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Amy Goodman Dr. James Hansen Rev. Jim Wallis Rev. Lennox Yearwood Betsy Taylor Ted Glick MC Mike Tidwell Singer Luci Murphy

Amy Goodman

Host and Executive Producer of Democracy Now, author with David Goodman of Standing up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times. Ms. Goodman, who has been called the "human megaphone for the collective progressive unconscious," has traveled the world to cover injustice from the front lines. In one instance, the Dili Massacre, she literally put her body between Timorese protesters and the Indonesian Army, who beat her and killed at least 250 of the protestors. Her documentary video and reporting on the incident sparked outrage across the world. Goodman has received dozens of awards for her work, including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the George Polk Award. "Going to where the silence is," says Goodman, "that is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful."

She hosts Democracy Now, "the exception to the rulers." She is known for speaking truth to power, most notably during the 2000 election when she unyieldingly questioned President Clinton for his policies on the death penalty, the Middle East and racial profiling, and other issues. Listen now>> She had Ted Glick on her show in the second month of his fast to protest inaction on climate change from Capitol Hill. Listen now>>

David Goodman

Amy will be introduced by her brother and co-author David Goodman.

Dr. James E. Hansen

Longtime director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in a January 29, 2006, New York Times interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, and postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Since 1988, he has been issuing public warnings about the long-term threat from heat-trapping emissions, dominated by carbon dioxide, that are an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels. He testified on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue. He is also noted for publishing "an alternative scenario" for global warming which states that in the past few decades the warming effect produced by increased CO2 has been largely offset by the cooling effect of aerosols also produced in burning fossil fuels, and that most of the net warming so far is due to trace greenhouse gases other than CO2. He has been a critic of both the Clinton and current Bush Administration's stances on climate change.

Rev. Jim Wallis

President and Executive Director of Sojourners, author of The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America. He is President and Chief Executive Officer of Sojourners, where he is editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine, whose combined print and electronic media have a readership of more than 250,000 people. He has taught at Harvard's Divinity School and the Kennedy School of Government on "Faith, Politics, and Society." He has written eight books, including Faith Works, The Soul of Politics; Who Speaks for God?; and The Call to Conversion.

Jim Wallis was raised in a Midwest evangelical family. As a teenager, his questioning of the racial segregation in his church and community led him to the black churches and neighborhoods of inner-city Detroit. He spent his student years involved in the civil rights and antiwar movements at Michigan State University. While at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, Jim and several other students started a small magazine and community with a Christian commitment to social justice that has now grown into a national faith-based organization. In 1979, Time magazine named Wallis one of the "50 Faces for America's Future." Watch this interview with John Stewart>>

Meet the speakers and get free signed copies of their books at the pre-rally reception!

Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr.

Rev. Yearwood is known for his activist work as the National Director of the Gulf Coast Renewal Campaign in which he organized a coalition of national organizations and grassroots organizations to advocate for the rights of Hurricane Katrina survivors. More recently, Rev. Yearwood has become an important figure in both the peace and climate movements as an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq and the Bush Administration's "dependence" on oil. He was an Officer in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and led a "Make Hip Hop Not War" national tour to engage more young people in the movement for peace. He is currently a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Rev. Yearwood was a co-creator of the 2004 campaign "Vote or Die" with Sean "Diddy" Combs. He was also the Political and Grassroots Director for Russell Simmons' Hip Hop Summit Action Network in 2003 and 2004, and a Senior Consultant to Jay Z's Voice Your Choice. Watch this interview with Amy Goodman>>

Betsy Taylor

Betsy Taylor is President of the 1 Sky Campaign, founder of the Center for a New American Dream, and author of Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the 21st Century. 1Sky is working to unite hundreds of organizations and millions of Americans behind a clear vision and a simple platform for solutions to global warming at the scale of problem.

From 1998 until early 2006, Betsy served as founder and President of the Center for a New American Dream. The Center helps Americans live and consume responsibly for a better world. Prior to founding the Center, Ms. Taylor spent twenty years as a leader in the philanthropic and non-profit sector. She helped found the Environmental Grantmakers Association and served as its Vice-Chair. In her role as executive director of the Stern Fund, Ottinger Foundation and later the Merck Family Fund, Betsy played a leadership role in supporting successful campaigns to promote energy conservation, campaign finance reform, and sustainable economic development. In the early to mid 80s she served as lobbyist, PAC deputy director and international representative for the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. More recently, Betsy helped launch the Iraq Peace Fund - a coordinated philanthropic response to the threatened invasion of Iraq that was the primary funding vehicle for pre and post-war advocacy for peaceful conflict resolution. In early 2003, she helped convene forty progressive leaders who together launched the National Voice - a short-term effort to maximize progressive non-partisan voter registration and participation in the 2004 elections. She is the author of three books, appears frequently in the national media, and is on the board of the Center for a New American Dream, CERES, Town Creek Foundation, Ottinger Foundation, Bright Planet, Government Accountability Project and the Garrison Institute. She has an M.P.A. from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a BA in psychology from Duke University.

Ted Glick

Coordinator of the US Climate Emergency Council, Ted Glick fasted for 107 days during the last congressional session. Watch this video about the fast>>  Glick has devoted 40 years of his life to the progressive social change movement. After a year of student activism as a sophomore at Grinnell College in Iowa, he left college in 1969 to work full time against the Vietnam War. As a Selective Service draft resister, he spent 11 months in prison. In 1973 he co-founded the National Committee to Impeach Nixon and worked as a national coordinator on grassroots street actions around the country, keeping the heat on Nixon until his August, 1974 resignation.

Since 2004, Ted has played a national leadership role in the effort to stabilize our climate and for a clean energy revolution. He was a co-founder in 2004 of the Climate Crisis Coalition and in 2005 coordinated the USA Join the World effort leading up to December 3rd actions during the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. In May, 2006 he became the national coordinator of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council.

Mike Tidwell (MC)

Founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a grassroots nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and DC. He is also an author and filmmaker, who predicted in vivid detail the Katrina hurricane disaster in his 2003 book Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast. His newest book, focusing on Katrina and global warming, is titled The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities. Tidwell's most recent documentary film - "We Are All Smith Islanders" - vividly depicts the dangers of global warming Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. In 2003, Tidwell received the Audubon Naturalist Society's prestigious "Conservation Award." A long-time resident of Maryland, he lives in Takoma Park with his nine-year-old son Sasha.

Luci Murphy (singer)

Luci Murphy is a native of Washington, D.C. where she is a vocalist who often leads group singing, but "sun-lights" as a medical interpreter of Spanish and English. She has a long history of community activism, especially working with children at risk. She has visited Lebanon to observe Palestinian Refugee Camps, China just before the normalization of relations with the U.S., Brazil for a grass-roots organizing conference, and Cuba to oppose U.S. travel restrictions. Murphy is Copy Editor for the Words Beats and Life Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture. Listen to her here>>

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