This past Saturday was the second Step It Up, a national day of action to find out who are the real leaders on global warming. This day of action built on Step It Up’s April 14 rally, which produced more than 1,400 events in 50 states, the largest global warming event in U.S. history.

Greenpeace contributed to Step It Up in a big way. Our Project Hot Seat field organizers held events in 11 places and our Frontline campaign had six events of their own. Here in San Francisco, we joined with other Green groups and had a rally outside the UN Plaza. The day was well-attended; we even had an appearance from erstwhile candidate for the House,  Cindy Sheehan. 

If you don't know anything about Step It Up, here are their demands, which almost mirror our own: a carbon cut of 80 percent by 2050, a moratorium on any new coal-fired power plants, and five million new Green jobs.  Check out photos from Greenpeace's events here and go over to www.stepitup2007.org to see what happened nationally.

Now that Step It up is over, we'll go back to work on getting Congress to take action. The best bill in the House to accomplish a significant reduction in CO2 emissions is Henry Waxman’s Safe Climate Act. The bill has 142 co-sponsors. The magic number is 216, the number of votes needed in the House to pass a bill. You can help keep up the momentum from Step It Up and help pass the Safe Climate Act at www.projecthotseat.org.

Best wishes,

Daniel Kessler
Greenpeace Media Officer  

Thousands of students gathered outside Congress today to lobby for a greener future. Students from all over the US representing several college campuses from Alaska to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico left their differences behind, overcame student apathy, and united in one voice to demand bold changes with the current environmental Legislation. With their personal stories and passion students proposed the 1SKY Platform in the US Congress. The 1Sky Platform consists of bold principles to be applied in specific pieces of legislation that address global warming as a priority.

The 1Sky movement puts priority in what it takes to tackle global warming in an effective way. The first principle consists on creating over 5 million green jobs creating opportunities of involvement in the environmental movements to the working class. These green jobs would trigger the momentum needed to create healthy, efficient communities, and develop our local economy while we conserve 20% of our energy by 2015. Second, as the US we need to lead the world once more in technology and innovation and take the initiative to cut reduce carbon emission by an 80% by 2050. Lastly, the 1Sky Platform proposes that Congress should reprogram their investments to more clean energy and smart transportation.

In times in which we are deeply concerned for the effects of global warming, students and voters took action once more and discuss with their congressmen the actions needed to put an end to global warming. The students had undergo a weekend of training and discussion regarding the environment in the 1st annual Powershift conference. This conference was organized by a joint group of organizations known as the Energy Action Coalition. Powershift ended today with a massive lobby day in which students from across the nation meet outside the House of Representatives, wearing green hard hats and chanted with all their heart “20% by 2015.” We expect that as youth from this nation our voice is heard as much as our vote is taken into consideration. And as we make history, we know that Powershift is the beginning of a long journey. A journey that got started today when thousands of students took the challenge to develop some networking and relationships that are needed so that their voice for a greener future is heard loud and clear and we always “remember, remember the 5th of November.”