Wow! Former Vice President Al Gore's Climate Reality Project team just completed three days of climate change leadership training in Chicago today. The news was exciting and groundbreaking. The group is joining forces with President Obama's grassroots organization, Organizing for Action in the August campaign, "Turn Up the Heat on Climate Deniers". A previous leadership training session that took place in Istanbul, Turkey in June of 2013 had attendees from 97 countries. And, at least two more training sessions are being planned for next year which you can find out about by emailing them at tcrp@climatereality.com.
More than 1500 people from more than 70 different countries were represented in the Chicago training. Of those, over 150 Organizing for Action members from all 50 United States, including OFA leadership, were in attendance. Members of both groups will be working together during the month to deliver Climate Denier Awards to members of Congress who have previously made public statements to denying the reality that climate change. It's real, happening now and caused by human activities. And, it's time our leaders accept the overwhelming consensus of scientists throughout the world and do something about the threat.
Even better, the Climate Reality Project's wildly popular (nearly 17 million Youtube views, setting a world record, and 165 million Twitter impressions) "24 Hours of Reality" is returning this October 22 and 23 of this year in an effort to raise awareness of the costs to all of us of inaction on this imminent threat to our health, property and security. After all, we don't have another planet to move to if things get much worse.
In a year when wildfires have destroyed large tracts of land and personal property in Arizona, Nevada, California and Washington states ... and floods, drought, extreme heat and hurricanes devastated others, the call to action was loud and clear.