Step It Up Next Weekend

One week from today, on April 14, citizens around the country will gather together to call for action: “Step it up Congress! Cut carbon 80% by 2050!”  There are over 1300 actions planned thus far, with at least one in every state.  To participate, you can go to Step It Up 2007 and either find an action happening near your or plan one of your own.  It could be as simple as gathering a few people together to quietly hold signs at a busy place in your community, or it could be as big as the rally that will take place here in Chicago, downtown at Daley Plaza, where the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Environment (and others) will be speaking and the band Das Kapital will be playing, among other activities.

Consider: the Supreme Court recently ruled that the EPA must regulate greenhouse gases as part of the Clean Air Act, and that they cannot fail to enforce them just because of political disagreement in Washington.  Now is the time to step up and tell our legislators just how much tougher these regulations need to be, now that there’s some commitment to enforce them.  So if you can’t make it out to an event next weekend, at least contact your representatives.  See the Write Your Representative page for members of the House and the Senate website’s contact info for members of the Senate.

Educating Youth About Global Warming

Many of us, even if our campus religious fellowships don’t involve high school students or younger children, come into contact regularly with them at our congregations, or through activities like tutoring, or caring for younger siblings; perhaps some of us even have children of our own.  As we think about engaging our campuses, our neighborhoods, and our religious communities to take action against global warming, then, we might want to keep in mind that we not only need to educate and change the habits of ourselves and those older than us, but we also need to help teach the next generation to do so as well.  Unfortunate as it may be, today’s youth are the ones who will be dealing with global warming in very tangible ways as soon as they are adults; hence teaching them about the situation sooner rather than later may not be a bad idea.

So for those of you involved in youth education, or interested in teaching youth in your congregation about global warming and possibly involving them in the Day of Prayer, you might want to check out the new youth edition of the companion guide to An Inconvenient Truth coming out April 10th.  Designed for youth in grades 5-8, it’s quite a bit slimmer than the original volume but still contains many of the striking images and the key information about global warming.  My guess is getting a 6th-grader to check out some of these photos may be a much easier task than getting them to sit and watch Al Gore for a couple hours.  For other educational materials, you can also check out StopGlobalWarming’s classroom resources, which features a “Take Action” sheet with ideas for changes that students can encourage their families to make at home.