Host or Attend a Live Earth House Party If you can't make it to New Jersey on July 7 to see the Police, Dave Matthews, Alicia Keys, and more, you can do the next best thing. Join a house party in your community and watch the concerts on TV or the Web with your friends and neighbors. Better yet, host a house party.
The nine Live Earth concerts, unfolding over 24 hours on seven continents, are about more than great music. They're a call to action on global warming. Scientists say that to stabilize global warming, we need to curb our carbon emissions 80 percent by the year 2050 -- or 2 percent a year, starting now. The Live Earth event will help spread that message and spur leaders to take action.
Don't miss out on the fun! Find out more on how to host or attend a Live Earth House Party.
Students Turn Campuses Green The school year is over, and for students taking part in the Campus Climate Challenge, many of their biggest accomplishments happened outside the classroom. Sierra Student Coalition members won a whopping 58 victories on campuses in the past year, including 12 campus commitments to climate neutrality, as well as green building policies, improved energy efficiency, coffee ground composting, and more.
At Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, students created a "Gold Bike Program," providing free bikes for use on campus. Students at Swarthmore in Pennsylvania pushed the college to increase its wind power purchase to 35 percent of its total electrical usage.
Read about all 58 victories here.
Turning the Tables on Coal In February, Rhonda Roff, a Sierra Club activist and president of Save It Now, Glades!, was tabling at a local festival in Glades County, Florida, just two tables away from Florida Power & Light's booth, which was pushing a $6 billion coal plant in Glades County that the Club opposed. Roff says she was initially discouraged from setting up her booth and told that she would be heckled. Instead, she reports, people kept coming over to her table complaining about their discussions at the utility booth and asking if she had a petition they could sign.
She did.
Now we can't say that those tabling events turned the tables, so to speak, but on June 5, the Florida Public Service Commission unanimously rejected the proposed coal plant, which would have discharged more than 13 million pounds of carbon dioxide and 180 pounds of mercury a year, 70 miles from Everglades National Park.
Turtle Festival in Puerto Rico In San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Sierra Club's newest, and only Spanish-speaking chapter organized its second annual Turtle Festival this spring, attracting more than 2,000 people and helping draw attention to threats facing the Northeast Ecological Corridor.
The highlight, says chapter organizer Camilla Feibelman, was a children's march in which 300 kids participated, many of whom dressed as turtles and performed skits for the crowd.
The Puerto Rico chapter is trying to protect this 3,200-acre coastal area from two planned resorts that would include 1,900 new residential and tourist units and three golf courses.
Ontario Bans Leaf Blowers -- What Else Should Go? The Canadian province of Ontario is not just banning leaf blowers, but gas-powered lawn mowers as well. Writing in Compass, a Sierra Club blog, Pat Joseph asks, "As long as we're banning stuff, what else should go?"
Find out what others are saying and toss in your two pennies worth while you're there.
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