Calling all student climate activists around the world!  Check out this opportunity for the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) to apply for an award to help fund your local climate initiative.  Climate is one of the main areas of focus for the foundation, and they encourage creativity in project ideas for ways to reduce your campus' impact and raise awareness.  Many of us at 350.org got our start organizing on our campus just a few years ago, helping write a plan for emissions reductions, running a campaign to lower the thermostats, and other projects that CGIU suggests.

So think big! Get together with some other students, read up on the requirements for the application, and send it in!

At a bar in Livingston, Montana, I once sat down with Doug Peacock, a beleaguered Vietnam veteran, grizzly bear expert and model for Ed Abbey’s character, Hayduke.  I can remember Peacock slowly observing and studying me while we drank.  He grew increasingly comfortable with the things I said: I was clearly like-minded in my feelings towards environmental and conservation issues. I loved beat writing and literature.  I liked wild places and solitude.  Then we got to the athlete thing and it was clear that Peacock was backpedaling.  I’m not sure he thought athletics was worth the time.  Finally, he articulated a few phrases that have bounced around my head since I left the bar in Livingston, “Don’t get me wrong,” He said. “Athletics are a valid way to organize a life.  A perfectly valid way… like art or music.   (Athletics) just can’t trump everything else in the rest of the world, which it tends to do in our culture.”

Enter the athletic ambassadors for 350.  Since being enlisted by Bill McKibben to work with this 350 project, I’ve been both over- and under- whelmed by athletes.  Turn on the tv and you’ll find images of self-indulgent super stars wasting away in the warm glow of their celebrity.  Fortunately, you’ll find exceptions to the rule as well.  Those are the 350athletes.  They have been busy.  A few examples: Freeskier Chris Davenport requested more of the iconic green wristbands to push off on fellow skiers while continuing his self-propelled trips up Colorado’s toughest peaks.  Renown climber, Conrad Anker, had the 350 logo emblazoned on his portaledge during a recent trip to the Himalayas.  The logo makes a cameo in an upcoming film about his climbs sponsored by the North Face clothing company.  The MetLife cycling team, a regional pro-am group based out of Boston have offered up some prime real estate on their jerseys  and have offset their carbon emissions to push the cause.  Canadian super skiers, Thomas Grandi and Sara Renner organized a 350 bike ride back in October to push awareness. Grani made 350 the prime “sponsor” for his column on skiing’s international website FIS-ski.com.  Triathletes from London.  Pro-mountain bikers from Seattle. Climber. Baseball players. Even synchronized swimmers want to be involved. Some have posted 350 news to their personal blogs and written stories, pushing insight and action from otherwise uninitiated sports fans.  Some have gone further organizing actions and working on ideas for the upcoming October 24th movement.  Still others are piecing together where they’ll fit in with what feels to be a new order in sustainability, the  global economy and a world pushing for 350 parts per million.

Here at 350.org we know how important numbers are in the climate game. The EU however seems to shy away from putting solid numbers on the table. At the EU council spring meeting - happening today and tomorrow - Ministers for Finance and Ministers for Foreign Affairs got the ball passed by Ministers for Environment who met earlier this month to discuss funding for mitigation and adaptation efforts by developing countries. The council was expected to put numbers on the table but now it looks more likely that a clear statement on how much money the EU will spend on financing mitigation and adaptation efforts by developing countries will be delayed to June. Without a clear statement on how much money the EU will provide for developing countries it is questionable if developing countries will agree to a new global climate deal end of the year in Copenhagen. Especially rapid-developing countries like China stated that their engagement in mitigation actions under a new global deal depends on financial support by long-industrialized countries which bear main historical responsibility for the climate crisis.

The EU has a long track-record of presenting itself as taking leadership on climate change policies with a commitment of 20% reduction on greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels by 2020 and a 30% reduction target in case other industrialized countries - mainly the US - will follow their example. However, under the circumstances of global recession the EU seems to be more interested in quick measures for economical recovery than long-term climate change leadership. Although both crisis - the climate crisis and the financial crisis - could be handled with the same instrument: high investments in low-carbon technologies and infrastructure.