Organizing The Biggest Day Of Action The World Has Ever Seen

This blog is part of the lead up the HuffPost hosted inaugural No Impact Week. The week-long look our individual impacts on the environment (sign up here!) will include a day of volunteerism and action for the planet where participants can get involved with 350.org's events, which is Bill McKibben's organization.

Even two years ago, I was in complete despair about our chances of fighting climate change. But something's changed. It's not the science, which has gotten steadily worse. It's the first signs that the planet's immune system--conscious citizens ready to make a difference--is finally kicking in. Bloggers, in this metaphor, are key antibodies--they recognize threats, and rally people to take the steps needed. So this year's Blogger Action Day is, in a sense, a test: is the planet now wired together in a way that will let it act swiftly, nimbly, decisively against the great trouble we've ever faced?

In particular, we at 350.org need your help spreading the word about what's quickly turned into the biggest day of global action on climate ever--and perhaps the most geographically widespread day of political action the planet has ever seen. On October 24--a week from Saturday--citizens will hold thousands of rallies and events and demonstrations in almost 170 nations to demand that our leaders take tougher action heading to Copenhagen.

It's the first day like it ever devoted to a scientific data point, the number 350. As in 350 parts per million carbon dioxide, which scientists began telling us two years ago was the most we could safely have in the atmosphere. It's a tough number, because we're already past it, at 390 parts per million and rising. And it's tough because to get back to it we'd need much stronger and quicker action than most of our leaders--and even some of our old-line environmental groups--support.

You would have thought therefore that we'd have had a tough time organizing the world around such an arcane and controversial point. But instead it's been amazing. We've used the web, and it's developing world sibling the cellphone, to reach people in every corner of the earth, and they've responded with an unbelievable outpouring of art, of music, of commitment. There are big actions organized for almost every city on earth on the 24th, including 120 in China, at least that number in India--and even in tough places like Kabul, like the Sudan, like Iraq. Iranian organizers have set up a Farsi website to coordinate their demonstrations--on and on.

We'll also use the web to coordinate the day's events. People will be uploading photos in real time--some of them of amazingly beautiful actions, like the underwater cabinet meeting led by the president of the Maldives, or the giant human 350 that Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian activists are jointly planning for their respective shores of the dwindling Dead Sea. We'll show them on the giant video screens of Times Square, and in the UN--but also on the most widespread Flickr slideshow of all time.

But in these final days leading up to the big day, we need your help. We need you to blog about 350, about the day of action, and about how easy it is to find the nearest action, or to register one in your community. (It's not too late to start). And we need you to remind the mainstream media that just because something involves the web and ordinary citizens, they're still allowed to cover it. We need to make this viral movement go double viral--swine flu viral--and so we need your help. We have a whole series of tools at 350.org that you can use to spread the word, and we're enormously grateful to you for doing so.

The first step, clearly, is to take personal responsibility--to cut your own impact. By now, most of us have some idea how--and there are lots more good ideas at the No Impact Project.

But if we want to have as little impact as possible on the planet, we must have as much impact as possible on its politics. At this point we're not going to solve this one lightbulb at a time--we're going to solve it one planet at a time if we're going to solve it at all. Join in with No Impact Week which starts on October 18th alongside your neighbors--and think of ways you can continue to maximize your political impact, and minimize your personal one.

If we can build this wave, we have a chance of making real, not token, change in the Senate, at Copenhagen, and beyond. At the moment those various forums are poised to pass off mediocre agreements as the kind of progress we need. Only a movement can build a counterpressure big enough to take on the vested interests--and only you can build that movement. Even two years ago this wouldn't have been possible--but it's a new world, one you've helped build. Let's hope it's enough.

To Sign Up For HuffPost's No Impact Week which starts October 18th, Click Here!

 

 

Comments

[JCraigShields]

Strangely, whether global warming exists or not is moot. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that rising CO2 levels are lowering the pH of the oceans, causing enormous and irreparable damage to those ecosystems. See my post http://www­.2greenene­rgy.com/gl­obal-warmi­ng-james-w­oolsey/936­/ for more on this if you want.

[realpolitic]

"The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that because humans are altering the climate with greenhouse gas emissions:"

"The ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1997. Global temperatures for 2000-2008 now stand almost 0.2 °C warmer than the average for the decade 1990-1999."

"Put another way, 2008 will be almost 0.1°C warmer than the decade of the 1990s as a whole."

