We can change the world

The Blue Marble - NASA photo

The Blue Marble - NASA photo

NEW — A Call to Action on Climate

Friends and visitors:

The 350.org campaign has issued a ‘Call to Action’  for:

October 24, 2009 – An International Day of Climate Action

The campaign is named for the p.p.m. of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere considered a ’safe’ level by most climate scientists if we hope to have a planet “similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth has adapted.”

A special call is going out to faith communities around the world to participate in this important campaign.  This is how they invite us:

350 represents more than just a scientific benchmark for a safe climate – there are also deeply moral and spiritual reasons for getting the world back below 350 ppm CO2.

Social justice, creation care, stewardship, earth community, beloved community — there are many ways we can name and express our moral and spiritual perspectives related to this issue. We invite people of all faiths and all traditions to join with us in prayer, meditation, action, and celebration for 350.

Spirituality and Ecological Hope/Center for New Creation invites you to join in this effort. Below is the email we received from Bill McKibben and Mary Evelyn Tucker.

Dear Friends,

We’ve watched with great excitement over the past few years as the interest of faith communities in environmental issues has grown exponentially. Now we’re asking for your help to put that interest into action–to stand with people the world around on one day this October, and make the prophetic case to the whole planet for real change.

A year ago, the world’s leading climatologists published new data. It showed that 350 parts per million CO2 was the highest atmospheric concentration consistent with maintaining a planet “similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.” It was a profound new understanding of the planet–and also a very tough one since we are already past that red line. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are already at 387 parts per million, and climbing rapidly–which is why the Arctic is melting, why disease-carrying mosquitoes are spreading rapidly, why droughts are making peasant agriculture ever harder.

A group of mostly young people throughout the world are mounting a campaign called http://350.org, in an effort to draw attention to this new fact about creation. On October 24, they are organizing thousands of events all over the world, in an effort to make this most important number widely known, in the hope of adding pressure on negotiators in the upcoming Copenhagen conference to reach a deal strong enough to turn the tide. The campaign has spread with great swiftness, especially in the developing world. And they have asked for the help of faith communities in making this day of action a complete success. Churches have committed to ringing their bells 350 times; Buddhists in several Asian countries have already staged large mass actions. You can learn more about how faith communities are taking action on 350 at this link: http://www.350.org/faith. In particular, we encourage you to add your name to the Interfaith Call for 350 (http://www.350.org/interfaithcall) and sign up to organize an action on October 24 in your community.

We hope you will figure out how to get your congregations and parishes and dioceses and synagogues and mosques and temples, seminaries and monasteries and convents, involved in this great global day of action. You can register an action here: http://www.350.org/oct24. Time for action is short, say the scientists. Please join us.

Bill McKibben and Mary Evelyn Tucker

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Meanwhile, remember these other important ongoing efforts:

Stop Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Walker Cat says, ‘Yes, Coal,’ by Dave Cooper, Mountaintop Removal Road Show

Regular visitors to this blog know that we have rather strong feelings about the coal industry, and most especially its practice of blowing up mountains in the Appalachian Range to get at the coal buried within them. Put ‘mountaintopping’ into our search engine to access lots of information. Here we want to call your attention to some of the organizations whose work we continue to follow.

Mountain Justice Summer:  Besides their very good info, this group carries out training camps in coal country that provide information and organizing skills to help folks become active in the struggle to end this egregious practice.

Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition: Out of Huntington, West Virginia, the site has photo galleries, action alert, newsletters, press releases, and more.

Coal River Mountain Watch: “Remembering the past, working for the future.”  Photo gallery, updates, info on energy alternatives.

Ilovemountains.org: This active and intriguing website, full of photos, videos, campaign info,  and news updates, is produced by Appalachian Voices.

Catholic Committee of Appalachia, long devoted to defending the land and peoples of Appalachian country

Stop Mountaintop Removal-West Virginia Coalition, coalition of several organizations, including Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Sierra Club, EarthJustice, and Coal River Mountain Watch.

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Action on Capitol Hill

It is crucial that we constituents communicate regularly with our Representatives and Senators about our concerns for our planet, our energy future, our Earth community.  We have to make our voices heard over the din of the big lobbyists and monied interests.  Echoing Al Gore’s campaign, we are not asking, we are demanding action:  things like carbon taxes, caps on greenhouse gas emissions, sharp controls on development, eliminating tax breaks for the fossil fuel industries and industrial agriculture and putting those funds towards alternative energy sources and small-scale farms, preferably organic, and preservation of ecosystems around the country.  This is about the future of our children and grandchildren — and theirs, too.

Organize community discussions in your places of worship, union halls, community organizations, and then join together to visit your representatives and their staffs, to organize letter-writing campaigns, to participate in town hall discussions, radio talk shows, and community events around specific issues related to your ecological concerns.  To get ideas, visit our links and resources page and visit some of the organizations listed there.