Today over 7,000 work parties with the intention to cut carbon emissions are taking place in 188 countries for 350.org’s 10/10/10 Global Work Party, the biggest day of climate change action in history.
If you want to participate locally to make a "climate change" difference--wherever you are, here are ideas. Los Angeles will have a rally today at City Hall with the message to kick coal. (Ideally, they need LADWP and ratepayers to get enthused)
As the climate change party spreads worldwide today, pictures pour in from the antipodes, Oceania, and eastern Asia.
350.org expects to receive thousands of photographs from every continent and will display them on the front of the group’s website.
"Those of us further west are taking real inspiration watching events get underway," said McKibben. "It's exactly the kind of powerful mix of symbolic and practical action we'd hoped for."
10/10/10 highlights include:
- In the United States, over 2,000 events are planned, from parishioners weatherizing their church in Atlanta to a hip-hop show at a community garden in Oakland, California.
- In China and India, over 300 universities will join 10/10/10 as part of the Great Power Race, a student clean energy competition.
- In Afghanistan, students will be planting hundreds of trees in a valley outside of Kabul.
- In Congo, refugees will be planting a “Forest of Hope” outside of Goma, home to thousands of refugees from regional conflicts.
- In Bolivia, thousands are expected to attend a solar-powered concert, solar stove demonstration, recycling workshop, and tree adoption program in La Paz.
- In Russia and Croatia, organizers have signed up nearly 10,000 schools to plant trees on 10/10/10.
"The only countries that aren't taking part, we think, are Equatorial Guinea, San Marino, and North Korea. So it's clearly the most widespread day of environmental action this planet's ever seen," founder of the 350.org campaign Bill McKibben said.
The Global Work Party came together online through websites, social networks, and a largely volunteer team around the world. “We’ve got people hunched over laptops around the world today sending out emails, Skyping organizers, and trying to make sure the website doesn’t crash,” said Jamie Henn, 350.org co-founder.
The work parties, which range from solar installations to tree plantings, are designed to make a clear statement: citizens are getting to work on climate solutions and so should their politicians.
Politicians seem to be getting the message.
Last Tuesday, after a public pressure campaign led by 350.org, the Obama Administration announced that solar panels will soon be installed on the White House. On Wednesday, President Nasheed got on the roof of his house in the Maldives and helped screw in a new set of solar panels. On Friday, the Mayor of Mexico City, the third largest city in the world, announced his commitment to reduce the city’s carbon emissions by 10% over the next year.
Speaking from the climate meetings in Tianjin, China, UN Climate Chief Christina Figueres said: "I congratulate you on your work and I want to offer my personal support to the Global Work Party. When citizens are inspired to take action, it is easier for governments to initiate real climate change action.”
“It’s time for us to roll up our sleeves and get to work on building the clean energy future that will generate economic opportunity and provide a better, safer, healthier world for our children,” said United Nations Secretary Ban Ki-moon. “On October 10, I encourage everyone to do his or her part to be part of the solution to the climate challenge.”
Jon Carson, the chief of staff for President Obama's Council on Environmental Quality, told hundreds of 350.org organizers in a conference call Saturday night in Washington that, “The number one lesson we learned in the Obama campaign is that people respond to an effort that is getting something done. Tangible change in people’s back yards is what brings more people to the fold. That’s what you guys are doing tomorrow and that’s what it’s going to take to grow this movement.”
“People will be doing very practical things on 10/10/10,” said McKibben. “But they also will be sending a pointed political message. When they put down their shovels, many will pick up their cell-phones to call their leaders and say: ‘We’re getting to work, what about you?’”
