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Climate Change and Saving OUR World: President Obama Speaks

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013


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Below is the speech we NEED to see President Obama deliver and then implement. It is long past time for the United States to take it’s rightful place as the leader on climate change solutions. Our future and our NOW and that of our children, depends on it. As parents, we are regularly moved to action by our children’s tears, their thoughts and their ideas. As parents, we are all powerful to move mountains in our owns spheres of influence…

As Winston Churchill once said: “The Americans will always do the right thing… after they’ve exhausted all the alternatives.” At ClimateMama we feel that as a nation, we have reached that time..we’ve tried all the alternatives…it’s now time to act.

This wonderful guest post touched us deeply and we think you will find much “food for thought” in it. This post is written by Climate Reality Leader David Goldstein, and was first published in the Huffington Post on May 16, 2013. We republish it here, in part, with David’s permission, for all of our Climate Mamas and Papas. For the full text, please visit the Huffington Post.

OBAMA ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND SAVING OUR WORLD: By David Goldstein

Bulworth/War of the Worlds Productions brings you the full text of President Obama’s historic, legacy-forging climate change speech.

Good evening my fellow Americans:

Tonight I speak to you concerning a matter of the utmost gravity. It is a matter of national security. It is a matter of human rights. It is a matter of economic and social well-being. I speak to you tonight about a major shift in my approach to climate change.

I am the president but I am also a father. Last week my younger daughter Sasha came to me. In science class, she has been learning about climate change. Sasha overheard one of her classmates saying that his parents said that the president was not doing nearly enough about climate change, that I was playing politics. This classmate’s parents went on to say that I am not providing the forceful leadership necessary and am thereby placing our children and grandchildren at risk.

I’ll be honest. My first reaction was to be irritated. In my mind, I started to list the policies my administration has put in place to mitigate climate change: higher fuel efficiency standards, incentives to invest in green energies. But then I looked into my daughter’s eyes… and I saw tears, and something happened; my rationalizations and justifications fell away. In that moment of clarity, I admitted to myself that her classmate’s parents are right. When it comes to addressing climate, I have fallen short, substantially and significantly short. But that is about to change. When it comes to this elephant in the living room that I and Congress and, indeed, most of our leaders and much of our citizenry have been doing our best to ignore, from this moment forward I say this: “Not on my watch!”

As president, I must work with both Houses of Congress in order to bring policy onto law. I cannot simply draw up a program and say, “This is how it is going to be.” Compromise and negotiation are an integral part of the political process. And so what I say tonight will not automatically become the law of the land. I recognize that. But for too long, in the name of appeasement, in the name of finding a middle ground, I have avoided a simple and undeniable truth and in doing so have been doing a grave disservice to the American people.

The truth is this: Climate change is an emergency. Right here. Right now. Climate change presents a clear and present

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

danger to the national interests of the United States of America and to the well-being of its citizens. Before I go into details, I want to address the notion that there is still uncertainty among the scientists who are studying our climate. I want to make this clear; there is no uncertainty as to whether human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are warming our planet. They are. There is no uncertainty as to whether the effects of this warming will be mostly negative. They will be. There is no uncertainty as to whether the longer we go without taking needed action the more people will suffer and the more expensive it will become.

The only uncertainty that remains is how quickly things will worsen if we do not act now to reduce carbon emissions.

I understand that for many climate change is still a vague and distant phenomenon. For example, you might be aware that the Arctic ice is melting before our eyes; it is simply vanishing. You might think, “So what? How does that affect myself, my loved ones? We need good jobs, we need to pay our mortgages.” This is what makes climate change the enormous challenge that it is: To most of us it happens relatively slowly, and even if we are experiencing drought or flooding, we know that droughts and floods have always happened. On a day-to-day level, climate change does not set off our survival alarms.

As we put more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, our planet warms. The extra heat enters our oceans and our landmasses every minute of every hour of every day. The climate systems upon which we have depended as we have built our nation; where and how we grow our food, where and how we get our drinking water, where and how we build our cities and towns, are slowly being pushed out of balance.