"Beneath the underlying warming, temperature continues to fluctuate from year to year as a result of natural variations. Stott added: “As a result of climate change, what would once have been an exceptionally unusual year has now become quite normal. Without human influence on climate change we would be more than 50 times less likely of seeing a year as warm as 2008."

http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/16/sorry-deniers-hadley-center-and-wmo-say-2000s-are-easily-the-hottest-decade-in-recorded-history/

[Richard2]

It is great the the CO2 level has increased over the past ten years, for two reasons. First, the extra CO2 helps farmers produce larger harvests of food. Second, since the earth's temperature has not warmed for over ten years, to clearly demonstrates that CO2 is not the prime mover in climate change. The increased CO2 has resulted in zero increase in global temperatures.

The most basic idea in AGW, that man made CO2 is the agent that raises temperatures dramatically, has been proved dramatically false.

[realpolitic]

R2, as usual, has it backwards and besides how can we grow all these projected crops without the water?

"Global warming could sock Illinois right in the Corn Belt—to the tune of $243 million a year, a national environmental group estimated in a report released Thursday."

"The Environment America study, based on government and university data, projects rising temperatures will reduce yields of the nation’s biggest crop by 3 percent in the Midwest and the South, compared to projected yields without further global warming."

"According to the report, Iowa would be hit hardest, losing $259 million a year in corn revenues."

"The nation overall would lose about $1.4 billion in annual corn revenue, the group said."


http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/apr/10/nation/chi-global-warm-corn_friapr10

[realpolitic]

Regarding R2 repeated deception it has not warmed in the last ten years, he should then straighten out NASA....

According to Climate Progress...

"Very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far*"

"The climate story of the decade is that the 2000s are on track to be nearly 0.2°C warmer than the 1990s. And that temperature jump is especially worrisome since the 1990s were only 0.14°C warmer than the 1980s (see datasets here). Global warming is accelerating, as predicted."

"Climate is about long-term trends. Perhaps the most interesting fact is that 2008 is on track to be almost 0.1°C warmer than the decade of the 1990s as a whole – and warmer than any year of last century beside (the El-Niño-enhanced) 1998."

"The decade of the 2000s — 2000 to 2009 — will almost certainly be the hottest decade in at least 2000 years "

http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/07/very-warm-2008-makes-this-hottest-decade-in-recorded-history-by-far/

[JCraigShields]

As I've written extensively, we'll plummet past 350 within months of legislation that calls upon us to pay the full costs of the coal and oil we consume, including the healthcare (respiratory) damage and long-term environmental damage. Here's a post on the subject: http://www­.2greenene­rgy.com/re­newable-en­ergy-and-a­-level-pla­ying-field­/376/

[JCraigShields]

As I've written extensively, we'll plummet past 350 within a few months of legislation that calls upon us to pay the full costs of the coal and oil we consume, including the respiratory and long-term environmental damage. Here's my full post on the subject. http://www­.2greenene­rgy.com/re­newable-en­ergy-and-a­-level-pla­ying-field­/376/

[envirogy]

yes blog action day was great for getting the news out and co-ordinating efforts . I'm excited about next Saturday it should be great!!!!

[Kevin Grandia - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm on Vancouver and I think the big 350 action is going to have something to do with taking over a bridge in the downtown core. Should be a great event! Oct 24 will be a big day.

[doxienan]

Bill McKibben deserves a Nobel Prize for his efforts to awaken us to the dangers ahead if we do nothing about climate change.

Get out and let your voices be heard on October 24! We have nobody but ourselves to blame if we sit quietly in our homes and let Big Coal destroy us.

[Erik Van Erne]

Thanks Bill, doing great work. Supporting 350.org from the Netherlands with some art work. Free to use. http://bit.ly/4t3m55

[rovezaleeker]

Thank you, Bill. Always been a big fan of all that you do. I'll do what I can to help.

[spikeykitten]

"If we can build this wave, we have a chance of making real, not token, change"

There will be more waves when there is more polar ice melt.
Well I for one will continue to use my tokens and monopoly money.
You are giving up on nickle and dime change game - to what - focus on our Franklin's.
The only real constant is change.

[WilliePilgrim]

Bummer...for a while there I thought we were going to clean up the garbage raft in the Northern Pacific gyre instead of spending 20 million on a "center for climate change" in SanFrancisco, or demand we begin a review of regulations regarding the small nuclear power generators that we now can make safely but have to follow all the complex rules established for old fashioned nukes, or maybe we were going to take action and demand that for every dollar we spend on war we invest in a nuclear bridge to future energy supplies, whether fusion or space based solar satellites or something equally up to the task in the near future...or demand that the UN take over the business of climate warming green investments so that it doesn't get taken over by those who would profit while the poor bear the burden...like why not demand that we have kiosks in airports next to those carbon credit machines that also dispense penny stocks from the UN Climate efforts and that the smaller the investor the larger the percentage payback so that the wealthy don't get involved and manipulate the UN's efforts for their profit while the poor people pay for higher energy. Let's make it totally transparent and public just so we all know it's not just a hoax to make some very wealthy people even wealthier...Mkay?

