If you’re like me, your inbox has recently been inundated with cheery, post-Copenhagen greetings from green groups of all kinds. Bless their hearts, they’ve all suddenly developed an interest in wishing me well.
And let me confess: I love ’em all. Classics like NRDC and WRI, innovators like Clean Air-Cool Planet and 1Sky, hybrids like the Alliance for Climate Protection. With all sincerity, I can’t say enough about the hard work and vision that most green groups have brought to our fight against global warming during the last few years. With the most well-funded oppenents in lobbying history (in case you need convincing, check out the Climate Cover Up), green groups and their allies have more than held their own this year: a climate bill has passed the house, and two bipartisan bills (Kerry-Graham-Lieberman and Cantwell-Collins) are now in play in the Senate. And that’s not all: in state after state, coal is on the ropes, in large part thanks to the legal brilliance of the Sierra Club and the hustling determination of I Love Mountains. Grim as we all may feel about the recent roller coaster ride that took us from Hopenhagen to Nopenhagen, the emails that we’ve all just received tell an accurate tale: there’s lots to celebrate as we reflect on 2009.
But that was then; 2010 is now. As I recently wrote, all of us need to gear up and build a plan for a grand four-month fight, a big push to get to an Earth Day 2010 signing ceremony in the White House. Here’s the Rose Garden tableau that will be caught by the mainstream media if we get this right: Cherry Blossoms, Democratic and Republican leaders, and 350 kids from all all 50 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories, all smiling as a reinvigorated Obama signs, let’s say, a bipartisan ‘Kids-vs-Global Warming’ bill.
We will need all hands on deck to get there, in all corners of the USA (and among supporters around the world.) In addition to offering our time and ideas (memo to self: gather friends in coffee shop next week; make plans to call our senators and representatives every day for next 116 days), I propose that each of us offer $100 to one green group. That’s the least we can do to make sure that allies who get the whole inside-the-Beltway-thing can pave the way for Plan 10x.
Here’s the fun part: which one?
