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Report from a local Step It Up event
November 6, 2007

In lieu of my usual personal take on green products and services, I want to mention the local Step It Up event I took my family to this past weekend. For people who are not familiar with Step It Up, it was conceived by a small group of young people who aimed to push for collective momentum to reduce global warming. They founded stepitup2007.org, a web-based day of action dedicated to stopping climate change. April 14,2007 saw the first Step It Up National Day of Climate Action. On that day communities came together in more than 1,400 places, all holding up banners that said: Step It Up, Congress: Cut Carbon 80% by 2050.

Fast forward to the Civic Center in my local city, Saturday, November 3, 2007. While a plethora of people stepped up to the mike to speak about climate change issues, my kids dragged me around the plaza to see things that appealed to them more. Turned out they were quite interesting to me as well.

Full-Circle Farm is a local educational organic farm dedicated to the renewal of local, sustainable food systems. For those who have not visited the Silicon Valley, every square foot of real estate here is highly valuable for either business or residential uses. Full-Circle Farm is located in the heart of Silicon Valley and

I can imagine the profit (in the $millions) the city has forgone to allow this vision to flourish. For modern day children, and adults for that matter, who have never had the opportunity to see their food in the context of the land, this farm provides an important connection. In addition to serving local community, schools, and local businesses with fresh organic food, it provides hands-on education programs for 14,000 students.

Changing gear, I saw a futurist looking vehicle from Myers Motors, with kids climbing in it and on it. This fully enclosed, single passenger vehicle sports two front wheels and a single drive wheel in the rear. With a space vehicle appearance, this automobile is able to go more than 70 miles an hour. While it

can only go 30 miles on one charge, more than half of drivers travel less than 30 miles in an average day. Rechargeable at any 110 volt-20 amp outlet.

The Scrap art table captured the imagination of both children and adults. Scrap is a creative reuse center, store and workshop space founded in 1976 in San Francisco. Businesses and individuals donate a mishmash of scrap to them - textiles, paper, jewelry findings, wood, buttons and plastics. From what I saw on the table, there were leftover CDs, unused pipette tips

and measurable tubes from labs, buttons, and a few boxes of colorful things – the best I could describe them since even the Scrap lady, Jane did not know what they were. But with a glue gun and a whole lot of imagination, any artwork was possible. Busy helping the kids and adults with the unique designs, Jane explained, “without a pre-conceived idea or model, kids often come up with amazing projects.”

Call it art or just playing. Whatever it was, we had so much fun making things with other people’s scrap.

This was only the Step It Up event in my small city, where my mayor announced the adoption of the U.S. Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement – specifically it means:

• Strive to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets in the local communities, through actions ranging from anti-sprawl land-use policies to urban forest restoration projects to public information campaigns
• Urge the state governments, and the federal government, to enact policies and programs to meet or beat the greenhouse gas emission reduction target suggested for the United States in the Kyoto Protocol - 7% reduction from 1990 levels by 2012
• Urge the U.S. Congress to pass the bipartisan greenhouse gas reduction legislation, which would establish a national emission trading system

For me, one fascinating aspect about the Step It Up events is that every one of them is unique and is organized by a different organization or individual. In Boston, an eighteen-mile Energy Revolution Bike Ride was held. In Cincinnati, a green living market day took place in the Historic Findlay Market. Denver saw an all-day “Slam” event, in which various school groups presented their “Global Call to Action Project”. Maui’s event took place in a beautiful off-the-grid eco-retreat center. Around the US, hundreds of such events happened on Saturday.

It made my weekend.

CindyW at Organicpicks

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