Read the following and join her and the Foundation to demand the Grand Canyon is not exploited for destructive Uranium mining. -

Save the Grand Canyon from Uranium Mining

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Suzanne Sparling.  While I am a co-founder of SEN4Earth.org and the Greenhouse Neutral Foundation’s Executive Director of Operations, USA, I’m also a simple person, someone who cares and has a passion to make a difference.

After moving to Arizona almost 7 years ago, I immediately fell in love with the beauty of the area. Shortly afterward, I began searching for avenues to be able to make a difference with regard to environmental issues. While working with the Greenhouse Neutral Foundation, I became the U.S. Executive Director. My work with the Foundation led to a joint inspiration of SEN4Earth.org, co-Founded by Gregory Hilbert and myself.  We created it with the vision to help others to not only be further educated about issues but to also arm them with information, encouragement, and the ability to take action. Though I care deeply about many causes, my primarily concern is with environmental issues. My love of Arizona and passion for environmental activism sparked the Worldwide Campaign to Save the Grand Canyon.

Simply put, I want to make a difference in the world and help others see that they can make a difference too. Every change we make toward sustainability, conservation, and environmental awareness and implementation of changes to achieve those goals – no matter how large or small – matters.

I’m writing to you today to request your organization’s support and promotion of the Worldwide Campaign to Save the Grand Canyon. We are in a critical time crunch. The deadline for public comment is May 4, 2011. At that time, it will be decided whether a new 20 year ban will be enacted or if the mining companies will be permitted to move forward with the toxic contamination and destruction of one of the most incredible places in the world.

When Change.org contacted me directly about the petition I have on their site, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. With their assistance and emailing of their members, signatures skyrocketed from approximately 1100 as of April 4, to over 40,000 as of the writing of this message.

Change.org News Release:
http://news.change.org/stories/razing-arizona-citizens-fight-to-protect-the-grand-canyon-from-uranium-mining

SEN4Earth.org Blog Update:
http://sen4earth.org/articles/2011/04/06/will-the-grand-canyon-survive/

I implore you, please help us succeed with this campaign. I’ve been canvasing the petitions for signatures since August 2010. You may find the petitions here:

http://www.change.org/petitions/worldwide-campaign-to-save-the-grand-canyon
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/worldwide-campaign-to-save-the-grand-canyon-take-action/

If your organization is able to assist us with a news, blog or any other post, publication, or email campaign to your members, please don’t hesitate to send me a link and/or information so that I can show others your support and link back to your site.

Please help us save the Grand Canyon and all the millions of lives dependent upon it.

Thank you,
Suzanne Sparling

In the 60’s activists of the day changed the World. Today more than ever we have at our fingertips the tools to get the job done! We now have Twitter where we can network and get our messages for change out to thousands; and activism websites such as Care2.com where we can start petitions and network with like minded people from across the World. People who have said “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” People just like you that have started as a single voice in the wildness and shouted so that others can hear and join you in the call for change.

I too have become an activist and feel the need to inspire others to join us. Your story can reach and inspire others.

On December 22^nd 2008 the following story appeared in OpEdNews ‘Interview with an Activist – Are you one?’ Read the feature and then allow me to hear your story of your journey to Activism. It will then feature on the Greenhouse Neutral Foundations website to inspire others.

Send me an email to BobWilliamson@greenhouseneutralfoundation.org and I’ll be in touch to hear your story of changing the World to a better place.

Follow me on Twitter @ZEROGreenhouse

A year or so earlier I was talking on Skype to a dear friend Gregory Hilbert of the US based Green Education Network. He like myself, has been working for some years to alert those unconscious to the human effects on the future, of our complacent consumption of finite resources and the pollution of our shared atmosphere with climate changing greenhouse emissions. In that conversation I said to Greg “If one of my daughters came home and told me she was pregnant, I would weep.” The context of the comment was that we as environmental activists are doing all we can to change the mindset of the complacent global majority, but not getting very far with the enormity of the task, and the future for those to come looked very bleak at best. Sure; some are waking up to many of the indisputable facts, but no action is, or will be taken to avert the inevitable by those in power to take such action.

