From the mouths of babes, and Dr. Seuss: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” A 4th Grade Class from Massachusetts convinced Universal Studios in less then one month to change a promotional video for a movie on Dr. Suess’s book The Lorax. These 10 year olds, with caring and guidance from their teachers, learned a big lesson about how “powerful” they really are, and the importance of speaking out for what you believe in!

So, grab the kids in your life, watch the video these kids made, and let your kids know that they too are powerful.

The original cut of the Universal promotional video on the new movie The Lorax, didn’t really talk much about trees, or focus on taking care of our planet, the whole premise of the book The Lorax! This Massachusetts 4th Grade class thought this was an injustice, and spoke out. Now the movie site has “Green Tips” and “Go Green Links” right on the home page (something that wasn’t there before the petition they set up on Change.org!)

All of us need to remember that we are powerful too. And at this moment in the history of our planet, if we don’t start speaking out and showing the “Once-ler” that we care about our planet’s future, “nothing is going to get better, It’s not!”

While “nothing is over until it is over,” for the moment we have a definitive answer from the President to the “game of chicken” that he has been in regarding the Keystone XL pipeline.

President to House Republicans: Game OVER.

In a statement from the White House issued at around 3:20pm ET on January 18th, President Obama rejected the current proposal from TransCanada to build the Keystone XL pipeline. In December, Congress tied an extension of a tax relief bill to a 60 day “thumbs up or down” approval process on this pipeline, which was set to expire on February 21st. As our Climate Mamas and Papas know, this is a key advocacy issue and close to the “heart” of OUR Climate Mama, Harriet Shugarman.

As the controversy will continue, here are some of the FACTS on the pipeline, in case you get questioned about these issues at your next dinner party, office “water cooler” conversation, or at your child’s hockey game:

1. The Keystone XL Pipeline will create few, if any jobs. TRUE Claims of 20,000 to 100,000 are gross exaggerations. The State Department and TransCanada have said that no more than 6000 temporary jobs will be created and independent estimates put the permanent number of jobs at no more than 50!

2. Keystone XL helps promote Energy Security and Independence. FALSE Companies with refineries in Texas at the “end” of the 1700 mile pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands have said that most of the oil to be produced is targeted for export markets, not the US.

Tar Sands In Action: July 2011
Why does ClimateMama care about this one pipeline? Because we all need to draw a line in the sand somewhere…many groups have rallied behind this line in the “tar sands.” We need to question where our energy comes from. Do we want to perpetuate our addiction to fossil fuels by building more and more pipelines to carry oil and gas? Or should we be investing in transmission lines to carry energy from the sun and wind to places around our country, so we don’t have to rely on any fossil fuels, domestic or foreign.
Grab the kids in your life and ask them to weigh in on this…their future, and ours is in our hands, lets think carefully about these questions, lets get the facts. And lets make sure our politicians get the facts too (and not just repeat misinformation!) We need to fight for a clean energy future for our children and this pipeline is one of the fights worth fighting for…Seems like we are getting there and can now put this one in the WIN column! But the WAR is far from over, even if this battle may finally be won….

In keeping with the holiday spirit, we at ClimateMama are thankful and humbled by the many wonderful, caring people we have had the good fortune to meet who are working on climate change from so many different angles and directions. Our good friend Tom at Climate Bites, recently introduced us to one of these people, Brian Ettling. Brian was kind enough to share one of his hopeful true life Christmas stories with us and we are thrilled to “pass it forward” and share his story with you.

Wishing all our Climate Mamas and Papas a happy, hopeful and joy filled holiday and new year. Please share Brian’s story with the kids in your life…and remind them how POWERFUL they are….Enjoy!

The Two Green Wise Men: Tugging at My Best Friend, by Brian Ettling

In the original Christmas story, a bright star appears over Bethlehem attracting three wise men from the East. They traveled from far away to see what they believed was the Messiah who was just born. The arrival of the wise men was considered to be a very strong signal.

Over 2,000 years later, the signal of climate change is becoming evident from many different sources of scientific evidence, such as changes in the atmosphere, oceans, polar ice shelves, sea level rise, weather patterns, etc. Just like the prominent news in Bethlehem of wise men arriving from the East, it is getting harder to ignore the vast amount of news about climate change these days.

Vote for Climate Mama today and lets help our kids (and us) connect the dots between our actions in North America, Europe and the rest of the developed world, and the terrible human crisis now unfolding in the Horn of Africa. More than 13 million people have already been displaced by Famine, War and Drought (FWD). Children are dying every day. We have played a role in creating this disaster and we now need to play a role in helping solve it. Climate Mama is a finalist in the USAID GOOD competition on the FWD Crisis in Africa. We need your help to forward the facts.

The Facts: Low rainfall amounts beginning in the fall of 2010 have resulted in millions of people in the countries of the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda) being unable to water their crops, feed their livestock or provide food for their families.

