author Bill McKibben, who wrote one of the first books on global warming for the general public, and a team of university friends. Together, they ran a campaign in 2007 called Step It Up that organized over 2,000 rallies at iconic places in all 50 states. These creative actions – from skiers descending a melting glacier to divers hosting an underwater action – helped convince many political leader
s, including then Senator Barack Obama, to adopt our common call to action: cutting carbon 80% by 2050. Now, 350.org is building on Step It Up’s model of creative activism and making it global. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international environmental treaty that was drafted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and spearheaded international efforts to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions. As part of the Convention, the signatory countries have been hosting a series of conferences, the most famous of which was the Kyoto Conference (COP-3), in December 1997, which produced the Kyoto Protocol to commit signatories to reduce their collective greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 percent below the level produced in 1990. the Kyoto Protocol was the first of many pieces of environmental legislation that has fallen in Canada (as well as in other countries) in the past 10 years. After multiple international embarrassments, especially at the past few world leader summits, we find our country dragging our feet in the climate race, while other countries continuously lap us. We have lost respect throughout the world, and in large part we have not progressed but regressed in our environmental practices and policies. As the country's capital, we must be the group that brings the nation together. It's time for us to take the lead, speak out, and show our government what our country stands for. It's time for us to show them that it is not right or good to make major decisions without consulting us. Join us, and stand up for your capital's democracy and your planet's climate.
