Well, today is it, the National Day of Climate Action! Three months of organizing by Bill McKibben, his crew of six Middlebury College grads, and folks all over the country is culminating today in over 1400 actions. The photos and action reports are streaming in, and a slide show with some of the first pix is scrolling across the screen at the Step It Up site. You can see red-shirted bodies spelling out Step It Up in New Orleans; Middlebury College students spelling it out with flashlights just after midnight this morning; scuba divers with a banner underwater off Key West; bike rallies; kids making colorful banners; contra dance-based activism in Maine; and more.
The best will be tonight at 8:00, when McKibben and friends put on a live webcast of the day's events. Just tune into the same site!
Please use the comments to share reports of your action! Here's ours:
A diverse group of Atlantans stepped it up on the Morehouse College campus, with a rally in front of the Martin Luther King Chapel that included an amazing performance by the national champion step team from Morehouse. Speakers emphasized the disproportionate impact of climate change on poor and minority communities, and the importance of public support on what politicians can feel comfortable in voting for. Our day also included an electric car show plus workshops on climate change and social justice; reducing energy use; local transit issues; and an interfaith response to climate change. The most memorable quote of the day was perhaps this: "I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I’m an activist because it’s our actions that change things."