This post was written by Lisa Altieri, an organizer with 350 Silicon Valley

On June 6th over 400 people, local residents and activists from all over the San Francisco Bay Area protested in Palo Alto to tell President Obama – STOP the Keystone XL Pipeline as he was attending a fundraising event for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at a private home in Palo Alto.  Many protesters were supporters of the President including some who worked on his campaign.  We were there to make sure he knows we are counting on him to keep his promises on climate and clean energy and protect our planet for future generations.

One of the biggest challenges we face on climate is the timeline on impacts – people can and do make change on a large scale in the face of a crisis.  We have seen this in history where societies mobilize and take action in the face of adversity.  But with climate, the crisis will come long after we have emitted the CO2 – the reality is there is a time lag between when we emit CO2 and when the impacts occur.  The intense storms, fires and droughts we are experiencing here in the US and globally are the results of emissions 40-50 years ago due primarily to the time it takes the oceans to warm.

Since the full effects of our emission will not be immediately visible to spur action, we need to be vocal – we need to speak for the planet loudly and often until it is clear we MUST act and we MUST act NOW.  And above all we need to make sure that we provide people a vision of where we are going – not only can we do this, but where we are headed, the solutions, will create a far better world than we have now.  Done right, the solution will not destroy our economy, but create jobs, provide cleaner air and a much safer planet.  On June 6th, we were one voice as part of the many voices around the world, we spoke for the planet and we spoke LOUD!

The best part of the event for me was the great coalition on climate we are building here.  350, 350 Silicon Valley and all our 350 local groups in the Bay Area are working to build coalitions with other local and national groups to work together to make our voices heard.  The event in Palo Alto was organized by a coalition including the Sierra Club, CREDO Action, the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth.  It is through these coalitions, coming together and working together that we will be stronger – we will be louder and we will really make and impact.  It was wonderful working with everyone on the event and I look forward to building and growing our coalition and our local climate movement.

We’re following up this great event with a meetup to talk about next steps (over margaritas!) Here is the info and where to go to sign up:

What: 350 Silicon Valley Meeting & Margaritas

When: Tuesday, June 25th 7 pm, Palo Alto

Join us for Margaritas and learn about our new 350 Silicon Valley Group!  If you already know about us, join us anyway and meet some other members!  We will talk about our local campaigns and how you can get involved and take action on climate change.  And of course enjoy some Margaritas...  Hope you can make it!

http://www.350siliconvalley.org/margaritas

I've seen Bill McKibben speak quite a few times, but today was something special. Speaking at the National Press Club, in Canberra, Australia, Bill delivered what a friend who was also listening called a "flawless" speech. It was something special that is for sure. Here it is in full. Tomorrow we are off to Melbourne and to another packed out theatre of 800+ people. You can follow our progress on Twitter: @350Australia #DotheMaths and on Facebook here.

Speech to the National Press Club, Canberra, Author and co-founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben

To my foreigner’s eye, there is a profound and interesting disconnection between the way that Australians view their fossil fuel resources, and the way that physics views those same deposits. This disconnection spells bad news for the planet, and perhaps also for the Australian economy, as it seems likely to lead to a series of bets that go disastrously wrong. My hope is that Australia might gain a more clear-eyed view of the future, seeing it more through the eyes of physics as it were, in hopes of charting a sounder course. A course that would, inevitably, require keeping most identified coal, gas and oil deposits safely underground.

Australia has vast fossil fuel deposits, some of the largest known on the planet; the most important are probably the coal beds. To Australians, and especially to the very wealthy men and women who own those holdings, these are the source of future wealth—enough wealth to allow you to build a whole fleet of replica Titanics, say. And so the plans are on for the rapid expansion of mine, rail, and port necessary to dig that coal and send it abroad to be burned.

We founded 350.org on the idea that all of our individual struggles to protect our planet, acheive environmental justice, and stop climate change were connected. Whether you're working to stop the tar sands in Canada, protect the Amazon in Brazil, block a coal export facility in Australia, or promote distributed solar power in China, you're part of a global movement. Climate change is the ultimate global issue, no matter where carbon dioxide goes in to the air it has the same warming effect on our atmosphere. And to solve it, we're going to need the ultimate global movement. 

That's why it's so exciting to see new films like Elemental connect the dots between different struggles around the globe.

Click here to watch a preview of the film. 

Here's a description of the film from its website: 

Elemental tells the story of three individuals united by their deep connection with nature and driven to confront some of the most pressing ecological challenges of our time. The film follows Rajendra Singh, an Indian government official gone rogue, on a 40-day pilgrimage down India’s once pristine Ganges river, now polluted and dying. Facing community opposition and personal doubts, Singh works to shut down factories, halt construction of dams, and rouse the Indian public to treat their sacred “Mother Ganga” with respect. Across the globe in northern Canada, Eriel Deranger mounts her own “David and Goliath” struggle against the world’s largest industrial development, the Tar Sands, an oil deposit larger than the state of Florida. A young mother and native Denè, Deranger struggles with family challenges while campaigning tirelessly against the Tar Sands and its proposed 2,000-mile Keystone XL Pipeline, which are destroying Indigenous communities and threatening an entire continent.

And in Australia, inventor and entrepreneur Jay Harman searches for investors willing to risk millions on his conviction that nature’s own systems hold the key to our world’s ecological problems. Harman finds his inspiration in the natural world’s profound architecture and creates a revolutionary device that he believes can slow down global warming, but will it work?

Separated by continents yet sharing an unwavering commitment to protecting nature, the characters in this story are complex, flawed, postmodern heroes for whom stemming the tide of environmental destruction fades in and out of view – part mirage, part miracle.

You can purchase Elemental on iTunes or learn more about the film on its website.