Some universities are following the schedule listed in the article and some are using Focus the Nation as a starting point for their own creative climate change education ideas. Tufts University is doing a bit of both: http://www.tufts.edu/programs/sustainability/FocustheNati ...

What are other folks doing?

At the end of our jam packed climate change day at the University of Portland we are hosting the regional "Focus the Nation: LIVE at the Chiles Center!" featuring a live OPB radio broadcast of students from across the state (from 9 colleges and universities) engaging with Governor Ted Kulongoski, Earl Blumenauer (pending), and two other elected officials from the state on climate change solutions. Live Wire! will also be there with great climate themed comedy and commentary, and entertainment.  Hillstomp will open the event with a few songs and the band Stars of Track and Field will close out the night with a full set.  DON'T MISS AN EPIC EVENING!  All at http://climatechange.up.edu
Register for required tickets.  

Focus the Nation is a great opportunity to participate in a national conversation on this important issue for ANY group or organization.

The national plant group Wild Ones: Native Plants, Natural Landscapes has endorsed FTN because global warming directly impacts our mission of promoting native plants and natural landscapes. The January program for my local chapter of Wild Ones will talk about the things gardeners can do in their own yards to prevent global warming (National Wildlife Federation has a great resource on this topic.) We'll focus especially on raising our own vegetables in our suburban yards to reduce "food miles" and buying produce from local farmers.

The faith community also is involved since global warming is an environmental issue, but it's also a justice issue. The national Interfaith Power & Light organization has endorsed FTN, as has New York Interfaith Power & Light and other faith organizations. On January 27, my own church's worship service will explore this connection between environmental and social justice, and in the afternoon we'll be hosting a sustainability fair, showing the movie Kilowatt Ours 2007 (excellent!), then having a panel discussion with local experts. Then on Wed night Jan 30, we'll show the webcast The 2% Solution.

If your congregation or other organization would like to put on a FTN event, it's not too late. It's simple to show a DVD such as Kilowatt Ours (http://www.kilowattours.org) or one of the other videos such as Too Hot Not to Handle. The important thing is to start the conversation - for our children's sake!!
-- Janet Allen

........ of the human-induced predicament that is potentially posed to humanity in these early years of Century XXI.

Unbridled, seemingly endlessly expanding economic globalization on a relatively small, finite, noticeably frangible planet looks to be one primary cause.  Two other root causes appear as increasing, unrestrained per capita consumption of limited resources and the skyrocketing growth of absolute human population numbers worldwide.

Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

Thanks for alerting us to this great event. I will make sure to post it on my blog.

http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com

marguerite manteau-rao http://lamarguerite.wordpress.com 'It's All About Green Psychology'

Eban Goodstein's clarion call convinced me six months ago to put aside my regular job to help Focus the Nation as its Civic Engagement Director. I'm in DC this week spreading the word in Congressional offices so that they have a context for the invitations they are getting from schools in their districts to participate in the Green Democracy part of Focus the Nation. The response has been very positive. Since "all politics is local" Focus the Nation is shaping up to be a great combination of local volunteers joining up on the same day to create a national event.

I urge any Focus the Nation schools out there who haven't already invited their Congressional reps to do so right away. It's not too late and they may just surprise you by accepting. Easy instructions are on the web site:  http://www.focusthenation.org/invitation_congress.php

If Eban's post moved you, I also recommend his book, Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction (http://www.fightingforlove.com/). Although I've been working to protect the Earth for over 20 years, his book gave me some new insights both in our common plight and in the need, now more than ever, to speak truth to power -- and to do it from the heart.

Great! Brilliant! Fantastic!

However, without a radical change in our system of economy we haven't a snowball's chance on a globally warmed Earth!

Global warming is only one of the problems, the others being the failing ecosystems.

See:  The $500-a-barrel professors!
http://feww.wordpress.com/

and: Failing Ecosystems  http://edro.wordpress.com/failing-ecosystems/

also: Collapsing Cities
http://edro.wordpress.com/collapsing-cities/

....... to the interlocking national economies of the global human economy are in the offing.  

Let's consider how ECONOMY could figure in precipitating the distinctly human-induced predicament that appears before humanity, already dimly visible on the far horizon, in these early years of Century XXI.  

Human beings are members of a wondrous, marvelously endowed species on a relatively small, finite, noticeably fragile planet. That planet has an economy of its own. That is to say, Earth's economy is balanced, self-regulating and self-renewing. Earth's economy is organized biologically and physically according to "laws" of the natural world and the Universe beyond, I suppose.

