350 Indonesia

After you've watched it, be sure to share it far and wide -- and take the quiz to find out what kind of Changemaker you are. 

On July 17, 350.org released a letter signed by ten of the nation's top climate scientists urging the State Department to fully consider the climate implications of the Keystone XL pipeline in the department's Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the northern leg of the project. Click here for a press release about the release of the letter. 

We just got back from a wonderful rainy weekend at the beautiful Visthar campus situated on the outskirts of Bangalore city.  Seventeen new climate leaders joined 350.org 's India team to give us a good solid push for climate change awareness and action in and around the city of Bangalore. Shalini and Lochan who just attended 350's Training for Trainers in May 2012 in Rishikesh, took the lead at the workshop by facilitating some of the sessions. The energy and  enthusiasm they brought to the group through various experiential learning tools were what made the workshop a super success. 

At the very beginning, we all sat down as a group and set a fews goals for the workshop. And even though we only had the weekend, we really pushed ourselves to make sure that we covered all of them. Some of the main goals were to understand the science behind climate change, the vital importance of building a local movement and the need for leadership to realize the vision of 350 to build a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis. But one goal which we never ever forget at any 350 event is to have fun while we're at it. This group in particular shared so many laughs that we were often left clutching our stomachs.

We were definitely successful in our mission of coming together as a group of concerned citizens by laying the foundation with strong plans and exciting ideas for India's first national day of action against coal that is planned for later in the year. Keep an eye out for more updates coming very soon.

Shalini Menon, a trainer with the Explorer's School and one our workshop facilitators had this to say about the workshop, "Tools in Experiential Education not just make the workshop more fun & interactive but allows people to connect & explore themselves. Keeping in mind, 350's workshop goals, one of them being leadership & building a community of leaders, the challenge was to help the group make connections & bond, all in a two day residential program".

The group plans to meet atleast once a month where they will share stories, ideas and plan local community actions and projects to help Bangalore take the lead in climate activism in India. So, if you are in Bangalore, keep checking the 350 India Facebook page for updates on the groups meetups and plans and do try and join them but don't  forget to encourage your friends and family to come along as well. 

Image courtesy Chethan Karanth.

We just received this troubling message from one of our key supporters tracking the tenuous situation in the Maldives. In early February, President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives was ousted in a coup by Dr. Mohamed Waheed, his Vice President. Since then, Nasheed's pro-democracy supporters have been beaten, jailed and otherwise harassed by authorities, even as they demonstrated for democracy, free and fair elections.

Please help by signing this petition demanding Shauna's release from our friends at Avaaz >>

Dear friends at 350.org,

I am saddened to report to you that Aminath Shauna, who appears in The Island President as the Deputy Undersecretary for Climate Change policy in President Mohamed Nasheed's administration, was arrested today and taken to Dhoonidhoo prison during a violent crackdown by Maldives security forces against demonstrators who are calling for a return to democracy and early elections five months after the February coup d'etat that removed President Nasheed from office.

You may know Shauna as a leader of the 350.org movement in the Maldives who helped organize the Underwater Cabinet Meeting and the Global Day of Climate Action in the Maldives. Following the coup in February, Shauna became Youth Wing President of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP).  Last month, she travelled with former President Mohamed Nasheed to the United States and participated in meetings with the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Congress, and the United Nations.  On June 27, she was with President Nasheed at Tufts University in Boston when he received the James Lawson Award for Non-violent Achievement.

Due to the documented abuses of other detainees held in police custody since the coup d'etat on 7 February, we are deeply concerned for Shauna's safety.  Please help us build support in calling on the government of the Republic of Maldives for her immediate release.

Here are links to news about this week's events in the Maldives:

https://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/violence-in-the-maldives-as-protests-continue/

https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303919504577524692309747370.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hM4gNwcozipcSnHnnk1l4oy45lhA?docId=CNG.2d576ed3249c44fba92d96bd086b49b1.c1

Cross posted from NRDC's Switchboard blog. Post written by Dan Lashof - read the entire thing here.

Smoking Causes Cancer. Carbon Pollution Causes Extreme Weather.

It really doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

We dump billions of tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere each year. As a result, the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 40%. Excess carbon dioxide traps excess heat in the atmosphere. Excess heat causes extreme heat waves, droughts, and storms.

And that’s what we have been seeing. In June alone, 170 all-time high temperature records were broken or tied in the United States, and more than 24,000 daily high temperature records have been broke so far this year. If the climate weren’t changing, we would expect to see about the same number of record highs and record lows set each year due to random fluctuations. That’s what we were seeing fifty years ago, but during the last decade there were twice as many record highs as record lows. So far this year the ratio has been 10 to 1.

Click here to read the entire post.

We've just finished 4 days of 350 Climate Leadership Workshop, here in Bogor, Indonesia, with 20 truly remarkable leaders from around the East Asia region. The workshop brought both new people in to the movement, as well as the leaders of 350 groups in places like Vietnam, Philippines, Burma, China, and of course Indonesia. It was incredibly inspiring to hear first-hand the impressive scale of the 350 movements in Vietnam and the Philippines - where up until now, we only had an inkling of what our organizers had achieved in these places. The team from Vietnam walked us through a slideshow of event-after-event, involving hundreds of thousands of locals and celebrities. While the team from the Philippines took us through the carefully planned organising structure they are unrolling to support dozens of local groups around the country.

It was with this depth of experience and expertise that the relatively small group of 20 people made plans to scale up the 350 movement in a region that includes 1/3 of the world's population. While often faced with difficult political contexts, plans were made to take on fossil fuel subsidies, coal expansion, and push a strong drive for renewable energy deployment, and people-powered solutions. 

From here on in, expect to hear more amazing stories as the East Asia 350.org movement pushes forward with greater regional unity and resolve. Zeph from the Philippines summed it up well:

"I felt that I am connected to a bigger and stronger network of young leaders that had committed themselves to solve the climate crisis in whatever way possible. It is inspiring and moving to share the spirit of solidarity among countries. We are not perfect, but we choose to be here to be better leaders."

It's with that commitment, that workshop participants are now on their way home, and already planning to run their own local workshops, build-up local groups and take the 350 movement to scale. Onwards we move!

Drought conditions persist in many parts of the midwestern United States today, and livestock, crops, farmers, and communities that depend on them (I count myself on that list) are suffering alongside it. The Chicago Tribune reported that "Nearly two-thirds of the nine-state Midwest region was in some stage of drought in the week ended July 10, up from just over 50 percent a week earlier, according to the Drought Monitor, a weekly report on drought throughout the country compiled by U.S. climate experts. A third of the region was in severe to exceptional drought, up from about a quarter of the region a week earlier, it said."

Our friends at the 25 x 25 Initiative have been working with farmers, scientists, and policymakers to assess what adapation measures can be taken in the midst of these climate-driven disasters. To learn more about what they are doing, here's an initial report.
 

Please get in touch with us at [email protected] if you live in the Midwest and are seeking help and there is a way we can be working together.

Fortune Magazine is out with its Fortune 500, its annual ranking of America's largest and most powerful corporations. In pole position is Exxon, whose profits in 2011 rose 35% to $41.1 billion. A good haul, by any definition. Only Wal-Mart stood in the way of a clean sweep by oil and gas companies at the top of the leaderboard, with Chevron ($26.9 billion profit) and ConocoPhillips ($12.4 million profit ) taking spots 3 and 4.