Help Global Exchange Beat the Heat!

We’re looking for the bold, the adventurous, and the dedicated to help us Beat the Heat this summer and address climate change!

We’re doing everything we can to make sure the planet is inhabitable for generations to come, and we want you to join us.

So we’ve put put together this five point plan of action to address the climate crisis in the coming year:

1)    Safeguarding our water by passing community ordinances to ban fracking;
2)    Halting the Keystone XL Pipeline, and saying NO to more dirty Tar Sands oil extraction;
3)    Protecting the world’s working class by promoting Fair Trade;
4)    Exposing lobbyists and corporations who undermine our democracy and prevent law makers from taking meaningful steps to address climate change;
5)    Stopping the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), slated to become the biggest ‘free trade’ agreement of all time that would have devastating effects on ecosystems and labor movements across the globe if ratified.

In order to make this plan into a reality, we’re going to raise $40,000. And this year, for the first time ever in our 25 years, we’re reaching out to members, supporters, and blog readers (hint hint) to lend a hand with our fundraising efforts.

Take Action! You tell your story, tapping into your strengths to make an impassioned request on behalf of our ailing planet, and ask your community to join us as we Beat the Heat this summer. Making use of Firstgiving.com, you’ll be able to set up personalized fundraising pages to share with friends and family, whose donations to Global Exchange will be put to immediate use supporting our ongoing work to address climate change.

And just to make things interesting, we’re offering prizes for your participation! From June 7th to July 15th, we’re hosting the Beat the Heat contest with an amazing top prize.

A beautiful cemetery in Oaxaca, Mexico. One of the amazing destinations on the 25th Anniversary trip!

Everyone who raises over $500 will be entered into a drawing to win an all expenses paid* Reality Tour to Oaxaca, Mexico in October of 2013. You’ll celebrate Global Exchange’s 25th anniversary in a region of rich culture and a history of organizing against repression.

Other great prizes include:

Top Fundraiser: a prize package valued at over $500, including a one-year subscription to the Earth Island Journal magazine, a $300 Gift Certificate to Pave Fine Jewelry, a gift package from Little Moon Essentials, and a five DVD set from Focus Features
Most Creative: An Equal Exchange Fair Trade prize package including Fair Trade coffee, chocolate, tea, and a unisex hoodie from American Apparel..
People who raise $150 and up: Everyone who raises $150 or more will recieve a 2 month supply of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream**
EVERYONE: Just by setting up a Firstgiving.com fundraising page, you’ll be entered to win a Fair Indigo prize package, including a hand embroidered travel sling and rattan.

Act Now! Contest begins June 12th and ends July 17th.

If you’re interested in learning more about the contest, visit beattheheat.globalexchange.org or shoot an email to corey@globalexchange.org.

Good luck!

*Return airfare and ground expenses for the Anniversary trip to Oaxaca available to entrants within the contiguous 48 United States. For those outside of this area, a prize of 2 ground expenses for the Anniversary trips to Oaxaca is available.

** Two month supply consists of two Ben&Jerry’s gift certificates

Election day is just two weeks away and Global Exchange is working hard on an electoral campaign in California challenging the oil industry over a measure that has significant national and global implications.

Big polluters, Koch Industries and Texas oil companies Valero and Tesoro, are spending millions promoting a deceptive initiative on California’s ballot, Proposition 23, trying to kill the state’s Global Warming Solutions Act. A recent editorial in the Sacramento Bee stated “If Proposition 23 were to pass on Nov. 2, it would be a major setback to state, national and international efforts to fight global warming.”

“The Stakes are High”
Recognizing California’s importance as a bellweather state that leads the nation to new environmental standards, economist Thomas Friedman recently wrote in the New York Times about the Prop 23 battle and quoted George Shultz stating that “if we get something that is working here to clean up the air and launch a clean-tech industry, it will go national and maybe international. So the stakes are high.”

We must stop the oil industry’s Prop 23 from blocking our environmental legislation and prevent Prop 23 from harming the burgeoning green economy, green jobs, clean tech and renewable energy investments. During the current economic downturn, the clean tech sector has been the only sector adding jobs.

Help Global Exchange defend and advance the green economy by defeating Prop 23! Take action today!

If you’re in California, you can volunteer with the campaign by distributing campaign materials, making phone calls to voters and assisting at events. For more on volunteer opportunities, e-mail June [at] globalexchange [dot] org.

California residents should also check out the Climate Energy Tour (a fiscally sponsored project of Global Exchange) that is traveling the state utilizing solar powered hip hop concerts to motivate and inform people to vote NO on Prop 23. The tour kicked off on 10/10/10 in Oakland and will visit Santa Barbara (Oct 16), Los Angeles (Oct 19), San Diego (Oct 21), and Sacramento (Nov 1) to inspire audiences to join with Communities United Against The Dirty Energy Prop.

Not in California? You can still get involved to spread the word about this important proposition.

Tell your family and friends in California why they should vote NO on Prop 23.
Phone from your home to California voters to urge them to vote NO on  Prop 23. To get plugged in, call June at 415-575-5542.
Write a letter to the editor of a California newspaper. See letter writing tools.
Use your social media tools like Facebook and Twitter.
DONATE! We’re up against Big Oil’s deep pockets and we count on donations from people like you to succeed.

With oil interests spending millions to confuse voters, the polls indicate that the vote is likely to be close. To defeat Prop 23, we need all the help we can get in the last weeks before the vote on November 2nd.

For more information about the No on Prop 23 campaign, contact June at 415-575-5542 or email June [at] globalexchange [dot] org. Also visit the websites of Global Exchange’s coalition partners:  Communities United Against The Dirty Energy Prop & Stop the Dirty Energy Prop.

Global Exchange spent this past spring in Cochabamba, Bolivia at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights. The conference was called by Bolivian President, Evo Morales in response to the disappointing failure of the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2009. The goal was to gather input from people all over the world and shape that input into a plan that can effectively address climate change.

At the conference, Global Exchangers met with heads of state and several social movement representatives in working groups to discuss adaptation, migration, climate debt, action strategies and a host of other issues. The Director of our Rights-Based Organizing Campaign, Shannon Biggs even spoke on the main stage about our Rights of Nature work, like the work she has been doing with the community of Mt. Shasta, California.

In meeting different groups of social movements and speaking with people directly affected by climate change, Global Exchange was able to produce this latest video, Planet and People First, as a report back from Cochabamba. The video features interviews with Conference participants from around the globe including Naomi Klein and Maude Barlow, as they share some of the hope and energy that came out of Bolivia.

Watch the must-see film for you and your community on the vital work of Global Exchange and communities around the world to end addiction to oil and ensure real action is taken globally towards climate equity.

Planet and People First: A Global Exchange report Cochabamba, Bolivia 2010 from Global Exchange on Vimeo.

After watching the film, check out Global Exchange’s Top Ten List of Ways to Save the Climate.