The climate system is complex and climate science is complicated. I have learned as much as I can as quickly as I have been able, but at a certain point I simply have to trust the scientists. A strange thing has happened in our country recently. The findings of our scientists, these good men and women who devote their lives to investigating and examining our world in the name of progress and understanding… their findings are being treated as a political matter. It has gotten to the point, where certain high-ranking politicians and business people have leveled baseless accusations impugning the integrity of our scientific community. I can think of few things more dangerous to the functioning of a healthy democracy.

The bottom line is this: Climate change is happening. It is real. What will happen if we do not address it now? It will get worse. It will be more expensive to address later on. There is even the possibility that we will lose the ability to manage the situation altogether. Because of insufficient action on the part of the United States and other nations, humankind is behind the curve when it comes to addressing climate change. What now are our options?

One option is to stay behind the curve. This week, for the first time in at least three million years, the carbon dioxide level in our atmosphere passed 400 parts per million. Three million years ago the Earth was seven degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today and present day New York City, Miami and many coastal cities in the United States and around the world would have been underwater.

Credit: Shutterstock

Before the use of fossil fuels, these types of temperature rises happened over thousands of years. But we are changing things much, much more quickly. As difficult as this may be to grasp, if we stay behind the curve, according to the latest research, my daughters and your children and grandchildren are looking at a world of “unprecedented heat-waves, severe droughts and major floods.”

Again, I realize that it is not easy for any of us to wrap our heads around, but the nature of climate change is that the longer it remains unaddressed the more quickly it builds momentum. The time to address it is now before the momentum takes the ability to manage it out of our hands. Staying behind the curve will mean a much more difficult world, perhaps an unlivable world, for our children and grandchildren

But we have another option: We can get ahead of the curve. In 1961, speaking of his intention to put a man on the moon, John F. Kennedy said, “We mean to be a part of it. We mean to lead it. Our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, requires us to make this effort; not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.”

Do we need to create more jobs? Do we want a robust economy? Creating jobs and addressing climate change actually go hand-in-hand.

When the will, resources, creativity and resolve of the American people are focused on a goal, we have shown, repeatedly, that we are capable of greatness. And so tonight I am announcing the Green Patriot Program. It is the intention of this program to put us ahead of the curve. We will build-up our manufacturing and create millions of jobs in the areas of solar, wind, geothermal and tidal energy as well as the supporting technologies of battery storage and smart grid capability.

I spoke earlier of having two options. We also have two options for funding the Green Patriot Program. One is a massive build-up of government bureaucracy. The other is a market option that will keep government intervention to a minimum. I will tell you right now and in no uncertain terms, there is only one way to make the market option possible and that is by instituting a carbon tax.

I am a father and I love my daughters as much as I love anything on this Earth. Now, some may say, “President Obama is attempting to completely revamp our economy and society because his daughter had tears in her eyes.” Not so. You have elected me to be your president and Commander-In-Chief. It is my foresworn duty to put forth policy that I deem to be in the best interest of the people of the United States of America. Across the board; economically, ecologically, morally and in terms of national security that is what I have done tonight. We may or may not be able to get this program through Congress now or six months from now or three years from now. I don’t know. But as your president and, yes, as a father, I will not stop trying.

Thank you, God bless you and good night.

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Posted in Climate Mama News, Take a Stand: Action & Advocacy | No Comments »

CO2 400ppm and Mother Nature’s Wonders

Wednesday, May 15th, 2013


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My Back Yard

As I drove my children to their respective bus stops, we stopped to admire the incredible sunrise, and “take a moment” to be in awe of mother nature’s glories. We live 22 miles and a “world away” from midtown New York City in a bedroom community that is encompassed by and with many gifts from mother nature. A rabbit was crossing our driveway as I drove up to the garage; I noticed two deer in my neighbor’s yard grazing calmly on grass, almost like cows in a field; and just as I got out of my car I looked up to see four geese honking and soaring skyward, in a straight line right above my home.

