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10/10/10
Actress Ellen Page is getting to work on climate solutions this October 10 as part of the 10/10/10 Global Work Party organized by 350.org and hundreds of partners around the world.
Let her explain:
Join Page and tens of thousands of other concerned citizens of the world this Sunday by attending a Global Work Party, or staging your own. The emphasis is on both 'work' and 'party'. As my colleague and esteemed environmental reporter Mark Hertsgaard wisely noted in a recent piece on 10/10/10, "Taking action is the surest antidote I know to the despair that tempts anyone who gazes unflinchingly at the climate challenge."
So, in Auckland, New Zealand, they’re having a giant bike fix-up day, to get every bicycle in the city back on the road. In Kampala, Uganda, they're going to plant thousands of trees, and in Bolivia they’re installing solar stoves for a massive carbon neutral picnic. There are currently more than 6,449 events (and counting) planned around the world.
This burst of action will set a record. As 350.org founder Bill McKibben explained in a recent email, the 5249th event registered set the record for the greatest number of recorded protests in a single day in world history. It was organized by Biljana from Serbia, who plans to take a group of second and fourth graders on an "eco field trip" to volunteer at an sustainable farm, participate in green workshops, and do a trash clean-up, after which they'll be finish up by forming a big "350" for a group photo that they will send into 350.org.
Jamie Henn of 350.org was kind enough to refer us to some of the other spots around the world where he expects some exciting events to take place.
They include:
- Los Angeles, where thousands of people are expected to take part in "Ciclavia," when 7.5 miles of streets will be closed to cars and opened to pedestrian and bicycle traffic.
- Oakland, in one of 20 planned events in the Bay Area, where hundreds of citizens, politicians and musicians will party and plant a community garden at Oakland's Laney College.
- New York City, where community members in Harlem will paint the roof of a local high school white to reflect the sun and save energy by reducing the ned for air conditioning.
- Washington, DC, where residents will install 10kw of solar on a local home, host a special farmers market, and rally for climate solutions at the White House.
- New Bedford, MA, where hundreds of residents will join Mayor Scott Lang to weatherize a home as part of the city's goal of weatherizing 10,000 homes. The event includes a block party, a climate basketball game, and a concert.
- Atlanta, GA, where parishioners of many faiths will join together for a climate justice service at the Central Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, and will participate in a church weatherization event following the service.
- Houston, TX, where citizens will launch “GreenWeek Houston” by picking up trash and planting trees in the Greater Fifth Ward neighborhood.
- Burlington, VT, where Senator Leahy will join Mayor Kiss and gubernatorial candidate Peter Shumlin for a rally at Battery Park following a day of service across the city.
- Minneapolis, Minnesota, where hundreds of community members will conduct a bike ride and rally across from the last coal burning power plant in Minneapolis.
- Male, Maldives, where President Nasheed will be installing a set of solar panels on his roof on October 7 to kick off the weekend of action.
- Russia and Croatia, where intrepid organizers have signed up nearly 10,000 schools to plant trees on 10/10/10.
- Babylon, where Iraqi students will host a clean energy rally to put solar panels on the University of Babylon.
The goal of all these many actions is not to solve the climate crisis one project at a time, but to send a clear political message to the political class: if average citizens can get to work combating climate change, then you get to work too--on the legislation and the treaties that could literally make the difference in keeping the planet habitable.
As McKibben told The Nation in an email interview, "The one thing that really matters, in the end, isn't screwing in a new lightbulb. It's screwing up your courage to organize, organize, organize for the next two years, until we've built a movement big enough to take on big energy."
That's why it's so important that everyone do something on October 10. Join a local event on Sunday, or organize your own.
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11 Comments so far
Show AllI don't at all trust celebrity-driven campaigns such as this one, by the "Cisco-system girl." She chooses to defend human rights in---Burma! But the CD Pwogs love this sort of thing.
Maybe in Berkley or Davis Ca they can have a die in, you know to help overpopulation, startout by spay and nutering random people, as you can catch them,
Then as the sun sets join hands. and really help the planet by cutting their wrists, so our little plant friends can benefit of your love for the earth.
It's a start :)
>^^<
The solutions to the climate change problem are primarily beyond the reach of individuals or even groups of citizens. Massive changes in energy policy and energy consumption would have to be imposed coercively on a mostly unwilling world. I'll probably attend one of these events in my area, but if we think biking to work and building gardens is going to change this, we are dreaming.
It's analogous to the population issue. As an issue, population has disappeared under a screen of self-serving blather from third world autocrats, reactionary tribalists, Catholic medievalists and various breeder organizations. The only people who have restricted breeding are the people who care about the future and who believe they have a responsibility to future generations. The irony is that they will be bred out of the gene pool by rampant, hell-for-leather breeders, convinced as they are, that any baby is a gift from God.
