Many of you might have gotten the email that Bill McKibben forwarded on from me while I was at the UN climate conference in Bonn, Germany last week, which ended just yesterday.  (If you don’t get our emails, be sure to sign up for updates here: www.350.org/sign).  In that email we announced our home-made action counter on display within the conference space — a way of communicating news of the growing movement outside the negotiating room walls to the negotiators inside.  We called for folks to register actions as soon as they could — our hope being to have at least 350 actions on display by the time this round of negotiations was through.

And quite amazingly — we did it!

As I write we’re at 387 actions registered in 49 countries!  That is quite a start for the first 9 days after the official announcement of the day of action.  A HUGE thanks to everyone that has signed up so early.  And to anyone not signed up yet, no worries.  We definitely still have time.  This is just the beginning.

I personally was no longer in Bonn by the time the negotiations ended, but Jeremy, Wael, Soumar, and many of our movement friends were there through and through, steadily upping the action counter as delegates peered on in the halls.  We will just have to wait for them to settle back home for any final images of the counter on display inside the conference.  Even before I left, though, the counter was definitely drawing interest and curiosity from the delegates, and I’m sure that the constant upwards trend of the action count had a strong impression.  But at the moment, I mainly wanted to write about how amazed I am by the action count!

387 in 9 days!  And now we have a little over 7 months to go until October 24.  Let’s make the most it.

Many people who have signed up at this point are still contemplating their action plans.  That’s absolutely fine.  Now is precisely the time to be gathering with friends, neighbors, and local organizations to discuss action possibilities — not to mention spreading the word to folks you know anywhere around the world.

Regardless of whether you are registered yet or not, here is a bit of inspiration from a few of the action ideas some folks have already started working on…

– Folks in Abakaliki, Nigeria are planning to host a climate seminar in town with over 3,000 people.  And each person will be asked to plant a tree — over 3,000 trees in one day!

– From Nanaimo, Canada: “Sailboat with large asymmetrical peace spinnaker with “350 banner’ along deck gunnels.”

– From San Fransisco, USA: “Greenpeace joins with 350.org and a variety or other Bay Area organizations to throw a massive 350 Climate Party calling on our leaders to join the global party of countries that are committing to 350ppm targets. Speakers, music, food, fun and action.”

– In Wellington, New Zealand, at 3:50 AM there will be a “Dawn Ceremony” — “a spiritual invitation for a new paradigm in living, loving and learning for all in peaceful acceptance of responsibility and response-ability to make this world climate safe for our generations to come.”

– From Amsterdam, Netherlands: “In support of 350ppm as a safe climate stabilisation level, I will endeavour to get 350 swing people to Dam Square in Amsterdam, and have them all dance a 1920’s charleston routine. It will be an amazing party! There will also be a beginners lesson, hosted by 35 teachers, to teach people the routine on the day, in advance of the performance.

The 1920s, 30s and 40s were a time of global challenge and hardship, through a depression and two world wars. But people found joy, and positive social interaction, in dancing.

Dancing is an activity that we do far too little of in today’s society. It is one of the key opportunities of a low-carbon future: we will spend less time ‘working jobs we hate to buy sh*t we don’t need’ (Quote from the film ‘Fight Club’) and spend more time on service-based, non-wasteful, zero-carbon, community-based, healthy activites – like daning, sport, cooking, circus, and making music with friends.”

– From Hanoi, Vietnam: “My event is going to have 3 different parts:

Part 1: showing movies and books about how people have damaged the environment and how simply we can do to save the environment. I want to show some films about how industry has changed many landscapes in Vietnam and how the ignorance of people can contribute to the increase of pollution around Hanoi.

Part 2: “Green market” to raise money to buy new recycle bins to put around Hoan kiem lake and West lake (2 famous but polluted lakes in Hanoi). in this market, we will sell reuseable and recycled shopping bags, toys made from waste, plants to put in the house, Green T-shirt with the logo of this event.

Part 3: Action now! People join this event in Hanoi will go around some streets in Hanoi, carrying big nylons to collect waste, gabbage thrown on the road.”

Ok, this could go on and on.  You can find more action ideas here: http://www.350.org/action-ideas.

We are looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.  We are here to help as best we can as this we progress towards the big day.  Here we go…