For a moment this morning I forgot about the climate cliff we are barreling towards and the bleak future that is just over the horizon if we continue on this dangerous path. Just for a moment today, I was oblivious, as so many of my friends, neighbors and colleagues continue to be. THIS HAS TO CHANGE.

Hiding our heads in the sand and ignoring the realities of climate change, won’t make it go away. It won’t stop the seas from rising, and it won’t stop the floods and droughts and other extreme weather that is our now and our future. But this doesn’t mean we can’t and shouldn’t “smell the roses” and enjoy the beauty around us, including the beauty of our children and grandchildren, in fact if we don’t remember these things, we will lose sight of why we need to take action.

We are crossing an interesting and telling threshold this year. The CO2 concentration in our atmosphere is reaching and will surpass 400

Photo Credit: The Climate Reality Project

parts per million (ppm) in 2013. Scientists tell us that 350ppm is the safe limit for the human species and for our planet earth to continue to operate as it does today. For scientists this milestone is another alarm bell, and for many others, just an interesting fact that is acknowledge and then put aside. What does this really mean? Here are some facts for you to share with the kids in your life about this “threshold and even number.”

1. Going back 800,000 years the level of CO2 in the atmosphere stayed within a band between180 and 280ppm.
2. Since the industrial revolution (mid 1800’s) the level of CO2 has risen over 40% and over the past 20 years this annual rise has been accelerating at a faster and faster rate.
3. According to an article in the May 10th, New York Times, the last time C02 levels reached this high was over 3 million years ago, dinosaurs ruled the earth and sea levels were 60-100 feet higher then today.

“What we see today is 100 percent due to human activity,” said Pieter Tans, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration senior scientist. The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, are the overwhelming cause of human generated carbon in the atmosphere.

I have personally visited the Mauna Loa observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii – twice in the last five years. I have been privileged to talk at length to scientists that work there about the daily record of CO2 levels that has been recorded at their observatory since the 1950s.

When I was last at the Mauna Loa Observatory, on December 29th, 2011, the C02 level was 392.14ppm. I was recorded on the side of the small vile of “air” I was given as a keepsake and have on my desk today. (You may notice the vile in my hand in this photo at the top of the graph). While at the same time that mother earth was sharing her wonders with me today, my heart grew a little sadder, as the weight of the climate crisis felt a whole lot heavier….

On the plus side (’cause I believe there ALWAYS is one) WE CAN do something about this and NOT accept rising levels of greenhouse gases as inevitable. We CAN fight back. We CAN stop burning fossil fuels, become more energy efficient and demand that we move towards and have access to an economy transformed by and with renewable energy. We need to talk about this serious and dangerous milestone with our kids, families and friends and we MUST create climate adaptation and mitigation plans at the family, community, regional and national levels.

It’s DO SOMETHING WEDNESDAY here at ClimateMama. So talk about this post with the kids in your life and DO SOMETHING as a family that will help us move way from the climate cliff and towards a sustainable, liveable future!

Yours,

Climate Mama

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Posted in In The News, Science | No Comments »

Mothers on Climate Change: Dear Mrs. Obama

Sunday, May 12th, 2013


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Angela Monti Fox

On Mothers Day, we take time to reflect, remember and honor the strength, power and influence of mothers. Angela Monti Fox, one of our Climate Mama heroes, has been a mentor and teacher to us and is one of these mothers whose strength and drive has motivated her to reach beyond her own children and to advocate and work to protect all of our children.

Like all of us, Angela wears many hats. She is a psychotherapist, social worker, and a long time activist, as well as the mother to 3 wonderful, successful children. One of her children Josh Fox is the film maker of Gasland and Gasland II, movies which have and continue to ignite and galvanize individuals and grassroots organizations the world over to join forces in the fight against hydraulic fracturing.

In her “spare time” Angela has taken her son’s rallying cry and created The Mothers Project: Mothers for Sustainable Energy a galvanizing and organizing place for mothers to come together to protect their children from the powerful forces and adverse impacts of the the fossil fuel and nuclear industries. The Mothers Project is also a place to advocate for the development of clean energy sources.

