Beginning Fall of 2009, The Bard Center will host an ongoing educational initiative The National Climate Dialogue. The Dialogue will feature top climate scientists, analysts and policy-makers in a national seminar series (via conference call).
	The National Climate Dialogue will engage students, faculty, students and staff in direct contact with political leaders, like we witnessed last week in the capitol. We will expand the number of the campus-to-congress SightSpeed video-dialogues from this year’s 25 to 250, bringing our voices directly to the critical debates in Washington DC.
	Earth Day 2010—40 years after Earth Day 1970—be part of The International Teach-In on Global Warming Solutions, in partnership with Earth Day Network.

Click here to watch or download the Webcast. To prevent pauses in the first minute of the video, allow the webcast to load fully into the buffer before playing for your audience.

	Look below for information on:
		The Webcast
		Photos & Videos
		Discussion Questions
		Media & Press Releases
		Video Letters to Congress

1.	Please do not upload your photos to photosharing sites (e.g. Photobucket, Flickr) and then send us links. You are welcome to upload them for your own purposes, but for our site, you must send us jpgs. File size or quality doesn´t matter—as long as they are jpgs and are attached to an email.
2.	Please send no more than 10 pictures.
3.	Provide the following information in the body of the email or as an attached Word document:
		the name of each photograph (this must correspond to the name of the jpg file),
		a description of each photograph (this must be the exact text you would like to be displayed; we will copy and paste it into our Flickr account),
		the tags you would like added to each photograph (if you are unfamiliar with tagging photos, a brief explanation is provided HERE).

1.	The same applies as for photos: please send us mov (use Quicktime) files—no longer than 10 minutes—with clear instructions regarding:
		the name,
		the description, and
		the tags for your video.

	Screen the launch web cast, The First 100 Days, featuring David Orr, Hunter Lovins, and youth climate leaders Billy Parish and Wahleah Johns. Watch the webcast in a campus auditorium, or school or church basement, We are partnering with Interfaith Power & Light and The National Wildlife Federation to produce a special version of the webcast tailored for faith audiences. Or hold a D.I.Y. Teach-In in your living room.
	How would you like your classroom or campus audience to have a one-on-one session with your member of congress or US Senator? Just send us an e-mail, and we will work to make it happen. As a critical part of the Teach-In, and with support from the Earth Day Network, we are coordinating with Speaker Pelosi´s office to set up a bank of computers in the capitol to create an historic opportunity for national dialogue.
	Visit our website to sign-up, and find logos, posters, and educational materials for the Teach-In.

	Screen the launch web cast, The First 100 Days, featuring David Orr, Hunter Lovins, and youth climate leaders Billy Parish and Wahleah Johns. Watch the webcast in a campus auditorium, or school or church basement, We are partnering with Interfaith Power & Light and The National Wildlife Federation to produce a special version of the webcast tailored for faith audiences. Or hold a D.I.Y. Teach-In in your living room.
	How would you like your classroom or campus audience to have a one-on-one session with your member of congress or US Senator? Just send us an e-mail, and we will work to make it happen. As a critical part of the Teach-In, and with support from the Earth Day Network, we are coordinating with Speaker Pelosi´s office to set up a bank of computers in the capitol to create an historic opportunity for national dialogue.
	Visit our website to sign-up, and find logos, posters, and educational materials for the Teach-In.

	Screen the launch web cast, The First 100 Days, featuring David Orr, Hunter Lovins, and youth climate leaders Billy Parish and Wahela Johns. Watch the webcast in a campus auditorium, or school or church basement, We are partnering with Interfaith Power & Light to produce a special version of the webcast tailored for faith audiences. Or hold a D.I.Y. Teach-In in your living room.
	Campuses can engage further with day-long teach-ins—we have model curricula for schools from K-8 to university levels. Schools planning major events include Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Bard College, and the University of Central Florida.
	End your teach-in in a round-table dialogue with decision-makers: inviting Governors, mayors, and city-councilors to sit down with young people for face-to-face conversation about solutions. Again: Let us know, and we will also invite your federal representatives to engage with your teach-in via video dialogues that we are setting up in the capitol on February 4th.

