We've shown you thousands of happy pictures from around the world on Oct. 24--here's a sad one. Tempest--a 25-year-old spoken word artist and musician--closed the event on Hornby Island British Columbia that day with the spirited spoken word poem below.

Earlier this month she was found dead. Much much too young, obviously, and with a great deal left to tell the world. We hope her words here will resonate, and we're grateful to have been her colleagues

Callin' all People
Come together
With eachother
To make this world bb-better!

Click here to read Tempest's Full Poem...

Earlier this evening, we shared this bittersweet movement update with our whole email list. You might notice its tone is more serious than usual. With 9 days to go until the Copenhagen climate talks begin, these are very serious times:

Dear Friends,

We don't organize events for their own sake--there needs to be a strategy to make them worth your effort, because your time is this movement's most precious commodity.

Here's our sense of what will be happening at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, and why we're hoping some of you will start or join a candlelight vigil at a strategic or iconic location in your community on Dec. 11th or 12th.

The weekend for these vigils falls smack in the middle of the two-week Copenhagen talks.  President Obama just announced that he will visit Copenhagen on December 9th--and there's no doubt that he'll deliver a rousing and eloquent speech. The following day, December 10th, he'll go on from Copenhagen to Norway to collect his Nobel prize.

We need to send a signal to say that speeches and prizes are good, but action is what's really required--enough action to head us back towards 350 parts per million.

Obama will bring an emissions target to the table in Copenhagen, a bittersweet development in this political drama.  Sweet because having any sort of commitment from the U.S. increases the chances of global collaboration on a climate deal, bitter because US emissions target represents a paltry 3% reductions below 1990 levels--far from the ambitious cuts scientists say are necessary to get back to 350.

The United States now holds a big key to unlock this process, and we need Obama and the U.S. Congress to turn that key--which is why many of the candlelight vigils will take place at U.S. senate offices, and at U.S. embassies and consulates around the world.

The timing here is crucial: the vigils are part of a huge mobilization on the weekend of December 12th, mid-way through the negotiations.  The climate talks will build to a head a few days later, as our allies and champions--people like President Nasheed of the Maldives--struggle to get a document that represents "a survival pact, not a suicide pact."  They have said repeatedly that their survival depends on getting back to 350, and it will help them immensely if delegates from other nations know that back home people are keeping up the pressure and demanding a real deal.  I'll be in Copenhagen on the weekend of December 12th to help organize a vigil with the 350.org team--and my hope is that you can join this effort by organizing a vigil locally.

Click this link to start a local vigil: www.350.org/vigil

Or this link to search for one near you: www.350.org/map

These vigils don't need to be enormous--a gathering of young people, community members, or faith leaders will be plenty in many cases. Light candles, bring signs, and display any 350 action photos you might have--and consider spelling out a big illuminated 350 somehow.  Send a message for your local media to see: after all, they'll be interested in a local angle on the big international story. This is a symbolic act, but when it comes to making political change, symbolism counts.

Here's the deal: the huge day of action on October 24 was a tremendous start, and it's hard to believe that it was only a month ago that you created what's being called "the most widespread day of political action in history." It took the most important number on earth and made it one of the most well-known.

Copenhagen continues that process--with the whole world paying attention, we need to remind our leaders that we don't need rhetoric, we need change. Fast.

Onwards,

Bill McKibben, 350.org

P.S. We need to build the movement now more than ever--can you spread the links to the candlelight vigils to at least 35 friends via e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook.  Click the links above to share the movement in 30 seconds with two clicks.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US, a holiday that's very much about sharing gratitude. So, we wanted to take a moment to share some gratitude with a few of our US partner organizations for the great work they're doing to create a 350 future. We are also incredibly grateful for the thousands of organizers across the United States - who organized over 2,000 actions in every state on Oct. 24th, making it the biggest day of action in the country's history. We hope you'll join us in showing gratitude by taking action with 3 of our friends below!

Thank you GreenforAll!

Green For All has been working hard on the House of Representatives’ climate and clean-energy legislation. They recently broke it down in an easy new graphic: Learn what’s good, what's lacking, and what's green about the climate and energy legislation -- and win climate art via a Twitter contest.

Thank you Sierra Club!

The Sierra Club is working to support the Environmental Protection Agency in holding coal plants (mega polluters and major contributors to global warming) responsible for their share of the dirty air. The EPA is proposing The Big Polluters Rule to crack down on the worst offenders, but they need your help. Right now the bill is open to public comment -- and your comment of support can help make the Big Polluters Rule a reality! Take action here.

Thank you Mobilization for Climate Justice!

On November 30th, the Mobilization for Climate Justice is coordinating a day of action on climate justice across the US -- one week before the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Nov 30th also marks the 10 year anniversary of the WTO protests in Seattle. In San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle & other cities activists will gather together for grassroots actions--many have asked if these protests are aimed at shutting down the UN, which is many ways unlike the WTO. Instead of aiming focus on the UN, the N30 protests will call out the fossil fuel companies and investors who have made record profits, and spent millions to lobby against strong climate policy. Meeting local activists on Nov. 30th is also a great way to connect with people to support and join your Dec 11th vigils. Find a Nov 30th action near you.

We're extremely grateful for the work of our partners and allies in the US, especially as the US represents a major obstacle yet holds so much potential to be a real leader on the global climate crisis. Writer Rebecca Solnit beautifully articulates the important role of US citizenry (of which US orgs are composed) in fighting for climate action in an article "Learning how to Count to 350" published yesterday. Here's a relevant excerpt:

 The “we” that could win and needs to win in the climate change wars isn’t the United States itself... 

"The citizens of the U.S. need to revolt, again, against their nation’s failure of vision and responsibility, in solidarity with the rest of the people of the world, and the animals, and the plants, and the coral reefs, and the coastlines, and the rivers, the glaciers, the ice caps, and the weather as we now know it, or once knew it...

"Everything is going to change either as runaway climate change takes hold, with its concomitant destruction and suffering, or because a set of programs will be embraced that forestall the worst and return our planet to an atmospheric carbon level of 350 parts per million, now considered the necessary standard to avoid environmental catastrophe."

We couldn't continue to build and support this movement without the organizations and organizers who work tirelessly everyday to get us closer to a safe and sustainable future. Thank you, and a happy Thanksgiving.