The Mothers Project

As their advocates and protectors, we support energy sources that do not fill our children’s environment—and thus their bodies—with toxic pollutants. Recognizing that our children’s lives are inextricably bound to the abiding ecology of the planet, we support energy sources that do not threaten the stability of the world’s climate, acidify its oceans, or fill the air with asthma- inducing, cancer-causing fumes. As mothers are the first environments for our children, we mothers support energy sources that do not threaten the inner sanctuaries of pregnancy with chemicals linked to birth defects, preterm birth, and cognitive deficits.

Taken from The Mothers Project Mission Statement

Angela, as part of her mission and with the help of some other powerful women and mothers, penned a letter to another powerful and influential mother, Michelle Obama which was published on Mothers Day 2012 in the New York Times. The letter calls on Mrs. Obama to take up this battle on behalf of her children and ours. Take a minute, grab the kids in your life, and read this letter to them, and then sign it and show them that you to are powerful too!

Dear Mrs. Obama,

We are mothers from all walks of life writing to you about an urgent matter: the health threats to our children posed by extreme forms of fossil fuel extraction, in particular, the process of drilling oil and natural gas using high-volume, hydraulic fracturing, known as “fracking.”

The ongoing drilling and fracking boom has spurred the proliferation of drill rigs in backyards, schoolyards, and family farms across America. These are places where our children live, play, and learn. Even areas near daycare centers and summer camps have been targeted for drilling and fracking, a process in which explosives and high-pressure mixtures of water and chemicals are used to blast apart bedrock.
Because children cannot vote or make public policy, because children are more vulnerable than adults to toxic exposures, and because parents are charged with keeping children safe and providing for their future, we, the undersigned mothers, have joined with scientists, pediatricians, and public health officials in calling for a moratorium on fracking until the potential effects on children’s health and the environment can be carefully studied.

1 Right now, demonstration of safety does not exist. We are concerned about air pollution. Smog levels are high in communities near drilling and fracking sites.

2 This kind of air pollution is linked to childhood asthma, lost school days, and higher health care costs.

3 It is also linked to low birth weight and preterm birth.

4 We are concerned about drinking water. Methane contamination of family drinking water wells has occurred near gas wells in Pennsylvania. Benzene and other chemicals used during natural gas operations have been detected in groundwater near gas drilling operations in Wyoming.

5 We are concerned about chemical spills. Although many chemicals used in drilling and fracking are considered proprietary, we know the list of ingredients includes substances linked to childhood cancers, birth defects, and hormone disruption.

6 We are concerned about reports of reproductive problems and deaths among pets, cows, and wildlife exposed to drilling and fracking operations. We wonder what message these animals hold for pregnant women living near drill sites.

7 We are concerned about the radioactive content of fracking wastewater and the lack of a comprehensive plan for its permanent disposal.

8 We are concerned about noise pollution from 24/7 drilling operations, heavy machinery, and associated truck traffic. Noise pollution is associated with stress, disrupted sleep, and learning and behavioral difficulties.

9 We are concerned about the industrialization of open space. Filling up farm fields, pastures, wilderness areas, and state parks with waste pits, pipelines, drill pads, condensers, and compressor stations transforms the landscape our children inhabit. It undermines our efforts to bring healthy food from local farms to our dinner tables. It denies families opportunities for outdoor physical activity in natural areas.
Scientists are just beginning to address questions about the impact of drilling and fracking on children’s health. We support and encourage this ongoing inquiry. But we also believe that—until the answers are in, and in the face of fundamental uncertainties— benefit of the doubt belongs to our children, not to the things that threaten them.

10 We are guided by these truths, which we hold to be self-evident:

We know that water is life.
We know that methane is explosive.
We know that groundwater, once contaminated, cannot be cleaned up.
We know that we cannot shop for clean air.
We know that drilling and fracking operations require hundreds of truck trips per well and that many of these trucks haul
poisonous chemicals.
We know that accidents happen.
We know that toxic injuries in pregnancy and early childhood have lifelong consequences.
We know that you shouldn’t break something that you can’t fix.