Climate change advocates are in the same situation. We'll restrict our consumption carefully to the extent, eventually, of serious constraints on our way of life. Meanwhile deniers, the apathetic, the ignorant and the "rapture" believers will go right on consuming and breeding, filling in the consumption gaps we create and exhausting the opportunities for change. Then, being staunch 2nd Amendment supporters with a closet full of guns, many of them will come and fight us for what's left.
We can't do this by ourselves. Unfortunately our governments have abandoned us and won't do it either. I don't know where the solution lies. I suppose there is the possibility that after enough hardship and adversity, at least some people will find ways to remain civilized without massive, harmful fossil and nuclear fuel inputs. We can still hope.
Excellent comment. The breeding tends to be done by those with the least consideration of the ecological impact of population growth.
More people needn't mean less resources if we go another way. Or better yet, we encourage and lead through example. We can't control the actions of the breeders but we can change what we do.
Yes, I know a bike ride or skipped shower won't change the path so many are taking (depleting finite resources, causing global climate change, etc.), but every great journey begins with a single step--so a Chinese philosopher once said. We need to reach the target audience, which is in place like India and the Third World, which are growing faster then we can. The world can't afford to have them mimic the American hyper-consumption lifestyle as they develop.
The U.S. population is actually stabilizing. It may have dumbed-down by virtue of conscientious people not breeding, but remember human history. In medieval times, plenty of people were needed for intensive labor in the fields. If we were to advocate permaculture and community sustainable agriculture, we could produce A LOT more food. So more people doesn't have to mean hardship. We do however have to give up on the American standard of living, or see it change in profound ways.
And we need to develop an economy that isn't consuming nature but rather developing it for mutual benefit. (Like avoiding palm oil consumption due to fact that tropical rainforest chopped down to grow it reduces CO2.)
Also remember you're an ambassador for the movement. Don't bitch too much about the negatives that people do. Negative repels. Sell a future without $7 gas which we know is coming. When people bitch about meat prices, grow your own and eat raw vegan. Meat is a major energy expenditure. We could generate huge amounts of organic veggies in just a fraction of an acre if we have labor. Solar and wind power are vital, and the 10-10-10 activities scratch them off the to-do list.
Now our efforts won't stop bad things from happening. But maybe people will realize that we need to live in our harmony with our environment. Perhaps Mother Nature is trying to tell us something. While we can't live like nomads, we do have plenty of historical examples here in North America given us by First Nations peoples. They knew how to live here sustainably. Knowing their ways will help develop a post-industrial (and paper money) economy and make life more tolerable.
I wouldn't be so sanguine about the wisdom and understanding of Europeans or, most particularly, Americans about the consequences of overpopulation. Those consequences include making it foolhardy to burn resources for dilettante contrivances.
Rural populations must stop expanding, yes. But post-industrial powers must allow them to do so.
This may seem counterintuitive, so let me explain.
IMF, World Bank, and Yanqui-supported economic relations create circumstances in which people breed large families to get by because all social spending goes to protect the property claimed by the rich against challenge by the poor.
Changing two factors results in immediate reduction of population growth, and eventual reduction of population:
1. Educate women.
2. Provide a social net so that people can retire without having their children shoulder the entire burden of their care in old age.
That won't be easy, but it is fairly simple.
The "Hate the sin, love the sinner" attitude of Catholics cuts two ways: Catholics can love their church and hate or ignore its rules as well. It would be great if most churches would reverse their positions about many if not most things.
Great actions all! I encourage any group that is planting trees to plant fruiting ones- so that when the global economy collapses due to peak oil, they will have one more source of local food.
yup...hard to argue with planting edibles...even those not on the corporate menu...
best thing we can do, at the moment...
do we have that much time? those trees bearing fruit take a long time to grow.......
10/10/10 will be a good day, when people all over the world will be standing up to the way things are and saying things have to change. What could be better than that. We are the world.
Now THERE'S a job for concerned scientists - tell us what edible plants will grow in what climate in 10, 30, 100 years. Not much use planting fruit trees in areas that will no longer support them by the time they fruit.
This is the biggest problem with climate change - not the fact that it will be different but the fact that it's changing faster than long-lived plants can deal with it.
we can know the same way the scientists know, observation and experimentation. yes, trees take in human years a long time to grow. first we need to try a quick spreading ground covers to ward off encroaching desertification. many plants and trees are further challenged by collapsing hives, the loss of worker bees. global warming brings climate change so that what once grew strong and hearty in a region may not weather the change. i took a trip on a glass bottom boat and saw something new in the river; flowers blooming beneath the surface fertilized by the current's flow.
if we expect Nature to work for our preservation, we need to realize Nature isn't out to get us. Nature is an ongoing experiment and our species can no longer afford to be her enemy. we need Nature, but she does not need us.