When Lisa told me 9 months ago that she and her partner had decided to have a baby, I indeed had very mixed emotions. I wanted to be happy for them (and was) while knowing that the future of their child, would not be the future I had seen and dreamed of for my own children. Morgan Bevan Slattery will be one of the last generation, to grow up on a planet that supports life as we know and live it today.

I read a book by Fred Pearce called the Last Generation which was released shortly after my book ‘ZERO Greenhouse Emissions – The Day the Lights Went Out – Our Future World’ came out in the US. In his book he asserts that humanity will go on; just not in the way we live today. My book agrees with his while laying out the reality if we do not act now and with global conviction.

I have been told many times that the fight cannot be won. Well I’m not about to relinquish the battle to those who would have me do so. Morgan Bevan Slattery will not say his Grandfather gave up on him….. Good luck young Morgan. I’m sorry that I was a contributing part of the problems you will face in the years to come. I’ll keep trying to be inspired to be a part of the solution…………………

We need to accept this moral responsibility. The following article which appeared in the Guardian I believe comes straight from James’s heart. Do you care enough to take an activist stance while we have the time?

Thank you – Bob Williamson Founder & Chair Greenhouse Neutral Foundation.

“How did you become an activist?” I was surprised by the question. I never considered myself an activist. I am a slow-paced taciturn scientist from the Midwest US. Most of my relatives are pretty conservative. I can imagine attitudes at home toward “activists”.

I was about to protest the characterisation – but I had been arrested, more than once. And I had testified in defence of others who had broken the law. Sure, we only meant to draw attention to problems of continued fossil fuel addiction. But weren’t there other ways to do that in a democracy? How had I been sucked into being an “activist?”

My grandchildren had a lot to do with it. It happened step by step. First, in 2004, I broke a 15-year self-imposed effort to stay out of the media. I gave a public lecture, backed by scientific papers, showing the need to slow greenhouse gas emissions – and I criticised the Bush administration for its lack of appropriate policies. My grandchildren came into the talk only as props – holding 1-watt Christmas tree bulbs to help explain climate forcings.

Fourteen months later I gave another public talk – connecting the dots from global warming to policy implications to criticisms of the fossil fuel industry for promoting misinformation. This time my grandchildren provided rationalisation for a talk likely to draw ire from the administration. I explained that I did not want my children to look back and say: “Opa understood what was happening, but he never made it clear.”

What had become clear was that our planet is close to climate tipping points. Ice is melting in the Arctic, Greenland and Antarctica, and on mountain glaciers worldwide. Many species are stressed by environmental destruction and climate change. Continuing fossil fuel emissions, if unabated, will cause sea levels to rise and species to become extinct beyond our control. Increasing atmospheric water vapour is already magnifying climate extremes, increasing overall precipitation, causing greater floods and stronger storms.

Stabilising climate requires restoring our planet’s energy balance. The physics is straightforward. The effect of increasing carbon dioxide on Earth’s energy imbalance is confirmed by precise measurements of ocean heat gain. The principal implication is defined by the geophysics, by the size of fossil fuel reservoirs. Simply put, there is a limit on how much carbon dioxide we can pour into the atmosphere. We cannot burn all fossil fuels. Specifically, we must (1) phase out coal use rapidly, (2) leave tar sands in the ground, and (3) not go after the last drops of oil.

Actions needed for the world to move on to clean energies of the future are feasible. The actions could restore clean air and water globally. But the actions are not happening.

At first I thought it was poor communication. Scientists must not have made the story clear enough to world leaders.

So I wrote letters to national leaders and visited more than half a dozen nations, as described in my book, Storms of My Grandchildren. What I found in each case was greenwash – a pretence of concern about climate but policies dictated by fossil fuel special interests.

The situation is epitomised by my recent trip to Norway. I hoped that Norway, because of its history of environmentalism, might be able to take real action to address climate change, drawing attention to the hypocrisy in the words and pseudo-actions of other nations.