Our appeal is simple and fundamental to our role as mothers. We do not want children drinking milk from cows grazing on chemically contaminated pastures. We do not want children breathing benzene on school playgrounds. We do not want convoys of water and gravel trucks sharing the roadways with school buses. Nor with teenagers learning to drive. Nor with kids on bicycles. We do not want children used as subjects in a reckless experiment whose long-term consequences and cumulative impacts are not yet understood.

We do want to bequeath to our children and grandchildren an unfractured, unpoisoned world.

Thank you.
Warmest regards,
Angela Monti Fox, mother of Gasland filmmaker, Josh Fox

So today, please take a moment, and SIGN this letter, for your children, mine and all of ours….

Yours,

Climate Mama

Obama family photo credit: photo credit: bo mackison via photopin cc

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Posted in Climate Mamas & Papas, Take a Stand: Action & Advocacy, fracking and pipelines | 1 Comment »

Good News on Climate Change Solutions

Friday, May 10th, 2013


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Grab the kids in your life and sit down and watch this 1 minute clip from our friends at Climate Nexus. As our political system in the US stays bogged down and seemingly unable to get beyond petty politics to see the big picture on climate change, scientists, business, industry and regular people like us, are moving forward by leaps and bounds. The future is happening now; it is exciting and filled with possibilities.

ICYMI – Week of May 6th from Climate Nexus on Vimeo.

We recognize the realities we are confronting with climate change and that if we don’t plan for the future, our economy, health, supply lines, job opportunities, and communities will suffer in ways that are becoming all to imaginable. We aren’t waiting for “history to be the judge” of our weak and ineffective government, we are moving beyond and around them, towards a clean and renewable future!

Happy day,

Yours,

Climate Mama

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Posted in Climate Mama Video Peek of the Week, Construction, Renewable Energy | No Comments »

EPIC & Energy Star: It’s time for Heroes in the Fight against Climate Change

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013


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Ironman, The Avengers, how about Mary Katherine or maybe you and your kids…who are our real heroes today, and who is going to save the world?

As summer approaches and we look forward to enjoying family activities like camping, hiking, walks on the beach, fishing, swimming and biking – all of which nature helps make more magnificent – our families are also confront by new and daunting challenges that nature is angrily throwing our way: extreme weather, floods, droughts, forest fires, allergies on “steroids,” and super storms. What’s making these weather events worse and how can we “fight back” against these new challenges? Where and who are the heroes that will help us?

At ClimateMama we try to help you “connect the dots” between what we are doing that exacerbates weather events and accelerates climate change – things like the way we produce our energy and food and the burning of fossil fuels – and learn to create positive actions that we each can take as individuals, as a family, collectively and as a community to change our current course and bring runaway climate change under control. We need to learn to live and adapt to changes we have already put in motion, but at the same time mitigate the causes and move towards solutions that help us veer from the climate cliff in front of us. How can we, as Ghandi so eloquently stated, “BE the change we wish to see in the world?”

One easy and fun way this summer is to join us and our friends at The Big Green Purse who have teamed up with PTO Today, LG Electronics USA, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program to promote Team ENERGY STAR, an exciting initiative developed to engage and educate American kids and their families about saving energy in the home. Team ENERGY STAR empowers kids to help protect the climate through easy-to-implement, money-saving actions and provides them an outlet for sharing their passion for preserving our environment.

This year ENERGY STAR has brought in some heroic characters from the new movie EPIC to help out. EPIC is a 3D adventure comedy that reveals a fantastical world unlike any other to help kids learn about the importance of saving energy while having fun at the same time. And in case you were wondering, Mary Katherine, or MK is the heroine in EPIC.

Climate Mama and Friends: Change a lIght, change the world.