This crisis has been growing over the past year, and has also resulted in rocketing “sky high” food prices. Particularly hard hit is the country of Somalia, where humanitarian assistance “continues to be limited or denied.” Refugees from the entire area are walking hundreds of miles in search of relief…families, with no where to go, are loosing the battle against FWD and are loosing their lives.

Our Role: As devastating as the news and pictures are of what is happening in Africa, most of us are unaware of our role in creating this continuing crisis. Until we start taking ownership of what is happening around the world and in our own country, BECAUSE of our everyday actions, we won’t be able to arrive at solutions.

Climate Change Impacts USA: In the past year 47 out of 50 statesin the US have declared climate related disasters, 13 of which have resulted in damages of over $1 BILLION dollars.

And if that doesn’t grab the attention of the kids in your life, share this fact with them: Over half the hard drives made in the world come from Thailand, a country “knocked flat” by devastating floods. Factories critical to Apple (and other computer companies) have been devastated. “…..it means [in early 2012] you either won’t be able to get an iMac with a 2TB drive, or will have an extremely hard time sourcing one, because Apple sources many components from Thailand,” says Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Vote Today: ClimateMama is a finalist in the GOOD USAID competition to raise awareness about crisis in Africa. Voting is open now! There are many great ideas. Please vote for Climate Mama and help our kids (and ourselves) connect the DOTS between our use of fossil fuels, lifestyle and consumption patterns and the human crisis that has taken hold in Africa, and in fact in our own country.

Thank you,

Climate Mama

Happy Halloween! We, in North America have taken the celebration ofghosts, goblins and monsters to an extreme, and on October 31st we will be ringing in this festive and spooky holiday in a myriad of ways. I recently finished watching the “Terminator” movie series with my son. “Timely” in a way, as we get ready for Halloween, given that all the movies in the series focus on scary creatures.

The movies are filled with a lot of murder, monster and mayhem. I figured though, not much more gruesome than some of the electronic games my son plays with his friends, much to my pacifist chagrin. I choose to watch the whole series with my son, as a kind of ghoulish bonding experience, and was reminded that there is a message threading it’s way through the series – subtly and some times not so subtly the movies point to humankind’s responsibility to care for and to rescue our world and us, for future generations.

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In watching the Terminator movies, I felt that we Climate Mamas and Papas are a bit like the character of Sarah Connor who was the mother of John, the “savior” of the human race. There is overwhelming evidence available to anyone who wants to see it – we humans are destroying our planet. Like Sarah, we know that the “monsters” are lurking. In our case we know that we are changing our ecosystems and heating up our world through our thoughtless emissions of greenhouse gases and our wasteful consumerism. We too often close our eyes and pretend we can’t see.

Not to put a crimp on Halloween, as in most cases our celebrations are harmless. Or are they? There is a line that runs through the Terminator movies, “No fate but what we make”. How in North America, did we turn a harvest festival and the occasion to tell a few good ghost stories, into a mass consumerism event? We in America “do things up big”, Halloween being no exception. The holiday has turned into a marketer’s dream. We buy cards for friends, we buy new costumes for our children, and we purchase as many “crazy, scary and festive” decorations as we can, rivaled only by how we decorate for the winter holidays.

In the northeast US, if you “don’t” decorate for Halloween, you are almost considered a “scrooge”. We haven’t even talked about the candy and other goodies we give out (in single use containers no less – so no one can accuse us of “tampering” with the goodies). Which side of the looking glass are we looking thru, have we made our fate?

Lets flip the picture and look to the positive and come up with ways to heal our world one small step at a time.

1. What about recycling yours and your kid’s costumes, exchanging them with friends for a “new costume” for next year or think about giving the costume to a school or a camp or a used clothing store. Just because the Halloween magazines start coming in August, doesn’t mean you have to succumb to your kid’s demands to get a new costume each year. I fell under that spell for all too long!!

2. What about saving those great decorations and reusing them.

3. Compost, eat or give away the vegetables you display instead of letting them rot on the front porch. Be inventive, be creative. As we in America top off another land fill with our garbage, and pollute our waterways with our leftovers our planet’s ability to recover continues to be compromised. And we aren’t even talking about all that methane gas that collects in those landfills and what harm this potent greenhouse gas can do when it is released into our atmosphere.

4. Think about the candy you buy, where does it come from, packaging, etc. Grist did an interesting article recently on “candy you can feel good about,” read it and discuss this with the kids in your life. There is always, “more to the story” that we normally consider!

Ghosts and goblins are lurking all year around, not just on Halloween. As you celebrate this holiday, engage your children and your grandchildren and consider more sustainable ways to celebrate all our holidays. Food for thought?

Yours truly,

Climate Mama

(This post is “recycled” in part from a 2009 CM Post. In honor of Halloween, and in case you missed it the first time, an “oldie” but a goodie – Enjoy!)