So I wrote a letter to the prime minister suggesting that Norway, as majority owner of Statoil, should intervene in its plans to develop the tar sands of Canada. I received a polite response, by letter, from the deputy minister of petroleum and energy. The government position is that the tar sands investment is “a commercial decision”, that the government should not interfere, and that a “vast majority in the Norwegian parliament” agree that this constitutes “good corporate governance”. The deputy minister concluded his letter: “I can however assure you that we will continue our offensive stance on climate change issues both at home and abroad.”

A Norwegian grandfather, upon reading the deputy minister’s letter, quoted Saint Augustine: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.”

The Norwegian position is a staggering reaffirmation of the global situation: even the greenest governments find it too inconvenient to address the implication of scientific facts.

It becomes clear that concerted action will happen only if the public, somehow, becomes forcefully involved. One way citizens can help is by blocking coal plants, tar sands, and the mining of the last drops of fossil fuels.

However, fossil fuel addiction can be solved only when we recognise an economic law as certain as the law of gravity: as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy they will be used. Solution therefore requires a rising fee on oil, gas and coal – a carbon fee collected from fossil fuel companies at the domestic mine or port of entry. All funds collected should be distributed to the public on a per capita basis to allow lifestyle adjustments and spur clean energy innovations. As the fee rises, fossil fuels will be phased out, replaced by carbon-free energy and efficiency.

A carbon fee is the only realistic path to global action. China and India will not accept caps, but they need a carbon fee to spur clean energy and avoid fossil fuel addiction.

Governments today, instead, talk of “cap-and-trade with offsets”, a system rigged by big banks and fossil fuel interests. Cap-and-trade invites corruption. Worse, it is ineffectual, assuring continued fossil fuel addiction to the last drop and environmental catastrophe.

Because the executive and legislative branches of our governments turn a deaf ear to the science, the judicial branch may provide the best opportunity to redress the situation. Our governments have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the rights of young people and future generations.

I look forward to standing with young people and their supporters, helping them develop their case, as they demand their proper due and fight for nature and their future. I guess that makes me an activist.

• The full version of this essay, entitled “Activist”, will appear in the book The Day After Tomorrow; Images of Our Earth in Crisis by J Henry Fair, to be published in November by PowerHouse Books. Dr James Hansen’s latest book is called Storms of my Grandchildren.

Twenty-five years ago Saturday, two bombs planted by secret agents working for the French government sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbor, New Zealand, killing Fernando Pereira, a photographer and father of two. This was a desperate move by France to stop the activists onboard from bearing witness to its nuclear testing in the South Pacific.

I remember hearing about the attack over my father’s transistor radio in our township outside Durban, South Africa. The apartheid government had recently imposed a state of emergency and it was not often that international news made its way to us. What had happened with the Rainbow Warrior was so outrageous that even we heard about it.

As a young anti-apartheid activist, I was particularly taken with two elements of the event.

The first was that a powerful, democratic government could feel so intimidated by a small group of peaceful men and women holding up banners on a boat that it would resort to violence. It was my first exposure to the Quaker-inspired tradition of bearing witness in order to shine a spotlight on injustices or crimes that might otherwise go unnoticed.

The second was the idea that there existed people who would eschew personal gain and dedicate their lives to the greater good of our planet. Coming from a place where the struggle was inherently personal, the fact that the Greenpeace crew was planning to sail out to the middle of the ocean to oppose nuclear testing, which would not touch them anymore than it would touch anyone else, was an epiphany.

Of course, Greenpeace is not alone in its struggle to save the planet. Nongovernmental organizations and civil society — trade unions, faith-based organizations, school groups and others — have been working independently or together for decades to promote the cause of social justice and fight the great threats of the day.

A couple of years after the sinking of the first Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace volunteers bought a used trawler and transformed it into a new Rainbow Warrior. Many of the same crew then continued their struggle against the French government until it finally gave up its nuclear testing program in 1996. The saying of the day became: “You can’t sink a Rainbow.”

While the threat of nuclear destruction is not over, a danger barely recognized at the time has taken its place as the No. 1 threat to our planet. Climate change has now become the biggest threat to security and peace in the future. Kofi Annan’s Global Forum estimates that in 2008 alone, 300,000 people died of the consequences of climate change.