In the movie, MK finds herself magically transported into this secret universe where she teams up with an elite band of warriors and a crew of comical, larger-than-life figures, to save their world…and ours. From the creators of ICE AGE and RIO, EPIC tells the story of an ongoing battle between the forces of good, which keep the natural world alive, and the forces of evil, which wish to destroy it. Energy Star is hoping that your kids (and you) will relate to some of the characters in this band of heroes, and that like them, your kids will see that EACH of us do matter and CAN make a difference in our world. So grab the kid in your life and join the Energy Star team today.

Being part of the team involves the following 4 simple steps:

• Taking action to reduce your energy use at home
• Helping your family and friends save energy
• Encouraging your family and friends to take the ENERGY STAR Pledge
• Inspiring others by sharing your story

Help your kids join Team ENERGY STAR where they will get easy-to-download educational and interactive materials, such as a comprehensive Action Kit with the ENERGY STAR Home Check-Up, an EPIC-themed activity booklet, and a Professor Bomba’s Binoculars kit to help kids see the world in a whole new way. Kids are also encouraged to come back and share their stories about protecting the environment by saving energy to inspire others.

Participants even have a chance to win cool prizes. Stories will be showcased on ENERGY STAR’s social media pages and the top stories will be featured on LG’s electronic billboard in New York’s Times Square. So grab the kids in your life and have them join in!

Climate Mama: Speaking out against Keystone Pipeline

I don’t know about you, but I OFTEN feel that I am fighting this EPIC battle right here in the “real world” of the United States of America. As I learn more and more about extreme forms of fossil fuel extraction, I feel it is “my job” as a mother to speak out, act out, and if necessary take the battle to extremes in order to help people wake up and see that we all need to be part of the solution as we work to protect our natural world. Sadly, there are many, many active forces of evil, trying to keep us addicted to fossil fuels and from veering off of the path in front of us which is leading towards the climate cliff. We need to be surging forward, towards a new path, one that is energy efficient and paved with clean, renewable energy!

Help your kids lead the way as they become our heroes of today and tomorrow…

It’s Do Something Wednesday, so DO SOMETHING: grab the kids in your life and Join the Energy Star Team Today!

Yours,

Climate Mama

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am writing about Team ENERGY STAR because I support the program and because I believe it is important to educate the public about energy efficiency and climate change. I have received a modest “thank you” reward from LG, an ENERGY STAR partner, in appreciation for my post. That gift in no way influenced my belief that saving energy is important and necessary.

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Posted in Do Something Wednesdays, Earth Day is Every Day, In The News, Lifestyle & Fun, Renewable Energy | No Comments »

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Welcome to Climate Mama

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You are a mother, a father, a grandparent, an uncle, an aunt, a teacher or a child at heart. When you hear the Native American saying, “We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children”, it makes you stop for a moment and think. You love nature, travel, adventure and believing in a world that is special and unique. Climate change and global warming are words that alarm you, that often seem too big to get your arms around. You care about what’s happening to the world and notice small changes in your own life that seem to point in the direction of a threatened environment. But you wonder if these changes are real, and if they are you can’t imagine what you can do to help change what is happening.

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Climate Mamas and Papas

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Climate Change so often seems too big to get our hands around. We wonder where we can start and how we can actually make a difference. Each one of us has a different path that we will follow. Some of us cut a wider swath than others, but each of us has a role to play. We would like to introduce you to some amazing individuals, Climate Mamas and Papas who are making a difference, who are, through their daily lives, affecting the lives of all of us. They inspire us, empower us, and challenge us to reach for the stars, to strive to do the best we can to help change the crash course we are currently on with our environment. Lets meet some of these amazing people and find out what inspires them. Meet our featured Climate Mama, Desiree Di Mauro today!

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Featured Partner & Campaigns

 

The Climate Reality Project is one of the world’s leading organizations dedicated to mobilizing action around climate change. With a global movement that is more than 2 million strong and a grassroots network of trained Climate Leaders, Climate Reality is "spreading the truth and unleashing the cultural momentum to solve the climate crisis."

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