planning meeting Sat., Jan. 27, for Boston-area Step It Up rallies
Karl Thidemann
coast-to-coast rallies on April 14th to tell Congress to Step It Up
with regard to passing legislation for immediate, deep, mandatory cuts
in carbon emissions. His letter appears below.
A meeting is taking place in Jamaica Plain on Sat., Jan. 27th, for
anyone interested in helping to plan "Step It Up" events in
communities in the greater Boston area.
All are welcome to attend. Details follow. If you are able to
attend, please RSVP to Loie Hayes of the Boston Climate Action
Network, loie...@verizon.net, 617-278-1885.
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From: Loie Hayes <loie...@verizon.net>
Subject: location for Boston-area: Step It Up meeting
Our host on Saturday, Jan. 27, between 10 and 11:30 AM will be:
Zak Patten
13 Hall St., #2
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
This is a short walk from the Forest Hills stop on the Orange Line,
just 5 blocks up the tracks along South Street.
Map and directions at
http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl&q=13%20Hall%20St.%2002130
Please feel free to pass the word but do ask people to RSVP to me so
that we know how many people to expect.
Thanks,
Loie
loie...@verizon.net
617-278-1885
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http://www.stepitup2007.org/
A Letter From Bill McKibben
Dear Friends —
This is an invitation to help start a movement -- to take one spring
day and use it to reshape the future. Those of us who know that
climate change is the greatest threat civilization now faces have
science on our side; we have economists and policy specialists,
courageous mayors and governors, engineers with cool new technology.
But we don't have a movement — 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.
So pitch in. A few of us are trying to organize a nationwide day of
hundreds and hundreds of rallies on April 14. We hope to have
gatherings in every state, and in many of America's most iconic
places: on the levees in New Orleans, on top of the melting glaciers
on Mt. Rainier, even underwater on the endangered coral reefs off Key
West.
We need rallies outside churches, along the tide lines in our coastal
cities, in cornfields and forests and on statehouse steps.
Every group will be saying the same thing: Step it up, Congress! Enact
immediate cuts in carbon emissions, and pledge an 80% reduction by
2050. No half measures, no easy compromises-the time has come to take
the real actions that can stabilize our climate.
As people gather, we'll link pictures of the protests together
electronically via the web-before the weekend is out, we'll have the
largest protest the country has ever seen, not in numbers but in
extent. From every corner of the nation we'll start to shake things
up.
By its very nature, this action needs all kinds of people to help out.
We can't make it happen - it has to assemble itself.
Sign up to host an action. We'll coordinate the responses, introducing
you to others from your area, and give you everything you need to be a
leader, from banners to press releases.
You don't have to have ever done anything like this - you're not
organizing a March on Washington, just a gathering of scores or
hundreds in your town or neighborhood.
We need creativity, good humor, commitment. If you are active in a
campus group or a church or a local environmental group or a garden
society or a bike club - or if you just saw Al Gore's movie and want
to do something - then we need you now.
And by now, we mean now.
The best science tells us we have ten years to fundamentally transform
our economy and lead the world in the same direction or else, in the
words of NASA's Jim Hansen, we will face a "totally different planet,"
one infinitely sadder and less flourishing.
The recent elections have given us an opening, and polling shows most
Americans know there's a problem. But the forces of inertia and
business-as-usual are still in control, and only our voices, united
and loud, joyful and determined, can change that reality.
Please join us.
Bill McKibben