Unlike nuclear testing, climate change is difficult to “bear witness” to because its causes (carbon emissions) lie in so many different factors and its resolution will require major, international cooperation of business leaders, politicians and other decision-makers. This does not mean civil society can or should stop trying to hold leaders accountable for changes they are unwilling to make.

History tells us that whatever injustice we face — whether it was apartheid in South Africa, civil rights in the United States, a woman’s right to choose — it was only when determined men and women were willing to stand up and say, “Enough is enough, I am prepared to peacefully break the law and even go to prison to get our message across,” that change finally happened.

When all other attempts at discussion or negotiation have faltered, these organizations must have the option of turning to civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, we have witnessed a dramatic shrinking of democratic space, with civil rights being curtailed beyond measure. In the past 9 years, 65 countries have passed laws cutting the rights of NGOs and dictating what they can and can’t do.

Speaking last week at an international conference on the promotion of democracy and human rights, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it well when she said, “Democracies don’t fear their own people. They recognize that citizens must be free to come together, to advocate and agitate.”

At Greenpeace we find that even the peaceful act of hanging banners now often comes with greater consequences. After last December’s failed U.N. climate talks, four of our activists were detained for 22 days after holding up a banner at a head of state dinner reading, “Politicians Talk, Leaders Act.”

Much has changed in the quarter century since the first Rainbow Warrior was bombed. Fortunately, the two elements that so impressed me at the time, are just as valid today as they were back then: the power of people to change the will of governments, and the dedication of those committed to saving the planet for future generations.

According to all those who knew him, Fernando Periera did not consider dying for his cause. Nor do the great majority of those who speak out against injustice today. All they ask is a space in which to be heard, a place to speak truth to power, when those who have the capacity to make the changes necessary to save our planet seem unwilling to do so.

Greenpeace was founded on a prophecy from Canada’s First Nation peoples which reads: “There will come a time when the Earth grows sick and when it does a tribe will gather from all the cultures of the world who believe in deeds and not words. They will work to heal it…they will be known as the ‘Warriors of the Rainbow.”’ If we are to be successful in our fight against catastrophic climate change then perhaps we all need to become Rainbow Warriors.

Source New York Times

Let the ideas percolate up from a thousand localities!

On the Fourth of July, we celebrated Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Madison and all the other great men who created our democracy, right?

Not exactly. The Founders did create the framework for a democratic republic, but they didn’t create much democracy. Indeed, in America’s first presidential election, only 4 percent of the people were even eligible to vote.

The Founders created the possibility for democracy, but it took the struggle (often bloody and always hard) of ordinary people over the years to create the substance. In some decades, we’ve made advances; in others, we’ve fallen back – including in the past three decades, when the power of America’s workaday majority has steadily been usurped by corporate elites. So now, We the People must put America back on its historic path toward economic and political democracy.

“Fine,” you might say, “but how? I’m just one person. What can I do?”

1) Start by considering what’s reasonable for you. Few of us can be full-time activists, and the list of issues and problems is intimidating, long and complex. So just take one bite, choosing an issue that interests you most, then start contributing what you can (time, skills, contacts, money, enthusiasm, etc.) to making progress. No contribution is too small. If you can only devote half a day a week, or an hour a day or even minutes a day – it all adds up. As a young Oregon woman said of her half-day-a-week volunteer door-knocking in a legislative race: “I was only drop in the bucket, but I was one drop. And without all of us, the bucket would not have filled up.”

2) Inform yourself. A little effort can quickly connect you to accessible, usable information and insights on any given topic, allowing you to gain a “citizen’s level” of expertise so you can talk to others about it. Read progressive periodicals, tune in to progressive broadcasts, get information from public-interest groups, and plug into good websites and blogs.

Don’t know how to go online? Nearly all public libraries not only have computers, but also librarians and volunteers who’ll assist you in finding the info you want and teach you how to use the machines.

Or find a youngster (maybe your grandchildren or someone at church) who’ll help you. Yes, you can do this!

3) Democracy belongs to those who show up. Join with others. Everyone feels better when they’re part of a group, a movement, a community (whether real or virtual). In your own town or neighborhood, many others are either already working together or willing to help form a group – seek them out, maybe at bookstores, book clubs, coffee shops, events, churches, blogs, Websites and other meeting places.