	Screen the launch web cast, The First 100 Days, featuring David Orr, Hunter Lovins, and youth climate leaders Billy Parish and Wahleah Johns. Watch the webcast in a campus auditorium, church basement or hold a D.I.Y. Teach-In in your living room.
	Campuses can engage further with day-long teach-ins—we have model curricula for schools from K-8 to university levels. Schools planning major events include the University of Central Florida, Skidmore College, and Missouri State. Use the Teach-In to highlight progress on your campus—or lack of it—towards the American College and University President´s Climate Commitment.
	End your teach-in in a round-table dialogue with decision-makers: inviting Governors, mayors, and city-councilors to sit down with young people for face-to-face conversation about solutions. Let us know, and we will also invite your federal representatives to engage with your teach-in via video dialogues that we are setting up in the capitol on February 5th.

"We played a game last Tuesday, where we took a drink every time the news anchors said the word "historic". But it was no game when my sister wrote to me about what it meant to vote for an African American president in Tennessee. When we were growing up there, not so long ago, there were separate scenic stops on the road up the mountain to our town—a "white view" and a "colored view".

From 1960-1964, a powerful grassroots movement swept across this country, and with the Civil Rights and Voting Acts, changed America, and the future.

Five hundred years from now, historians will look back on these days—stretching from Obama´s election through the first years of his administration—and say that this was humanity´s finest hour. Because in 2009, America will pass sweeping legislation that initiates a clean energy revolution, inspires global cooperation, and stabilizes the global climate.

Or we won´t.

That decision rests in the hands of the people in this room.

We are alive at a truly extraordinary moment. I am here today asking you to join the The National Teach-in on Global Warming Solutions. Next February 5th we are engaging the nation around a vision of a sustainable future grounded in one over-arching goal for America:

Cut carbon 40% below current levels by 2020.

Can we do this? What will it take? And if not, how shall our children, and their children live in this world?

Show of hands: How many of you participated in the national teach-in last January 31st—called Focus the Nation? Thank you—with your help, we created the biggest one-day mobilization around clean energy solutions the country has ever seen, engaging over a million people at 1900 colleges, universities and other institutions across the country.

Show of hands: How many of you think it is less important this year to involve our young people in a serious discussion of global warming solutions?

Here is what we are organizing now, for the teach-in on February 5th:

1. Launch Webcast: The First 100 Days. Co-produced with NWF, featuring David Orr, Hunter Lovins, Billy Parish and others—NOT LIVE, available for viewing and downloading the week before.

2. The Teach-In: Engage faculty and staff to engage the whole campus. At Lewis & Clark we have 25 faculty who will be sitting on a days worth of panels—mostly people participating last year. Or you can follow the UNC or U of Michigan models and ask faculty to talk about global warming in their classrooms. This does not take long to organize—we just started last week.

3. Climate Dialogue: Work with us to invite your US congrespeople and Senators to engage with students in round table dialogue, via video-chat; invite mayors, governors and state representatives to talk with young people about their future.

• Cut carbon 40% by 2020.
• Green Jobs Now: solarize, weatherize and rewire.
• Lead in Clean Technology.
• Carbon Neutral Power for America.

The first goal—40% below current levels by 2020—is very ambitious, but to bend the global emissions curve within 10 years will require that kind of leadership from our country.

These are truly extraordinarily times, and we owe our young people a day of focused discussion about the critical decisions we will make—or fail to make—in this coming, critical year. Sign-up now and help educate the nation.

To learn more, join us this Wednesday for our national organizing call (Noon Eastern, 9:00 am Pacific), headlined by Betsy Taylor, founder of the 1-Sky coalition. Taylor will talk about how grassroots action in the first 100 days will be essential to move America beyond gridlock, and support the new President as we face up to this civilizational challenge. [Call in: 1-218-486-8700, passcode 020509, NOTE NEW PHONE #]

Thanks for the work you are doing.

Professor Eban Goodstein, Co-director
Chungin Chung, Co-Director

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Educators, Students and Citizens concerned about global warming

President Obama/McCain faces a critical window for action in the first 100 days of the new administration.

Acting boldly, like Roosevelt and Johnson, the new President can immediately set the planet on the path to a stable climate. But to overcome gridlock in Washington, he will need overwhelming grassroots support.

On February 5th, 2009, The National Teach-In on Global Warming will engage over a million Americans in solutions-driven dialogue, including young people, national political leaders, and other key decision-makers. As educators, students and citizens, we owe our nation a focused conversation about the critical decisions that we will make—or fail to make—very soon. The window for action on climate change is measured in months, not years . Now, together, we must decide if our children will inherit from us a prosperous or an impoverished planet.

