Author and activist Bill McKibben and his grassroots 350.org team are urging us all to, like McKibben, “get mad and then get busy” on October 10. That’s the day they’re holding a “Global Work Party.” This one day will be a massive, international opportunity to celebrate climate solutions at the local level – and put the pressure on our leaders while doing so. I urge you to get involved.
We can boycott BP, but should also consider the other “bad boy” oil companies, and oil in general. Natural Life provides one way for individuals to begin.
The Fair Trade movement’s main principle is to create markets that value the people who make the food we eat and the goods we use. It combines social justice with an alternative business model and a system of global commerce, and is also a tool for international development. That will be celebrated and share on May 8, which is International Fair Trade Day.
Celebrating Earth Day is not appropriate. And it’s too late for symbolism. Instead, we need to push governments and corporations to make serious and drastic change in order that Earth continues to be habitable by humans.
Symbols like Earth Hour and Earth Day are great. But it will take more than people turning off their lights for an hour a year or school kids planting trees one day a year to create that change. What are you doing about climate change today?
Are we doing enough to solve climate change so we won’t have to apologize to our children for allowing the beauties of the north to be destroyed?
Governments around the world have recycled old, ineffective greenhouse gas emissions targets, rather than commiting to new ones that would keep global warming below the critical threshold of two degrees C.
NGOs release a joint statement alerting governments to the absence of any precautionary environmental and social assessment mechanisms in the draft Copenhagen agreement on technology, and claiming that the current approach poses grave threats to human health, human rights, rural livelihoods, diverse ecosystems and climate stability.