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Action in the United States on Climate Change – November 2008

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Letter from Focus the Nation

Dear Friends,

Yesterday, we completed a giant first step in this historic year of 2008. Together, we built the biggest national teach-in in history, mobilizing close to a million students, educators and citizens for a national brainstorm on global warming solutions.

Spend a day or a week to take it all in: see What Happened(link is external). Who Came(link is external). Read about it in The New York Times(link is external), The LA Times(link is external) or The New Jersey Star Ledger(link is external). If you haven’t seen it yet, take the time to watch The 2% Solution(link is external). Then ask-did we succeed? How far have we moved? And how far do we have to go-this year?

So do take a deep breath-and then get back to it!

CAMPUS TO CONGRESS: Make a plan to visit your member of congress – every member of congress – with the Choose Your Future(link is external) solutions. Set the date for Tuesday, February 19th, when he or she will be home for the President’s Day recess. Contact us for more information.

CONTINUE TO FOCUS THE NATION: Focus the Nation is supporting actions in April to raise awareness about global warming solutions. You’ll be hearing from us about this in February.

GREEN VOTE: If you do one thing during Earth Month, register to vote. In fact, register 100 people to vote! After that, work for the clean energy candidate of your choice(link is external).

MAKE NOISE: Organize an Earth Day climate action. Join the student clean energy campaigns at Energy Action(link is external), the Student PIRGS(link is external), or the Sierra Student Coalition(link is external). Join the 1-Sky(link is external) Campaign, Interfaith Power and Light(link is external), or your regional climate group(link is external). Always, keep the pressure on Congress.

FEBRUARY 2009 WILL BE A CRITICAL MONTH IN HUMAN HISTORY. The new President and Congress will be setting their agenda-and that agenda will determine if the climate can stabilize at a heating of 3-4 degrees F, or instead 5-10 degrees F.

FEBRUARY 5TH 2009, we will again call on educational, faith and civic institutions to Focus the Nation, and demand real solutions to global warming.

BETWEEN 1960 AND 1964, Americans moved from fatalistic acceptance of racial segregation to a solid determination to end Jim Crow. Between now and the end of 2008, we can move this country from a fatalistic acceptance of business-as-usual global warming. We can end the paralyzing sense that our children must accept from us an impoverished planet. We can stop global warming.

Thanks for the work you have done.

The Focus Team: Eban Goodstein, Chungin Chung, Garett Brennan, Minna Brown, Scott Highleyman, Hyunsun Park, Alex Tinker, Kate Stratton, Peter Viola, and Laura Westwood.

Thanks to Our Media Partners. Grist(link is external) has recently provided links to great content(link is external) to help educators prepare for teach-in sessions. Think MTV(link is external) is promoting Project Slingshot(link is external), three $10,000 summer scholarships for climate leaders. Sponsored by CLIF Mojo, and Focus the Nation.

FOCUS PHONE-IN Join us for the next half-an-hour conference call to share information and respond to questions. Wednesday, February 6th, at noon Eastern, 9 Pacific Time. Calls will be every Wednesday at that time, so mark your calendars! Call in to 1-218-339-7800, passcode 1312008.

Focus News:

New Books on Fighting Global Warming

On video: Jon Isham and Eban Goodstein talk about their recent books(link is external) on building the global warming solutions movement – Fighting for Love in the Century of Extinction(link is external), and Ignition(link is external). Other recent books of note: Gary Braasch’s Earth Under Fire(link is external); Laurie David’s Down to Earth Guide(link is external) (for elementary school); andВ  Fight Global Warming Now(link is external) from Step it Up.

Global Warming Organizing Films: Everything’s Cool(link is external) (Dan Gold and Judith Helfand); Revolution Green(link is external) (Stephen Stout and Jessica Kelly)

Focus Update is the e-bulletin of Focus the Nation. If would prefer not to receive this update, please reply to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the header.

Eban Goodstein
Project Director
Focus the Nation
info@focusthenation.org(link sends e-mail)
www.focusthenation.org(link is external)
503-768-7996

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