4) A community is more than a collection of issues and endless meetings. Combine the serious with the social, and remember the Yugoslavian proverb, “You can fight the gods and still have fun!” So discuss your issues and strategies at potluck suppers (bring the kids, have some music, pour a little wine), throw an annual festival of politics, create weekly sessions of beer-mug democracy at local taverns, set aside one day a week for Big Talk (rather than small talk) at the coffeeshop, etc.

5) Become the media. Create a local newsletter, blog, bulletin board (on the wall or online), Internet radio broadcast, etc. Just as importantly, enlist high-school or community college speech and journalism teachers to help you learn how to do radio and TV interviews and how to get local media to cover your issues. Also, get them to train you and others in pubic speaking, so you can have your own speakers’ bureau to address clubs, churches, schools, etc.

6) Hold your own “what to do” sessions in your community. Don’t wait for national progressive groups, which haven’t figured out a cohesive strategy for focusing on people’s anger about the meekness of Washington’s Democratic leaders. Instead, have your own discussions about what should be done nationally – if anything – and start zapping those ideas to other communities, heads of national groups, progressive media outlets and so forth. Let the ideas percolate up from a thousand localities!

That’s what democracy is. Some assembly required.

Source Alternet

You can be the solution as a single voice that joins many others. Personally I have and am committed to being engaged to create change in our troubled world. When I wrote my book ZERO Greenhouse Emissions I acknowledged my role as an unwitting contributor with the following passage in the introduction chapter.

Excerpt:

We teach our children simply “This is a book—say book! This is a cat. This is a dog.” They see it and understand. We teach them right from wrong. We teach them how to share, but to some extent, through our actions we teach them how not to. Inadvertently we have shown them the wrong way to value their worth instead of the right way. We have told them that the true measure of a person’s worth is what they contribute during their time on Earth, but we have taught them with our toil how important it is to amass as many material possessions as we can in the shortest possible time. We have shown them how to consume. We have told them not to be greedy and shown them how to be. We, you and I, learn through life the true value of life, but by the time some of us fully understand love, compassion, and caring for our fellow man, we have already imbedded in our children the same values we once held as our principal purpose, the accumulation of personal wealth. End Excerpt.

In chapter 10 Designed for Demise is written:

We tell our children to share but we show them how not to. Finite resources means going, going, gone. But every industrialized process, every commercial practice, every economic activity, every consumption pattern, revolves around the depletion of finite resources until they are going, going, gone.

And I finish the chapter with:

Future generations will not have the resources on which we have built the industrial and economic model of the developed and developing nations. They will need to survive without them and adapt their lives to survive. They will need to develop infinite and sustainable systems. They will have no other choice. If they do not adapt they will perish. I have confidence that they, with survival of the species of man at stake, will find new ways of living within the boundaries of the natural system, taking no more than can be provided with infinite sustainability. It will be the world we have left them and the only one available.

It cannot be a system designed for demise.

Now watch; and decide if you wish to join me and others and the ‘Coalition of the Willing’

Coalition Of The Willing from coalitionfilm on Vimeo.

There’s no time like now to be an activist!

Eighty-one tons of mercury is emitted into the atmosphere each year as a result of electric power generation. Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic.

Here it comes … 

Every second, 10,000 gallons of gasoline are burned in the US. Each year, Americans use 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides.

Wait for it … 

Every two seconds, a human being starves to death. Every 46 seconds, a woman is raped in America. Every day, 29,158 children under the age of five die from preventable causes – every single day.

We’re almost there … 

Ninety percent of the large fish in the ocean and 80 percent of the world’s forests are gone. Each day, 200,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed, over 100 plant and animal species go extinct, and 13 million tons of toxic chemicals released across the globe.

What an amazing time to be an activist … 

No, I’m not being cynical. I’m simply listening to the sound of opportunity knocking … kicking down the damn door, you might say.