Join us, and make the National Teach-In a day that can transform America, and place clean energy solutions to global warming at the top of the nation's agenda. We need your help enlisting thousands of colleges, universities, high-schools, middle schools, faith groups, civic organizations and businesses. Sign up today. Help ignite the grassroots movement that can change the country, and impact the future for every living being that will inhabit the face of this earth from now until the end of time.

THE TEACH-IN GOALS FOR 2009

• WEBCAST: The First 100 Days: Schedule a showing of the Teach-In web-cast, featuring David Orr, Hunter Lovins, Ray Anderson, Betsy Taylor and Billy Parish. Follow up with discussion of the recommendations of The Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP)

• TEACH-IN: Engage the Nation around 4 concrete policy recommendations from The PCAP:
  

1. Cut carbon 40% below today's levels by 2020.
2. Create millions of green jobs: Weatherize, solarize and rewire the nation.
3. Revitalize America's economy: Lead the world in renewable technology.
4. Promote carbon neutral power.

• CLIMATE DIALOGUE: Involve key decision-makers in round-table dialogue. Join young people and citizens in face-to face conversation with senators, representatives, governors, mayors, city councilors, CEOs, and media leaders.

• 100 DAYS OF ACTION: Hold leaders accountable until the change happens. Learn what you can do today… and tomorrow… and tomorrow… and tomorrow. Give the new President the support he needs to change the future.

To learn more, join us for our upcoming organizing calls in November: 11/5, with Betsy Taylor, and 11/19 with David Orr.

Eban Goodstein, Professor of Economics, Lewis & Clark College &
Chungin Chung, Co-directors, National Teach-In

ADVISORY BOARD FOR THE NATIONAL TEACH-IN

Dr. David Orr, Professor of Environmental Studies at Oberlin College.
Dr. Mohan Munasinghe, Vice Chair, U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Dr. Stephen Schneider, Professor of Biological Sciences at Stanford University.
Dr. James "Gus" Speth, Dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Van Jones, founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.
Hunter Lovins, President, Natural Capitalism Solutions.
Jessy Tolkan, Executive Director of Programs for the Energy Action Coalition.
Elysa Hammond, CLIF BAR Staff Ecologist.
Gillian Caldwell, 1Sky Campaign Director.
Ross Gelbspan, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author.
Dr. Debora Rowe, Professor of Renewable Energies and Energy Management at Oakland Community College.
Billy Parish, co-founder of the Energy Action Coalition.
Dr. Bunyan Bryant, School of Natural Resources, University of Michigan.
Dr. William Moomaw, Professor of International Environmental Policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
Dr. Jon Isham, Luce Professor of International Environmental Economics at Middlebury College.

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Climate Vote & Election / Join Gus Speth on Weds Call

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Very good news: Action on global warming next year appears more likely than ever before. But to make that a reality, in the next month and beyond, we all have to work like dogs. In fact, youth activists are doing just that. PowerVote has signed up 200,000 climate voters.

Right now, House and Senate races are critical. Yet even with more clean energy votes in DC, overcoming gridlock in will require a heroic grassroots effort. The first 100 days of the new administration will be critical. Here is Rick Perlstein in a great article in this month´s American Prospect:

"Franklin D. Roosevelt hurled down executive orders and legislative proposals like thunderbolts during his First Hundred Days, hardly slowing down for another four years before his window slammed shut; Lyndon Johnson, aided by John F. Kennedy´s martyrdom and the landslide of 1964, legislated at such a breakneck pace his aides were in awe. Both presidents understood that there are too many choke points—our minority-enabling constitutional system, our national tendency toward individualism, and our concentration of vested interests—to make change possible any other way."

The National Teach-in on February 5th will be focus national attention on real solutions to global warming, drawn from the Presidential Climate Action Project. Our goal is to engage millions of Americans during the first 100 days around four key ideas:

Cut carbon 40% by 2020.
Green Jobs Now.
Lead in Clean Technology.
Carbon Neutral Power for America.

Watch for a detailed curriculum on these points later this fall. Sign-up now to educate the nation.

Thanks for the work you are doing.

Professor Eban Goodstein, Co-director
Chungin Chung, Co-Director

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Join Bill McKibben on National Teach-In Organizing Call, Weds 10/1

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Last week, Al Gore called for civil disobedience to block new coal plants. Already, folks in Virginia are putting their bodies on the line. Across the country, hundreds of thousands of people are working to elect clean energy candidates. And beyond the election, during the critical first 100 days of the new administration, we will need to mobilize millions of Americans in support of a sustainable future.