By comparison, a second economy exists on the surface of the Earth, the manmade global economy. The problem with the human economy is that it is an artificially designed, human construction.  This economy is unbalanced, not self-regulating or self-renewing. This economy is organized, operated and "grown" without regard to limits to its growth that are inevitably imposed by the "laws" of nature.

As many other people have suggested for a long time, perhaps the time has come to reorganize the soon to become patently unsustainable manmade global economy so that it is structured and functions more like the sustainable economy of nature.

Sincerely,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/  

To echo the previous comments, Focus the Nation is clearly a great way to jump-start the next phase of the climate movement.  All folks who are reading this should go to the Focus the Nation website (http://www.focusthenation.org/) and learn how to join -- or start -- an event. And a huge tip of the hat to Eban and his crew: January 31, 2008 will be a day to celebrate our coming clean-energy future.

Dear Steven

Thank you for your wonderful, heartening posts!

"Unbridled, seemingly endlessly expanding economic globalization on a relatively small, finite, noticeably frangible planet looks to be one primary cause."

The exponential growth economy is THE primary cause. Unless the primary cause is addressed, any effort to "solve" the problems would be an expansive waste, an inimitable opportunity carelessly discarded.

Below excerpt is from "The Death of Homo Sapiens Sapiens," a series of six article available at http://msrb.wordpress.com/selected-articles-and-links/

"We have reached an ecological threshold whereby any economic activity within the malignant culture of exponential growth triggers a host of destructive forces that are detrimental to the environment and human welfare."

Best wishes
LGT

Here in Focus the Nation HQ, we receive inspiring updates from our organizers every day.  I wanted to share a quick highlight from the midwest: Focus Minnesota.  Arctic explorer Will Steger will give a presentation at a rock-venue in downtown Minneapolis.  Sponsored by the Bell Museum, the Will Steger Foundation, and Focus the University of MN, this event is going to draw over 1,000 Minnesotans!

To check out more motivational stories, check out: http://www.focusthenation.org/updates.php

Sometimes even when you want to do something, it's hard to know where and how to begin. I wanted to share a way our city has found to convince people to try "green" transportation:

Sixth grade Zach once said, "People will only do it if it's fun..." That's in part the thinking behind the creation of Walk/Ride Days, which have spread from many cities in the Boston area to Portland, ME, and are threatening to land elsewhere on the east coast soon. Walk/Ride Days were created in March, 2006 by a group called the Cambridge Green Streets Initiative; now other communities are creating their own "Green Streets Initiatives".

Walk/Ride Days are once-a-month city-wide celebrations - parties - that take place in a city, town, or other region, generally on the last Friday of every month, year round.

As the http://www.portlandgreenstreets.org website says,

"On these days, we encourage people throughout Greater Portland to:

    * Wear Green (shirt, pants, socks, whatever!)
    * Commute Green (walk, bike, bus, carpool, telecommute, etc.!)
    * And then to Celebrate (with freebies, discounts, & raffle items from local businesses) !

The idea is to encourage each individual - and institution -- to celebrate and encourage people in its own way."

Everyone is included in the festivities every month, and special rewards are given to those who go green. By including even those who may have have gone "brown" that day encourages them to go "green" the next time.

Walk/Ride Days' success has been that it's a tiny and repeating commitment... (Who can't carpool once a month?!... and if people miss it one month, they often resolve to do it the next.) It's all voluntary and fun. Doing it on a single day, with a huge celebration, takes advantage of positive peer pressure (enthusiasm?), light competition, and community pride. It also makes the streets much safer with more cyclists and pedestrians and fewer cars on the roads. Local retailers love it and help with incentives.

The changes we see have been tremendous. People who never dared cross certain thoroughfares with children outside of their cars tried it for the first time... and their children would not let them return to their old ways. Office staff enjoy it, and people rise to the challenge. We have seen  car usage in classrooms and offices cut in half on those days.

Check out Portland's website and the overall one at http://www.GoGreenStreets.org, and start Walk/Ride Days in your community/institution/school. It's easy, and a lot of fun! Whether an urban, suburban or rural community, people will be thankful for having been given a chance to participate and to take an easy step toward doing good. Once they've taken one step, they are so much more likely to take another!