When else in all of human history has there been a time when we were in better position to shape the future? Ecosystems are screaming for mercy and our land base is practically an endangered species. What we do (or don’t do) in the next few years could quite possibly tilt us all toward either the point of no return or a far more sane form of society. In other words, each and every one of us can take part – right now – in creating the most important social changes ever imagined. Here’s how:

1. How to Be a Good Organizer

a) Spend some time thinking about trees.
b) Imagine what clear cutting looks like, sounds like and feels like.
c) Remind yourself that 80 percent of the world’s forests are gone.
d) Be a good organizer.

2. How to Find Like-Minded Comrades Ready to Start Right Now

a) Go to the beach.
b) Smell the salty air and listen to the waves.
c) Remind yourself that 90 percent of the large fish in the ocean are gone.
d) Find like-minded comrades ready to start right now.

3. How to Plan a Protest That Does More Than March

a) Remind yourself that 200,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed each day. Picture a planet devoid of rainforests. Picture a human body without lungs.
b) Remind yourself that a woman is raped every 46 seconds in America. Visualize the terror and trauma of these experiences.
c) Remind yourself that 29,158 children under the age of five die from preventable causes each day. Imagine the feelings of grief, sorrow and loss.
d) Plan a protest that does more than march.

4. How to Give a Rousing Speech That Results in Immediate Direct Action

a) Find a quiet place.
b) Close your eyes and breathe deeply.
c) Think about animals in slaughterhouses and laboratories. Think about humans in prisons. Think about civilians in a war zone. Think about someone you love dying of cancer caused by corporate-created toxins.
d) Give a rousing speech that results in immediate direct action.

5. How to Bring Down the Dominant Culture

a) Ask yourself if you’re content with your relatively high quality of life being possible thanks to the poor quality of life of so many others elsewhere.
b) Ask yourself if you’re content with your relative freedom being possible thanks to the oppression of so many others elsewhere.
c) Accept that we are all accomplices to the perpetual global crime called “civilization.”
d) Bring down the dominant culture.

This isn’t about skin color, gender, or what parcel of geography you happen to have been born on. I’m not talking about party affiliations, incremental reform or what sky god you’ve chosen to worship. It’s all about recognizing a crisis and taking the appropriate measures.

We’re on the brink of economic, social and environmental collapse. What an extraordinary time to be alive. How lucky are we? We’ve been trusted with the most vital mission of all time: survival.

“Twitter is the people’s tool, the tool of the ordinary people, people who have no other resources,” Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei said at the Paley Center for Media in New York Monday night, after challenging Twitter founder Jack Dorseyto make Twitter’s web interface available in Chinese… Ai Weiwei pressed Dorsey for a commitment to open Twitter to Chinese language translators, saying: “I need a clear answer, yes or no.”

Dorsey, who was participating via screen from San Francisco, clearly felt the pressure, but cautioned that, while Twitter’s goal was “end to end translation in every language,” it would take time.

“The Chinese people think you are some kind of god,” Ai Weiwei told Dorsey. “You created a possibility for people in this very dark room to see a ray of light… to freely give their opinion.” If Twitter were to create a Chinese language interface, he suggested, Dorsey would become “one of the most important heroes in Chinese political development.”

Saying he spent a minimum of 8 hours a day on Twitter, Ai Weiwei said that Twitter was well suited to a language where each character is an entire word. “With 140 characters in Chinese you really can write a novel,” he quipped…Ai Weiwei described the disappointment Chinese activists felt during Barack Obama’s recent trip to China, not only about his avoidance of Human Rights issues, but also because he made a point of saying that he had never used Twitter. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, drew praise however, for her strong stance on Internet Freedom.

See also this past CDT post featuring a video of the discussion.

On CNN, Christiane Amanpour interviewed Ai Weiwei about Twitter and other social media in China:

Want a weekly update of all the greatest posts on the web? Subscribe for the weekly VOICE FOR CHANGE Newsletter and never miss a story! CLICK Bob Williamson and in the subject line type SUBSCRIBE

Want a weekly update of all the greatest posts on the web? Subscribe for the weekly VOICE FOR CHANGE Newsletter and never miss a story! CLICK Bob Williamson and in the subject line type SUBSCRIBE