Next February 5th, imagine students, citizens and families from thousands of campuses, places of worship, civic organizations and businesses, demanding justice for the future. This is the moment. And the choices that we make next year—for action or inaction—will have profound impacts on humanity, and on all the creatures of this earth, from now until the end of time. Join me and work towards a just and prosperous world. Sign up to be part of The National Teach-In today!

To learn more, please join nationally acclaimed journalist and author Bill McKibben for the National Teach-In´s bi-weekly organizing call this Wednesday at noon eastern.

Thanks for the work you are doing.

Professor Eban Goodstein, Co-Director

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Beyond 11/4: The National Teach-In on Global Warming

An Invitation to Help Build THE NATIONAL TEACH-IN, February 5th, 2009

From: Ross Gelbspan, Hunter Lovins, David Orr, Stephen Schneider, and Eban Goodstein
To: Faculty, students & staff, members of faith communities, and citizens









The coming months will be defining moments for America, and the future of life on earth. The new President and Congress can set the stage to stop global warming. Unless the US government acts soon, the window to hold warming to the best-case of 3-4 degrees F will close for our children, forever. Gustav and Katrina are warnings. We have little time left.

Electing clean energy leaders is critical, but it is only the first step. After 11/4, what will you do to help break through business-as-usual gridlock in Washington, and change the future, in 2009?

Join us to build the biggest clean energy mobilization the US has ever seen: The National Teach-In on Global Warming Solutions. At the beginning of the critical first 100 days of the new administration, you can help engage millions of Americans to demand clean energy solutions to global warming. The 2009 National Teach-In will focus specifically on recommendations from The Presidential Climate Action Project.

Last January, many of you participated in what was to date the largest teach-in in US history. Involving over 1900 schools and other institutions, the event empowered student and citizen leadership across the country. Together, we engaged with national leaders in the kind of dialogue that can change America. Next February 5th, to impact the direction of the country, we need your help to mobilize twice as many institutions, and millions of students and citizens. See how to get involved!

A clean energy future can revitalize our economy and communities. That vision is moving America beyond a fatalistic acceptance of global warming, beyond the paralyzing idea that we must pass on to our children an impoverished planet. Sign up today and help ignite the grassroots movement demanding clean energy solutions to global warming!

For information on building a Teach-In at your institution, contact The National Teach-In Director Professor Eban Goodstein and the National Teach-In staff at our offices at Lewis & Clark College.

Thanks for the work you are doing.

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Dear Friends,

We are changing our name! The national educational initiative that we ran last year, "Focus the Nation", has a new name: The National Teach-in on Global Warming Solutions or "National Teach-in" for short.

The backdrop for the name change is this: Following the success of the biggest national teach-in in history last January 31st, the board of directors of the non-profit that sponsored Focus the Nation developed a direction that differed from the vision of the two project directors, Chungin Chung and myself. As a result, Chungin and I are now leading the February 5th, 2009 national teach-in on global warming solutions from a new organization. The two of us are no longer working for or are otherwise involved with Focus the Nation, and Focus the Nation is no longer involved with the national teach-in. (To learn about the new direction for the Focus the Nation project, please visit the Focus the Nation web site.)

The 2009 National Teach-in on Global Warming Solutions is again being organized from our national office at Lewis & Clark College. The governing and advisory boards for the initiative include IPCC Vice Chair Mohan Monasinghe, Dr. Stephen Schneider, Dr. David Orr, Hunter Lovins, Dr. Gus Speth, Pulitzer Prize winning author Ross Gelbspan, and Clif Bar's Sustainability Director Elysa Hammond.

February 2009, at the beginning of the first 100 days of the new administration, will be a critical period for the nation, and given the stakes, the future of life on the earth. Recently, NASA´s James Hansen told the National Press Club yet again that if the US fails to act next year, then it may become impractical to prevent "disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity´s control." 

These words demand action. As we did together last January, The National Teach-in will engage more than a million Americans at thousands of campuses and other institutions in a national dialogue about the clean energy transformation that can both stop global warming—and also renew America´s economy and spirit. Once again, young people will engage national political leaders and other key decision-makers in critical face-to-face dialogue about their future.

We need your help enlisting thousands of colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, faith groups, civic organizations and businesses. We need your help to make the National Teach-in a day that can transform America , and place clean energy solutions to global warming at the top of the nation´s agenda.

Sign-up begins September 1, at www.nationalteachin.org.

Thanks for the work you are doing. 

Eban Goodstein & Chungin Chung, Co-Directors
National Teach-in on Global Warming Solutions

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