Dear John,

It's not April yet, but I'm already thinking about Earth Day 2020, which will be the 50th time people come together to proclaim their support for the environment.

Now more than ever, we need to channel the activist spirit of that first Earth Day in 1970, when 20 million Americans took to the streets to demand immediate and bold action to protect the environment. In the next couple of years, we saw the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. When people come together and take action, exciting things can happen.

Unfortunately, the progress we saw then has since been overwhelmed by more and more extraction and burning of coal, oil, and gas and expanded fossil fuel infrastructure. While Big Oil has profited, people all over the world have suffered from countless climate disasters. California is catching fire at the same breakneck pace, the arctic is melting, while Caribbean nations are being demolished by super storms.

Why has this happened?

The fossil fuel industry has used their virtually unlimited funds to disable any meaningful action that would reduce our reliance on coal, oil and gas. They have been funding misinformation campaigns while buying up our politicians, literally writing legislation and then handing it to their political enablers.

As I reflect on where we are and where we need to go, two things are clear to me.

1. Money is central to their plan.
2. Grassroots organizing can bring it all down.

That's exactly why I'm excited to support 350 Massachusetts.

350 Mass is creating a powerful grassroots response to the climate crisis that targets the financing of the fossil fuel industry. 350 Mass has organized protests outside of Chase Bank (one of the main funders of pipelines), helped create the No Fossil Fuel Money pledge to get dirty energy money out of politics, and they are in the midst of an impressive campaign to create a statewide Green New Deal that would move Massachusetts to 100% renewable energy while addressing racial and economic inequality.

So, today, I ask you to think about the money and power that Big Oil wields, and donate what you can to 350 Massachusetts.

See you on the streets at Earth Day 2020,

Bill

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Bill McKibben, for 350 Mass
http://350mass.betterfutureproject.org/