think