24 October 2009

We are a small team of youth from throughout the world who are working together to build a movement to stop global warming. We work with Bill McKibben, an author and environmentalist from the United States, who wrote one of the first books on global warming for the general public.

Bill and our U.S. team ran a campaign last year called Step It Up 2007 that organized over 2,000 rallies in all 50 states, which was an inspiration for 350.org. It's our hope that you'll take 350 and run with it, and us build a truly global movement to stop the climate crisis.

And here's a bit more about the individuals on the team...

Introducing...the 350.org coordinating team. No, there aren't 350 people behind this operation -- we're a small team of mostly young people.

Jon:

Like everyone working on 350, I don't have an official title. It seems that we all wear a lot of hats around here, and any two-word description of our jobs would be completely inadequate. But perhaps my role, more than most, can be concisely summarized: I'm the tech guy.

As the in-house nerd, I spend much of my time playing around "under the hood" of our website and make sure that our online platform is working accross 10 languages, figuring out what online tools we need to build a global network of climate activists, and harnessing cutting-edge technology make our activism really count.

But of course this isn't all I do. I'm also the partnerships coordinator for Oceania and the Polar Regions, as well as the liason to the business community. Throw a dash of online outreach and a pinch of campaign planning into the mix, and you've got a recipe for some busy days. But it's totally worth it--watching the spread of a truly global movement to take on humanity's greatest challenges is kind of mindblowing. Everyone seems to have the sense that we have very little time to make some very big changes--and with that in mind, I'm going to sign-off and get back to work!

Judit:

My name is Judit Varga. I have been working with 350.org since May of 2008. I have been an environmentalist for years. As a former journalist I ended up as editor in chief for one of Hungary's biggest environmental magazine. Now I try to do my best to build the Central Eastern European network of 350.org from Hungary. Please watch this short video of my friends and I celebrating the 350 network:

Kelly

My name is Kelly, and I work out of the San Francisco office of 350.org. You may have seen me in recent campaign appearances such as "350 Campaign Update Video", or as the fingers moving the cutouts of Obama and McCain in the "Invite McCain and Obama to Poland" YouTube video. Oh, and I drew those little suits that Obama and McCain are wearing in that animation.

So I'm 23 years old, grew up in Pennsylvania (on the east coast of the U.S.), and like many on our team, became aware of how serious climate change is, then frightened, then moved to action a few years ago, and haven't really stopped working on it since (except to drink coffee, play ultimate frisbee, and the occasional game of euchre). For 350, I do a pretty scattered smorgasbord of tasks, from some seriously amateur graphic design, to engaging artists about climate and 350, to coordinating the translation of our website into 10 languages, to being our outreach coordinator in Latin America. Some times, I scan postcards that we get from all around the world from our Postcards Project. Never a dull day around here.

In the face of some pretty scary scientific diagnoses, it's been truly uplifting to see this 350 movement building over the last several months, and learn about all the amazing grassroots initiatives popping up all over the globe to address global warming. I can't wait to see what we can do together.

Will:

I've been doing grassroots climate activism of various sorts for a good three or four years now -- what a whirlwind few years it's been. I got my start with the climate movement as a student in college in Vermont, USA, and it has been the focus of my life since then.

After college some of our present 350 team and I helped organize a 5 day walk across Vermont demanding action on climate change. The momemtum from that effort led us to larger national organizing with Step It Up 2007 in the United States. And now, I've ended up as part of our little team, and growing movement, aiming to reshape global action on climate change.

It's often hard to have climate change be at the forefront of everyday life. Partially it's the realities of the ever-worsening scientific accounts of the dangers we face and injustices resulting from a heating planet. And some of it is the frustration of watching so many institutions continuously ignore those realities and resist necessary and just changes. (And then there's just the time at the computer working on projects like Step It Up and 350 -- as I've said before, I'm much more hard-wired for the outdoors, but the online world is immensely helpful in connecting and growing this movement at the rate we need).

Despite all that, it's endlessly uplifting to spend my days connecting with so many of you -- people all around the world both making the real changes that will heal our planet and society and building the movement that will drive our larger institutions in the right direction. Previously as a more locally-oriented, Vermont-based activist I always knew I was part of something larger than my local community. It makes it that much more real, however, to spend part of every day emailing and talking with folks around the globe. It gives new meaning to global conciousness or global citizen.

I'll end by saying that 350.org is an invitation to be part of a global movement. Please offer your voice locally in your own community, but also connect or reconnect with folks all around the world to create this movement. We all have a stake in fighting climate change, and it's essential that we unite to reach 350. I look forward to remaking our world with you all.

May

I also work out of 350's San Francisco office, which happens to be close to my hometown. I'm pleased to be back in the Golden State, and think it offers a glimpse into just how interconnected our world is. Often it seems that the whole world comes to San Francisco to learn about solutions to our biggest problems.

Jeremy

Good haircuts, like good climate actions, are most satisfying when done unprofessionally with the help of friends. I don't get a lot of haircuts, so each one puts a kind of punctuation mark on something, marking time. At the start of this year, I embarked on a new phase of climate campaigning for 350.org in Europe, abandoning the shores of the US to live, work, and, praise the heavens, travel on real trains (any US Amtrak rider will well understand). Budapest, Berlin, Copenhagen – it's dream-worthy, the grungy American Euro-traveler's itinerary complete with work, friends, and (what always held me back) a purpose. Needless to say, after diving into an adventure this size, I find myself with a buzz cut, feeling the wintry Budapest breezes slightly more wintry.

The nice thing about the evolution of my climate activism is that I've had a coincident evolution of friendly faces to share it with. Those of us in my first university class on climate went on to work on our campus with other passionate students, went on to work with thousands of people around the US who were ready to stand up and tell Congress to Step It Up, went on to discover new friends, new languages, new cultures, and new ways of organizing around the world in the past year.

Jamie from our team was in that group of students where I discovered climate change and our chance to alter its course. He joked then, claiming, “I'm not cutting my hair until we stop global warming!” He had a mass of fiery red on his head, which, unchecked, would have stopped traffic by now. Truth be told, he has maintained a fairly regular schedule of haircuts, but my trimmings have more or less followed the evolution of our climate work together, punctuated with new opportunity and new chances to take a risk and try something that might be, just a little bit, crazy. I hope you all get excited and try something too.