I’m sitting down in the office for the first time in about five weeks. It’s been a wild ride – Bill McKibben and I have been on the road talking to people all around Europe about 350 and our big October day. So much to tell, but what’s on my mind right now is the meeting we had right before wrapping up the tour – perhaps because this button Anne gave me was still pinned to my shirt when I got home.
Anne is part of the growing and vibrant civil society in Stockholm, Sweden pushing for a clean energy future. She’s involved in what sounds like has been a long fight opposing a new highway bypass, and during the meeting she came up with the brilliant idea of doing 350 geocaches in the nature reserves and World Heritage (Drottningholm) the campaign is hoping to protect. For those of you all who are new to geocaching, think orienteering -maps and compasses in the woods- updated for the 21st century with GPS. Very cool.
Our small meeting held a lot of promise, with people from Miljöförbundet Jordens Vänner (Friends of the Earth Sweden) and KlimatAktion, a powerful, new Swedish climate coalition, talking about how to use the October 24 date to promote their projects in Stockholm and leverage their energy towards the Copenhagen UN meeting. Fun in the woods, with a local targeted message for better transportation options, linked with thousands of events around the world with an global demand of 350 on October 24 adding to the action in and around Stockholm. What could be better?
I’ll hope to send out some more tidbits from our recent discussions – everywhere we went, people were ready to organize – a bike messenger relay carrying the news of 350, giant “3”s, “5”s, and “0”s connecting city to city in international cooperation, maybe even 350 beer steins in southern Germany… but, then again, maybe not. It was fun to laugh about it with our new friends at Green City Munich though.
Onwards!