[ResidualSelfImage]

The Minnesota Free Market Institute hosted an event at Bethel University in St. Paul on Wednesday evening. Keynote speaker Lord Christopher Monckton, former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, gave a scathing and lengthy presentation, complete with detailed charts, graphs, facts, and figures which culminated in the utter decimation of both the pop culture concept of global warming and the credible threat of any significant anthropomorphic climate change.

http://www.infowars.com/obama-poised-to-cede-us-sovereignty-claims-british-lord/

"So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement, who took over Greenpeace so that my friends who funded it left within a year, because [the communists] captured it"

[doxienan]

Monckton also thinks the Earth is flat. He and Jim Inhofe (R-Exxon) have absolutely no scientific training and no credence.

The vast majority of the world's climate scientists have stated that the planet is warming and that CO2 is the culprit. They agree that reducing emissions is the only way to stop runaway climate change.

350.org has more information about CO2 and why the number 350 is so important. If you think we can live on a planet with 450ppm or 550ppm CO2 concentrations, you are greatly mistaken.

[Richard2]

So the vast majority of the world's climate scientists have stated that the planet is warming....

but the climate correspondent for the BBC, and the climate correspondent for the New York Times have both noted, without serious challenge, that the earth's temperature has been stable for the past decade. They are backed up by most of the major organizations that publish satellite temperature data, such as UAH. The data from these organizations is available to the public, for checking purposes.

Thus, it looks like the "vast majority of the world climate scientists" have erred in stating that the planet "is warming."

Will any of the vast majority step forward to explain how they can say the earth "is warming" if in fact it hasn't been warming for more than ten years?

[realpolitic]

R2 must think climate scientists do not know about the satellite data which itsefl shows greater warming and a continued warming trend. R@ post is so pompous and ridiculous it is almost not worth debunking.

He mentions opinion pieces in the BBC and NY Times showing a cooling trend and says they have not been seriously challenged. Both have been thoroughly debunked.

According to Climate Progress:

"Existential question of the day: How can Paul Hudson’s byline be “Climate correspondent, BBC News” when his ‘reporting‘ doesn’t correspond to the climate, which continues to warm?"

"It is tiresome debunking yet another poor researched article by a media outlet that has historically had a great deal of credibility [see "NYT’s Revkin pushes global cooling myth (again!) and repeats outright misinformation"]. The BBC headline inanely asks “What happened to global warming?” Answer — it keeps on keepin’ on:"

-Very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far, according to NASA .

-Sorry deniers, Hadley Center and WMO say 2000s are easily the hottest decade in recorded history

http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/13/the-bbc-hudson-what-happened-to-global-warming-hottest-decade-in-recorded-history/

[realpolitic]

(cont.)

According to Climate Progess...

"Yes, the headline was a surprise since you’re supposed to be the climate correspondent, but the headline fails to correspond to the climate, which continues to warm — as even your own friggin’ Met Office explained a few weeks ago in this online analysis:"

"… trends over the past 10 years show only a 0.07 °C increase in global average temperature. Although this is only a small increase, it indicates that there has been no global cooling over this period. In fact, over the past decade, most years have remained much closer to the record global average temperature reached in 1998 than to temperatures before the 1970s. All the years from 2000 to 2008 have been in the top 14 warmest years on record."

"So the BBC doesn’t even know what it’s own lead climate data and analysis center has concluded, even though it (selectively) makes use of that center’s data."



http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/13/the-bbc-hudson-what-happened-to-global-warming-hottest-decade-in-recorded-history/

So when R2 says the articles have not been challenged, it is "denier" speak for saying they have been destroyed by legitimate science sources.

[sheila]

THANKS SO MUCH FOR DOING THIS!

Please make sure that your advocacy is clear about the harm that Big Solar, Big Wind and Big Transmission do to millions of acres of fragile ecosystem so some well-intentioned but misinformed participants don't start inadvertently lobbying to slaughter our wilderness in order to "save" it!! This is crazy and unnecessary.

Point of use solutions like efficiency and rooftop solar can do 100% of the heavy lifting on the electricity side, so there is NO excuse for destroying a single acre of open space for profiteering by Chevron, BP, Goldman Sachs, Bechtel, Pickens and the other mercenaries bleeding us dry with their greenwashing of "Big Renewables," which are a scam.

Democratic, clean, affordable energy solutions that don't kill ecosystems are "shovel ready" now - we just need policies that allow us to participate in the renewable energy markets like feed in tariffs and loans.

Thanks!