Tag Archive for: March

 Step 1: Forge systemic change

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It felt like change, didn’t it? 

Out in the streets, marching for climate justice, seeing the worldwide response of a global movement rise up, you felt the time for serious, sustainable, history-making change has arrived. 

But let’s be clear: Yesterday’s Global Climate Strikes were the start. It’s a long road ahead. That’s why climate marches will continue all week. Keep stepping. Keep posting. Keep sharing. Keep demanding our political leaders take action. Keep taking action! 

In the simplest terms, we march for our survival. We’re marching to build a movement of change. 

Seven Steps to Change

Over the next week of marching for climate justice, we will offer seven steps for decisive, collaborative and impactful action. Seven clear answers to what we want, what we need and what will bring effective lasting change. 

The threat of a warming planet has been documented for years. In 2015, 198 countries agreed at the COP 21 in Paris to work toward the reduction of carbon emissions. 

Yet every meaningful statistic since shows we’re not doing enough, fast enough, to ensure the survival of humanity on planet Earth, and we can restore a healthy climate and flourish for generations to come. 

Listen to Katie Eder as she calls for bold action to #RestoreTheClimate.

We can be bold. We can make do this.

How? In seven bold steps we can take together: 

STEP 1: We must forge a coalition for systemic change. 

I’ve worked on social and political movements in the past. I’ve seen historical shifts because of this work. As a physician working to curb the global AIDS epidemics decades ago, I learned a lot about how to create lasting change against a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. 

So much of our efforts early on in the AIDS epidemic was failing. We were too scattered. There were too many small efforts all recognizing the threat of AIDS and its global impact on millions. It took a collaborative effort–a movement. When we created the Global AIDS Alliance it coalesced a large number of stakeholder groups to align behind a common strategy. The result was a historic shift in forever altering the course of the AIDS epidemic, as I wrote about in my book, Waging Justice: A Doctor’s Journey to Speak Truth and Be Bold. 

The intensities of climate impact in recent years (and even more urgently in recent weeks) have helped us elevate the reality of climate threat in a way that hasn’t occurred before, despite many years of growing environmental consciousness. The full weight of this impact is dramatically changing. The tipping point for change has arrived.

Changing a march into a movement

For decades our scattershot approach to climate change has helped raise consciousness, but it hasn’t yet altered the course of our warming planet sufficient to remove the perilous threat to humanity. 

Together… united… undeterred and undivided, we can create a movement that will bring the radical change necessary at this point in history. My work for the last 30 years has been to hold governments accountable. I’ve been waging justice and I want you to join me. I launched Build A Movement 2020 (#BAM2020) to spark a movement for justice. Click here and join the movement today.

Today a march, tomorrow the movement for political action

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The next generation is leading us today. Around the world young people are standing together, urging us all toward a new mindset that is crucial for altering the course of climate change.

The Global Climate Strike has begun. 

They marched in the Pacific Islands where their entire way of life is under immediate threat. Massive marches in Australia started the crescendo around the world, soon joined by similar marches all across Asia.

They marched in Europe, from the U.K. to Germany to Rome and beyond. 

The strikes continue today, now, here in the U.S, right here in New York at the UN meetings, and then spreading out across the country.  

This collaboration of global support sends a powerful message to world leaders leading up to the UN Climate Summit in New York starting tomorrow.

Across America today these marches continue in thousands of communities. This is a Collaboration of The Determined, if you will, people who will no longer accept doing nothing while our planet burns. As we march, we also put massive pressure on our political leaders to take action. We must be clear that this is the start of a movement, not the end of an event. 

It is up to us to use this energy to build a movement that will powerfully shape the election of our country’s leaders in 2020. We have 409 days and counting to create this movement of transformation leading up to the election on November 3, 2020.

Climate restoration won’t be easy by any stretch of the imagination. But it can be achievable as was discussed earlier this week at the Climate Restoration Forum at the UN headquarters.  

We can demand bold action in Congress and hold the next president accountable. We will continue to track the candidates’ movement on climate restoration so the public can make informed decisions about how the next president will address the urgency of saving our planet.

Over the next seven days, we will offer seven firm steps forward that will help turn this Climate Strike into a movement of sweeping change. 

Today we march for justice and build a movement. Tomorrow and every day going forward, we demand bold action from our political leaders. Because as Greta Thurnberg told Senate leaders, “Sorry, you’re not trying hard enough.” (We think they can do a lot more as they are not passing our Climate Restoration report card, as of yet). Let’s build a movement. Join us.

Get to stepping: Join the Global Climate Strike

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Tomorrow we march. 

Tomorrow we join hands with everyone, everywhere to take a stand for the survival of humanity. 

Tomorrow we get to stepping…. one stride at a time, confidently rising as a collective for justice.

Tomorrow is the Global Climate Strike. It is part of the UN Climate Summit’s week of action.  

The strike will see millions of people walk out of their jobs or school for the day and join protesters to march for climate justice and bring further attention to the need to combat climate change.  It will be the largest climate mobilization in human history…and we are just getting started.

Four corporations– Ben & Jerry’s, Lush Cosmetics, Patagonia, and Seventh Generation — have made the socially conscious decision to shut down for the day, encouraging their employees to march. 

Tomorrow could be the tipping point of change, but only if we all rise and march together and then webbed to hold our leaders accountable. As the march organizers state, “Our house is on fire. Let’s act like it.” 

There is a reason we launched Build a Movement 2020 on Martin Luther King Jr. Day earlier this year. Social justice and critical change will only come when we as citizens create enough of a movement that leaders in political and business leaders are forced to respond. 

“The arc of the moral universe is long,” Dr. King said, “but it bends toward justice.” 

Climate restoration is crucial for the survival of humanity. It is the justice issue of our time. 

The clock is ticking. We can work together to restore a healthy climate for all of humanity now and for future generations. It’s time for worldwide Climate Restoration Emergency Action to ensure that humans can survive on Earth. 

We invite you to share pictures with us from all over the world. Tag @buildamovement2020 on Facebook and @B_A_M_2020 on Instagram. We’ll repost, reshare and shout your march for justice to everyone in our networks and partnerships.

See you outside tomorrow!