Janie Katz-Christy, Director, Green Streets Initiative,www.GoGreenStreets.org. Go Green and Wear Green on the Last Friday of Every Month!

That's why we need this day of education and civic engagement so badly - to make it clear our demand for real policy solutions to global warming, and even clearer our sense of urgency and determination.  

Cap and auction policies work to reduce emissions effectively.  The technologies to re-wire our country on clean renewable energy already exist.  What are we waiting for?

There is a huge opportunity for growth, for the re-vitalization of our economy, our society and our ecosystems.  It is time for America to take a huge step forward; its time for us all to step up and focus on making Congress act now, while we still can.

2% compounded is still far too little, far too late.  5% per year does the job (88% reduction by 2050, with the first 50% drop in 14 years, and almost 20% by 2012 --- in other words, a serious response to the urgency of the problem).

See this from Oregon Peaceworks about the
5% Solution Project

http://oregonpeaceworks.web.aplus.net/site/index.php?opti ...

Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.

Do the dearth of political will and the absence of moral courage among our leaders present the family of humanity with greatest human challenge of our time?

Where are to find able leadership, that is prepared to do what in necessary to save life as we know it as well as the integrity of Earth and its frangible global ecosystems?

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

2012.  That again.

Look, just because some Mayan city planners made a calendar with a Year 5000 bug, doesn't mean we have to running for the hills.

Except for Gristers, of course.  Break out the incense and paint the VW vans a purple shade of paisley and wait on the butte for the sky to fall.

As far as gridlock -- Thank God for that!   If we ever let the cuckooforcocoapopsosphere access to the public trough they'd have us spending it on solar powered windjammers and geothermal crytal healing orbs.

Try to realise it's all within yourself
No-one else can make you change
And to see you're really only very small,
And life flows within you and without you

G. Harrison

My Log

..... the family of humanity chooses to do what is clearly within its power: save itself, other creatures and Earth from itself?

Humanity could soon be confronted with a huge challenge that takes its astounding shape from continuously skyrocketing absolute global human population numbers as well as from economic globalization and per-capita consumption of limited resources by the human species.

Perhaps it will become dangerous to life as know it on Earth for the human community much longer to pursue the prized "business as usual" course of the predominant culture: unbridled overproduction, unrestrained overconsumption and unchecked overpopulation because, when these distinctly human activities are taken together, a force of nature exists that could become unsustainable on the relatively small, evident finite, noticeably frangible planet God blesses us to inhabit and steward, and surely not to overwhelm.

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

It's about saving ourselves. The planet couldn't care less what temperature it is or how much ice there is.

I teach environmental economics and blog at http://www.voicesofreason.info.

The Environmental Consortium of Hudson Valley Colleges & Universities is holding its annual conference on January 24-25 at Fordham University as a regional kick-off to Focus the Nation.  Climate Change: Science, Culture and the Regional Response will serve as an intellectual toolkit for FTN events taking place on January 31st.   Included in the agenda is an interdisciplinary Roundtable moderated by Andy Revkin of The New York Times, to discuss cultural apathy toward global warming.  The question will be examined by a journalist, physicist/historian, artist, and political scientist.  

Since my last comment, I traveled to DC to talk to House and Senate offices about Focus the Nation events in their districts and states. Already 15 House members and 5 Senators have confirmed they are going to an event either in person or by videoconference (we are providing a carbon-friendly way to participate via SightSpeed). Just today, four Senators (2 Democrats and 2 Republicans) sent a letter to all Senators urging them to attend a Focus event (you can see the letter here:  http://www.wildhavens.org/documents/Focus the Nation Senate Dear Colleague 011608).

I'm greatly heartened by the response. If you are working on a Focus event, it's not too late to invite your members of Congress. If you've already invited them, call today and ask them to commit.

-- Scott Highleyman
   Civic Engagement Director
   Focus the Nation

Let me try this again:

http://www.wildhavens.org/documents/Focus%20the%20Nation% ...

Kudos for the great initiatives out there, but too bad imho that they seem to be limited to "national" focus.

The US national science foundation (NSF) is finally starting to put some serious money into international cooperation, to allow strong US-based PhD students to  travel a bit and to mix with Europeans and other internationals, in events such as the Vespucci summer schools (institutes).

This June (2008) a Vespucci week is focused on creating and exploiting (better) Virtual Globes (aka geobrowsers) to assist in global science.

6th Vespucci Summer Institute on GeoInfo Science (June 9-20; Tuscany)