lightblueline

Yesterday, across the nation, more than a thousand local actions dramatized the need for the US to focus its attention to climate change. In Goleta, on the beach, an ice-cube toss into the ocean symbolized how half-way measures just won't cut it. Lightblueline congratulates these actions and everyone who participated! We all need to step up and show we are serious about stopping human induced climate change. In the face of the current administration, which continues to back-pedal on this issue, it will take a strong congress to step forward and lead.

"Step It Up 2007" organized the events and blogged the results:

Step It Up 2007

CNN (April 15, 2007) reported on this day of concern:

"Scientists say melting polar ice caps and glaciers will cause ocean levels to rise, although estimates vary. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has projected that ocean levels will rise 7 to 23 inches this century, but other scientists warn the sea level could rise 10 feet or more, enough to flood Lower Manhattan and other low-lying coastal areas.

The threatened rise in the ocean also was dramatized by a New Coast Parade in Portland, Maine, one of more than 30 observances in that state.

'The most important things that we have a responsibility to do in government are to prepare our children for a bright future and to preserve and protect our natural resources,' Maine Gov. John Baldacci told a gathering in Portland.

The nationwide events were spearheaded by a group of recent graduates from Vermont's Middlebury College, who organized a campaign of blogs, e-mail messages and word-of-mouth communications.

'We see this to be the most pressing issue of our time, and our generation,' said Will Bates, 23, one of six former Middlebury students who helped organize the event with author Bill McKibben, a scholar in residence at the college and among the first to write about global warming, in his 1989 book 'The End of Nature.'

In Chicago, Illinois, about 500 people listened to speeches in Daley Plaza from a panel of environmental experts who called for a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. The crowd also waved signs exclaiming 'Step it up Congress.'...

"In California, 200 hikers made a strenuous, hour-long climb up a steep canyon to a point just below the famous Hollywood sign.

'It takes real passion to make a big difference -- strength in numbers,' said Kara Thurman of Santa Monica.

Earlier, hundreds gathered along Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade just east of the Pacific Ocean to listen to lectures and listen to makers of "green" products pitch their wares.

'We have such a wonderful planet, and it is really tragic for us to ruin it with global warming,' said organizer Jim Stewart of Earth Day L.A. 'The bottom line is everybody needs to be carbon-neutral.'

You can read the whole article here:

Rallies nationwide urge Congress: Step it up on climate