Dear Friends,
It's been a week since we sent you our plan for how to strengthen our campaigning in 2010--a plan that's based on ideas sent in by thousands of people from around the world.
I've spent that week on the move: I've given big talks in Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Texas, New Mexico, and California in the United States; now I'm in Oslo, Norway. I've talked with colleagues in South America, Africa, and Asia; the 350.org team has checked in with friends and partners all around the world.
And what we're hearing is: real excitement about everything, especially the Global Work Party planned for 10/10/10. In fact--and this goes way beyond our wildest hopes--there are already 431 actions scheduled for that day. It's hard not to be impressed with the diversity and creativity of the plans that are streaming in: everything from a "Green Sneakers" team going door-to-door to educate their community about energy efficiency retrofits, to the installation of a new wind turbine in a Kenyan village--and hundreds and hundreds more all over the world. Some people are even getting an early start--check out this picture that just arrived yesterday from a tree planting work party in the Philippines.
I've spent that week on the move: I've given big talks in Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Texas, New Mexico, and California in the United States; now I'm in Oslo, Norway. I've talked with colleagues in South America, Africa, and Asia; the 350.org team has checked in with friends and partners all around the world.
And what we're hearing is: real excitement about everything, especially the Global Work Party planned for 10/10/10. In fact--and this goes way beyond our wildest hopes--there are already 431 actions scheduled for that day. It's hard not to be impressed with the diversity and creativity of the plans that are streaming in: everything from a "Green Sneakers" team going door-to-door to educate their community about energy efficiency retrofits, to the installation of a new wind turbine in a Kenyan village--and hundreds and hundreds more all over the world. Some people are even getting an early start--check out this picture that just arrived yesterday from a tree planting work party in the Philippines.
431 actions in a week blew us away--but we need to keep this momentum going. Can you help us break the 500 mark by the end of the week and show the world that we are truly ready to get to work?
http://www.350.org/oct10
You can register right here to organize a work party in your community--you don't need to have all the plans sorted out yet (though we've got a great list of ideas here) and you can fill in the gaps later. And you don't need to have ever done anything like this before--the team at 350.org will provide resources, how-to guides, and more to make sure anyone can pull off a successful climate solutions project in their community.
My sense from talking to so many people is, everyone understands the underlying message. Which is not that we're going to solve climate change one solar panel at a time. Instead, it's that by getting to work in our communities, we can demand that our so-called leaders get to work in parliaments, palaces, and congresses the world over. "If I can get up on the school roof and put in solar panels," one man told me in Texas, "then our US Senators can surely do the work they're paid to do."
But people are focusing not just on the Work but on the Party too. They know that doing things like this together can be the truest kind of fun, the kind that leaves you feeling good at the end of the day. Tired, but good. And they're understanding the Global too, figuring out the power that comes from doing the same thing as people all over the world at the same time. Laying out a bike path in your town, and knowing that people are doing the same thing on five other continents--it reminds us all that our hopes for the future are pretty much the same.
Not all the week's news has been good, of course. Researchers reported on Monday that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere climbed yet again last year1, meaning we have that much less time to get turned around and heading back towards 350. But there's only one way to do it, and that's together.
431 actions already scheduled means the ideas so many of you sent us were the right ones--that you figured out how to capture people's imagination. Now let's make it really count.
Onwards,
http://www.350.org/oct10
You can register right here to organize a work party in your community--you don't need to have all the plans sorted out yet (though we've got a great list of ideas here) and you can fill in the gaps later. And you don't need to have ever done anything like this before--the team at 350.org will provide resources, how-to guides, and more to make sure anyone can pull off a successful climate solutions project in their community.
My sense from talking to so many people is, everyone understands the underlying message. Which is not that we're going to solve climate change one solar panel at a time. Instead, it's that by getting to work in our communities, we can demand that our so-called leaders get to work in parliaments, palaces, and congresses the world over. "If I can get up on the school roof and put in solar panels," one man told me in Texas, "then our US Senators can surely do the work they're paid to do."
But people are focusing not just on the Work but on the Party too. They know that doing things like this together can be the truest kind of fun, the kind that leaves you feeling good at the end of the day. Tired, but good. And they're understanding the Global too, figuring out the power that comes from doing the same thing as people all over the world at the same time. Laying out a bike path in your town, and knowing that people are doing the same thing on five other continents--it reminds us all that our hopes for the future are pretty much the same.
Not all the week's news has been good, of course. Researchers reported on Monday that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere climbed yet again last year1, meaning we have that much less time to get turned around and heading back towards 350. But there's only one way to do it, and that's together.
431 actions already scheduled means the ideas so many of you sent us were the right ones--that you figured out how to capture people's imagination. Now let's make it really count.
Onwards,
Bill McKibben and the 350.org Team
