Millions of Americans have recognized the need to take action now to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and the latest movie from 350.org highlights the movement’s growing strength. Watch the movie, and then join us in action!
Over footage of several dozen climate leaders being handcuffed in front of the White House on a cold spring morning and led away, Bill McKibben narrates what he’s come to accept about the role of every activist in the movement to fight catastrophic climate change.
“I think it’s probably required that an awful lot of us do things that are a little hard for us, make a little noise, be a little uncomfortable, push other people to be a little uncomfortable. This is really the fight of our time,” he says.
2012 was the hottest year on record in the United States, and the second-most extreme. Scientists pin the maximum amount of carbon dioxide our atmosphere can take before the planet begins warming out of control at 350 parts per million (ppm). We’re already at 397 ppm, and that number continues to grow, making our seawater more acidic and our atmosphere unstable. Meanwhile, Big Oil and other polluters aren’t changing a thing – instead turning to even more desperate, irresponsible and polluting means of getting to fuel, through hydraulic fracturing and incredibly dirty tar sands. The World Bank and International Energy Agency warn that the amount of fossil fuels the global industry plans to burn will make our planet hotter than life on earth can stand. And governments of the world aren’t stopping them.
But where our political system fails us, Americans are stepping up. In 2013, people who would never have labeled themselves activists – farmers, pastors, grandparents, business leaders – are leaning on their moral courage, idealism and creativity to stand up to the oil companies and the $440,000 they spend every day lobbying Congress.
“The good news is that in this country, when we’ve finally decided that we’re gonna take action on a moral question at the center of who we are, we tend to respond – when we respond – explosively,” says CCAN Director Mike Tidwell in the film.
CCAN is carrying on the call to action right here at home, along with our thousands of supporters across Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia. We are fighting in Annapolis to protect Maryland from the impacts of hydraulic fracturing. We are holding our local leaders, like Virginia Senator Mark Warner, accountable for backing the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. Across the region, we are partnering with local students launching campaigns to demand that their colleges divest from fossil fuels. And, on a bone-chilling February day, CCAN-ers stood and marched with nearly 50,000 people from all corners of the country for the largest climate rally in U.S. history.
Watch the video, and then join us in action!
