Dear friends,

On Wednesday, we’ll hand our climate petition to the prime minister of Japan — the chair of the powerful G8 summit. Join the call for climate action now!

Last year, the world seemed to wake up to climate change.

This year, it’s falling back asleep.

Two weeks of global climate negotiations have just wrapped up — with no real progress. The rich nations are the culprits, refusing to take the lead and commit to emissions cuts that will bring the rest of the world onboard.[1]

Our best hope: within weeks, those rich country leaders will gather at the G8 summit chaired by Japan. If Japan’s Prime Minister offers bold leadership, the G8 summit could be a breakthrough. But, so far, he is pushing in the wrong direction.[2]

So it’s up to us. Next Wednesday, June 18, we will hand-deliver our new climate petition to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. If we can muster 250,000 voices in a few short days, we can sound a global alarm on climate that Fukuda and the other G8 leaders cannot ignore. Sign the petition and forward this message to friends:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/g8_climate_wakeup/14.php?cl=97893269

We’ve already shown that a global public outcry on climate change can move Fukuda’s policy. Asahi Shimbun, Japan’s second-largest newspaper, told the story in a lengthy article this January. At a critical, high-level meeting on global warming after the UN negotiations in Bali, the Environment Minister reportedly held up Avaaz’s “Titanic” newspaper ad — showing Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda, with Bush, steering towards climate disaster… along with a call for tough 2020 emissions targets, signed by 90,000 Avaaz members.

“The world sees Japan as a force resisting change! Are we okay with this?” the minister reportedly asked. The Chief Cabinet Minister suggested setting a target. Days later, after having steadfastly resisted the idea at Bali, Prime Minister Fukuda announced his decision: Japan would, indeed set a 2020 emissions target.[3]

Now, five months on, Fukuda has indeed laid out a target — but it falls far short of what scientists say is necessary to avert a climate catastrophe.

This year’s G8 summit will begin on the same day as the Tanabata festival, when citizens write their wishes on pieces of paper and hang them from bamboo trees. [4] This Wednesday, let’s send the biggest-ever Tanabata wish: for a climate change treaty strong enough to save the planet.

Sign the petition here, and spread the word:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/g8_climate_wakeup/14.php?cl=97893269

People created the climate crisis. If we join together, people power can end it.

With hope,

Ben, Ricken, Iain, Graziela, Galit, Paul, Pascal, Veronique, Mark, and Milena — the Avaaz.org team

What’s new this earth day?

Watch our Earth Day video to find out:

Dear TuneInTurnOnHelpOut Members,
38 years ago, the first Earth Day thrust the environment onto the national agenda.
What a journey these 38 years have been. Every challenge and every success has primed us for this moment as we face the greatest threat of our time: global warming.

What have we learned? And what must we do?
Watch our video and find out:

Thank you for all that you do to support our work, our persistence and our optimism for the future of our planet.

Sincerely,
Environmental Defense Fund

Dear Friends, Please find below a letter from that unstoppable environmental lobbying locomotive Al Gore urging American citizens to join the wecansolveit.org campaign to bring the group to one-million strong. What will this do in the long run? In the short term? Well, the answer is quite honestly, we don’t know. As much as global warming is and has already been a well-known issue for decades now in the United States and as much as we can clearly see global ice caps melting right before our eyes on tv and documentaries world wide — it is almost impossible to NOT know about the growing crisis at this point unless you are locked away some where — we, the people, are still fighting against a government who sits on the fence about the issue and claims that “the problem might not be all that bad.”

So will signing a petition help? Will joining a group of over one-million of our fellow citizens united in our desire to save the earth and the hundreds of thousands of species who live on the earth, including ourselves, help us in this endeavor? The inconvenient truth is that it didn’t help us when we went to the streets to protest their invasion of Iraq. Five years in and our marches and protests and call-ins are still not helping… Yes it is inconvenient. And a darnright devastatingly sad testament to how little our voices matter in the current climate.

But I dare say that to do nothing is like throwing the towel in and giving up. And I for one am not about to do that. At least not yet. Gore’s movie did more for increasing global awareness of this growing environmental crisis than almost anything else we or any of the well-meaning scientists who have been fighting for this cause for decades have done and he did it in one fell swoop with nothing more than something akin to a damn power-point presentation on film. Gotta hand it to him. It worked.

Let us continue the push. Let us continue the fight. Give up? Nah, we’re just getting started.

Ed Hale :: see letter from Al Gore below (more…)