Avaaz – Mobilizing toward Paris, COP 21
Avaaz, increasingly at the center of internal movement debates over strategy, posted this fundraising letter to the global netwok on July 12, 2015, QUOTE:
On 2015/07/12 01:40 PM, Ricken Patel – Avaaz wrote:
Dear Avaaz community,
This may be the most important email I’ve ever written to you.
Some time ago, a scientist went on his annual tour of the Russian Arctic Ocean, checking for noxious plumes of methane gas bubbling up from the ocean. He’d previously seen hundreds of these plumes, about a metre wide each, emitting gas 50 times more damaging to our climate than carbon dioxide. This time, as he came across the first plume, he couldn’t believe it. It was a KILOMETRE wide. A vast column of gas entering our atmosphere. He sailed on and found another a kilometre wide, and another, and another. Hundreds of them.
This could be what the experts warned us about. As the earth warms, it creates many “tipping points” that accelerate the warming out of control. Warming thaws the Arctic sea ice, destroying the giant white ‘mirror’ that reflects heat back into space, which massively heats up the ocean, and melts more ice, and so on. We spin out of control. In 2014 everything was off the charts — it was the hottest year in recorded history.
We CAN stop this, if we act very fast, and all together. And out of this extinction nightmare, we can pull one of the most inspiring futures for our children and grandchildren. A clean, green future in balance with the earth that gave birth to us.
We have just 5 months left until the Paris Summit, the meeting that can determine the fate of the world’s efforts to fight climate change. It might seem like a long time — it’s not. We have 5 months to get our leaders to that meeting, give them a plan, and hold them accountable. It’s us vs. the oil companies and fatalism.
We can win, we must, but we need to throw everything we have at December’s summit. With pledges of just a few dollars/euros/pounds we’ll be able to massively scale up our work — we’ll only process the donations if we hit our goal. For the world we dream of, let’s make it happen.
Click to pledge what you can, Avaaz will process our donations only if we reach our goal of 10,000 new supporters:
Or pledge a single donation today.
Fatalism on climate change is not just futile, it’s also incompetent. The hour is late, but it is still absolutely within our power to stop this catastrophe, simply by shifting our economies from oil and coal to other sources of power. And doing so will bring the world together like never before, in a deep commitment and cooperation to protect our planetary home. It’s a beautiful possibility, and the kind of future Avaaz was born to create. Facing this challenge will take heart, and hope, and also all the smarts we have. Here’s the plan:
- Supercharge Success — The G7 just committed to getting the global economy off fossil fuels! It’s huge news — and if we get dozens more countries onboard in the next few months, the entire world could agree at the Paris Summit to adopt this ambitious goal as a north star to a clean future!
- Massive Mobilisation — The People’s Climate March spearheaded by our community last year was a game-changer in political momentum. So the day before world leaders arrive at the Summit we’re going bigger, bolder, and even more ambitious with massive climate marches in Paris and around the world to show that people everywhere are demanding they come home with a historic climate agreement.
- Heat on Hollande — French President Francois Hollande will chair the Paris summit — a powerful position. We need him to push for a high ambition agreement. He met with Avaaz twice and left the meetings promising to work hard for a strong deal but we need to make sure he doesn’t back down when things get tough.
- Take it to the Next Level — The scale of this crisis demands action that goes beyond regular campaigning. It’s time for powerful, direct, non-violent action, to capture imagination, convey moral urgency, and inspire people to act. The climate march was step one. For step two, think Occupy.
- Define the Deal — Even in the face of planetary catastrophe, 195 governments in a room can be just incompetent. Amidst the thicket of complex policy talk, we need to define the red lines of the agreement and organise the press and politics around them. Our top focus – a clear commitment to a world without carbon, powered by 100% clean energy. That is what will put the fossil fuel industry on notice, and shift private investment massively into renewable energy.
We need tens of thousands of us to pledge small donations to blast out of the starting gate on this plan. The amount doesn’t matter as much as the choice — to hope, and to act:
Or pledge a single donation today.
At the last major climate summit in Copenhagen 2009, we played a pivotal role in German and Japanese ‘climate’ elections, in shifting Brazilian policy, and in helping win a major global deal on financing, with rich countries promising $100 billion per year to poor countries to help them address climate change. Back then, Avaaz was 3 million people. After Copenhagen, we reflected that we needed to be a lot bigger to meet the challenge posed by climate change. Now, we’re more than 40 million, and rising fast.
Climate change is the ultimate global collective action problem, requiring cooperation from every government in the world. And Avaaz is the ultimate collective action solution, with millions of us united in common vision across every nation. This is our time, to build a world for our children whose beauty matches our dreams. Let’s get started.
With hope and appreciation for this amazing community,
Ricken and the entire Avaaz team
MORE INFORMATION:
2014 was the hottest year on record (Bloomberg)
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2014-hottest-year-on- record/ “Vast methane plumes escaping from the seafloor” discovered in Siberian Arctic Sea (Daily Kos)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/28/1317252/–Vast- methane-plumes-escaping-from- the-seafloor-discovered-in- Siberian-Arctic-Sea# Five Reasons We Need a New Global Agreement on Climate Change by 2015 (Switchboard NRDC)
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jschmidt/five_reasons_ we_need_a_new_glo.html 10 Signs the stars are aligning for a climate deal in Paris (The Guardian)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/21/10- signs-stars-are-aligning-for- climate-deal-paris The Arctic Ice “Death Spiral” (Slate)
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/28/ arctic_sea_ice_global_warming_ is_melting_more_ice_every_ year.html
Avaaz.org is a 41-million-person global campaign network that works to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people shape global decision-making. (“Avaaz” means “voice” or “song” in many languages.) Avaaz members live in every nation of the world; our team is spread across 18 countries on 6 continents and operates in 17 languages. Learn about some of Avaaz’s biggest campaigns here, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.You became a member of the Avaaz movement and started receiving these emails when you signed “South Africa Needs Clean Energy, Not Coal!” on 2010-04-02 using the email address pbond@mail.ngo.za.
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