This post comes courtesy of our friends at the Orion Grassroots Network, Erik Hoffner and Peter Viola. Orion's current magazine includes a column by our very own Bill McKibben!
Climate change
is now on most Americans’ radar. Maybe it was Katrina, An Inconvenient
Truth, the IPCC, Gore taking home an Oscar, or maybe
it’s the sense that the weather’s turning strange. Whatever the
cause, the genius of Step It Up launching at this historic moment can’t
be underestimated: April 14th will be a turning point in
this nation, when millions will finally take concrete action and help
the U.S. re-establish its role in the world as an environmental leader.
By way of email,
blogs, and green news sites, community activists in nearly every state
are planning events. But there are many like-minded people and places
removed from these nodes of electronic communication, and that’s when
networks become key. From Earth Day Network to Blue Frontier
Campaign, networks have been blasting the message to their partners
around the nation that no matter their day-to-day missions, we all need
to take a stand for action on the climate, because it’s critical to
every other good thing that needs doing.
Many of the Orion Grassroots
Network’s 1,000-plus
member groups are also helping out, and in a couple cases, our members
have become the first ones to put dots on their own states’ Step It
Up event map. A whole new country is now on the map thanks to member
group Western Canada Wilderness Committee: http://www.stepitup2007.ca
But in order
to spark a truly national call to action on climate change, each
of us must reach out to our own networks. This is especially true
of those folks who live in places that don’t yet have many dots on
the Step It Up map. Know anyone in northern Maine or North Dakota? Start
by telling them what your community is planning. Provide links to Step
It Up’s resources page suggesting what sorts of actions
might work for their locality. Most importantly, share your optimism!
Assure them that it’s not too late, and that we can turn this around.
Say that we, the citizens at the grassroots, demand that our leaders
step it up and legislate a better way for people and planet. Together,
we can make Step It Up 2007 huge.
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