While our team is now focused on helping to stir up and unite an international grassroots movement dedicated to fighting climate change, our more singular focus last year was to exert real pressure on the U.S. Congress and presidential candidates to take serious action on climate. Of course we don’t think that the U.S. no longer needs to be pushed on the issue, which is why we continue to stay active in U.S. politics and work closely with many of our U.S.-focused partner organizations like 1sky.org.
Just last weekend, as the first climate bill discussed in the senate failed, we gathered forty friends and supporters to gather outside California Senator Barbara Boxer’s office near the 350.org office in San Francisco to send a message to her and to the media. The Warner-Lieberman bill was far too weak, riddled with loopholes for polluters, and didn’t include targets that match up with the latest science. While Barbara Boxer has been one of the greatest champions on the issue in the senate, she pushed hard for this bill to pass, even though its provisions fell far short of what the problem of climate change calls for.
Our action was to remind her of our appreciation for her work on the issue, and also of the most recent climate science. She and her staff have received the letter written by us, Bill McKibben and John Passacantando of Greenpeace, and ABC News and a few other media outlets came out to cover the story – not bad for a Saturday morning action! See below for the video of the action: