On Saturday, April 14th, tens of thousands of Americans will gather at more than a thousand separate rallies for a National Day of Climate Action. It's time for our policy makers to take serious action to reverse the damage that we have done to our environment. And it's not about the Kyoto Protocol anymore, Kyoto's so nineties... The goal is an 80% reduction in carbon and other greenhouse gases by 2050. It's time for this to be taken seriously. Take a look at the new IPCC report, okay, realistically, take a look at the summary (pdf), it's alarming. And, it turns out, that it would have been even more alarming if some of its grimmer warnings had not been stripped by the US Government during the negotiation process. Our children and grandchildren will be living in a radically more difficult world. What's done is done, and we need to start mitigating the damage as soon as possible. That's what the National Day of Climate Action is about. Men and women from the American Petroleum Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and other industry supported organizations should not have any part in our national discourse. How can a single word that they say be taken seriously when the they are wholly owned by Exxon-Mobil and other polluting industries. Their voices (amplified by gazillions of dollars) need to be drowned out. And that's what's going to happen on April 14th at the Brown County Courthouse at noon, and at another thousand rallies across the country.

Want to take part? Be there. Leave your car at home if possible. There will be a Bicycle Ride for Climate Action leaving from Kavarna. We'll be meeting up at 11 am, and Ben Frye will be leading a massive bike ride through downtown Green Bay arriving at the courthouse at noon for the rally.

UPDATE: Here's the debriefing. Overall, the event was a phenomenal success and a testament to the power of organizing on the internet.