theClimateers

Dear President Obama,

The science on climate change is overwhelming, and the momentum from the climate movement is at full speed. Don’t resign to postponing climate action just yet! We’re not just asking you to attend Copenhagen in person, we’re asking you to be at Copenhagen with all the dedication, energy, and diplomatic grace that you have demonstrated so many times before.  We want to see you come home  having made progress — real progress! — on climate negotiations, not pat yourselves on the backs and say, ‘The timing wasn’t right, but let’s certainly do this again later.’

Time is running out! It’s true; we may not feel the repercussions of unabated climate change in the same way we feel the backlash of this economic recession right now, but we have already made irreversible damages to our earth and it is imperative that we act now to prevent too many more from happening.

In solidarity,

Your friendly, neighborhood Climateers

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Dear all,

Most of us are not as lucky as Valida and hundreds of other youth to be able to voice our opinions at Copenhagen in person, so here are a few things we can do at home to make sure we let President Obama and the Senate know we don’t intend to let them off the hook on this one.

1. CALL YOUR SENATORS! You have two of them, and while sometimes it might not seem like it, they work for YOU, so let ‘em know what you want!

2. Attend a climate justice action on November 30: http://www.actforclimatejustice.org/ – happening all over!

3. If you are in DC, help 1Sky and CCAN deliver art to the White House on Dec. 4!

4. It’s not all petitions and protests! Think of something creative! Valida and I wrote 350 songs; Berlin held a silent climate parade; DC released dozens of beautiful, floating lanterns at the White House during Obama’s trip to China — what can you come up with?

5. Send Obama a message or sign a petition – no worries about sending two, or three, or four! The larger the volume the better!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/live |  www.itsgametimeobama.org |  www.climatecountdown.org

Here’s a possible list of things to ask him to do:

- Attend Copenhagen in person

- Put pressure on the Senate to pass a strong climate bill — no watery bills wanted

- Meet with the youth leaders who have been working so hard at the grassroots level on environmental issues

- Address the country with a public, televised speech on the importance of climate and energy legislation so to tell the world that this is a top priority on his agenda

Louise

News of US President Barack Obama being chosen by the Norwegian Nobel Committee as the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize has certainly been raising eyebrows around the world. In my little social networking world, I’ve seen a nice mix of congratulatory, questioning, and just plain funny status messages and tweets.

In the award announcement, the Norwegian Nobel Committee states that it

“endorses Obama’s appeal that ‘Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.’”

I can only imagine how much fun the communications team had in picking out an Obama quotation to throw right back at him.

The Nobel Committee is forcing Obama to live up to expectations – both those of the Prize and of the people who voted for him and the people around the world who celebrated his election.

One key expectation is action on climate change.

Obama’s work “to improve the international climate… to strengthen international bodies such as the UN” is lauded both in the initial award announcement and again during the press conference. Of course creating a new international climate is mostly intended to praise Obama’s general diplomatic work (read: to diss Bush), but I do believe throwing the words “climate” and “UN” very close to one another on more than one occasion is also a clear call to Obama to be at COP-15 in Copenhagen. And when I say “be at COP-15″ I don’t just mean showing his face; no, I mean bringin’ it to Copenhagen.

Onward to Copenhagen!

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.”

Perhaps the Committee would have been better served to give this award to Obama retroactively, for the year 2008, when he actually garnered said hope. But while hope for change (read: world public opinion poll numbers on Obama’s favorability) might have fallen in recent months, we still have hope in our small window of opportunity to enact a bold, binding, and just treaty on climate change mitigation and adaptation in December in Copenhagen.

Obama said he will accept the award as a “call to action.” Let’s make sure that in accepting, he is hearing the call in the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s statement to meet “the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.”  You can add your voice to this call to action by signing the Climate Countdown Petition.

To accept the Peace Prize on December 10 in Oslo, Obama will have to fly to Scandinavia in December anyway; he might as well make the most of those greenhouse gas emissions by spending two weeks in Copenhagen!