May 5, 2012 is Climate Impacts Day — 350.org’s dramatic 2-min video reveals cause for concern and anger

“The fossil fuel industry in pursuit of evermore profit is making life impossible for many of us. We should be mad.”

No 461 Posted by fw, April 21, 2012

“350.org is building a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis. Our online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions are led from the bottom up by thousands of volunteer organizers in over 188 countries.” —Our Mission, 350.org

Re Climate Impact Day, 350.org says “It’s time to connect the dots between climate change and extreme weather. Protest, educate, document and volunteer along with thousands of people around the world to support the communities on the front lines of the climate crisis. START AN EVENT …or search for an existing event.”

Bill McKibben has written the text for a two-minute video “Things Happen” – Connect the Dots on 5/5/12. Watch it below. It may motivate you to get angry and, better yet, to get personally involved in Climate Action Day. My transcript follows the video.

“Things Happen” written by Bill McKibben of 350.org, narrated and Illustrated by Stephen Thomson of Plomomedia.com, uploaded by 350.org on April 16, 2012

TRANSCRIPT

Things happen. They always have. A storm. A heat wave. A downpour.  But now they happen differently. More frequent and more intense. We’re changing the planet’s climate, and all over the world people are paying the price. But because it’s a big world we don’t make the connections we should.

When Thailand has the worst flooding in its history, only a month after Central America has the worst flooding in its history, a month after Vermont has the worst flooding in its history, in the same year that the Mississippi River has the worst flooding in its history, and Queensland in Australia, a few months after Pakistan floods so badly twenty million people are forced from their homes… it’s connected. Connected to the fact that warm air holds more water vapor than cold air, loading the dice for deluge. And loading the dice for drought, too, since more water evaporates into the atmosphere. So it’s really no surprise we’ve seen the worst drought in the American southwest and the hottest fires in Australia and the crop-withering heat in Russia and a staggeringly dry famine across the horn of Africa.

We’re going to connect the dots on climate change and extreme weather literally. On May 5 we will rally hundreds of sites around the planet affected by climate change. We’ll show the world how the pieces of this puzzle fit together. You’ll forgive us if we’re just a little bit angry. It’s not fair what’s happening. The fossil fuel industry in pursuit of evermore profit is making life impossible for many of us. We should be mad.

We’re hopeful, too, though. Hopeful that if people begin to make the connections they’ll draw the obvious conclusion – the time has come to move away from coal, gas and oil. And we’ll only do that if we start to connect the dots.

Join us on May 5 – ClimateDots.org

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