Fw: Blog Action Day Recap: 31,000 Posts!

----- Original Message -----

From: Robin Beck, Blog Action Day 09

To: Jason Neilson
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 9:50 PM
Subject: Blog Action Day Recap: 31,000 Posts!

Hey bloggers,

You did it!

Yesterday you and bloggers in 155 countries across six continents wrote about a single issue that impacts us all, and turned Blog Action Day 2009 into one of the largest social change events ever held on the web.

Your participation helped change the conversation and showed the power of the web to connect people across the world who despite their varied backgrounds have one shared desire: to make a difference. According to blogpulse, we increased the number of posts about climate change on a given day by 500%, and CNN wrote a great article covering the excitement and diversity of today's event across the web and around the world.

A full recap is up on our blog, and here are some highlights:

We hit 31,000 total trackable blog posts, and our current estimate is that together we reached at least 17.9 million people yesterday. We just exceeded 13,000 registered bloggers on the site and are working to get all of you who posted but haven't yet registered into the final count.

We had at least three major world governments as active participants in this year's event. United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown posted the first Blog Action Day entry in Britain at the stroke of midnight on the 15th, which was followed by Foreign Minister David Milliband and many others from the UK stationed around the world. The PSOE governing party of Spain hosted a bloggers event focused on climate change and transformed their website for the day to promote Blog Action Day. And late in the day, President Barack Obama's White House blog joined in become part of the global movement of bloggers shaking the web.

Of course, well-known bloggers were a big presence yesterday as well:

• The Official Google Blog gave a green tour of the company's campus;
• Mashable asked what you're doing to reverse climate change;
• The Unofficial Apple Weblog suggested "Five apps to help save the world";
• Treehugger gave us two simple things that could, by themselves, stop climate change;
• Global Voices posted a roundup of bloggers from around the world writing in many languages;
• Gadling spent the whole day posting about green travel;
• BlogHer covered the road to the next international climate negotations in Copehagen.

There are many more, and we encourage you to check out the Featured Posts on the blogactionday.org homepage for a longer list of some of the world's largest blogs.

Many of our nonprofit partners, leading organizations from around the world, were also actively involved in making the event a success:

• TckTckTck released a beautiful and touching new video;
• Greenpeace bloggers from around the world joined in;
• World Wildlife Fund featured Blog Action Day on their international climate blog;
• Oxfam helped emphasize the human side of the climate crisis;
• 1Sky wrote about the front lines of political activism in the US;
• The Nature Conservancy helped us understand the science of climate change;
• NRDC's Switchboard bloggers wrote informative posts all day;
• Consequence wrote a whole series of posts on youth climate leadership.

You should all feel proud of this remarkable collective effort. And it doesn't have to end today. For many, we hope this serves as an entry point into the broader movement to address the issue of climate change. There are a number of ways and some amazing organizations through which you can continue to remain involved, and we encourage you to check out our Take Action section to learn more.

We will continue providing updates and information about the success of today's event and ongoing opportunities for involvement--including the the October 24th International Day of Climate Action organized by our friends at 350.org--here in the weeks ahead, and we hope you'll stay with us.

Thank you so much,

Robin Beck
Lead Organizer
Blog Action Day 2009

Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change

Blog Action Day is finally here in which thousands of bloggers all over the world unite to highlight a particular issue.

This year, of course, the issue is Climate Change. Climate Change affects everyone on the planet in various different ways as its consequences are manifested in the weather patterns and things such as rising sea levels and increases in temperature and the melting of the ice caps.

For more information on the Science of Climate Change go to ....... http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/ Most people think of Global Warming when they think of Climate Change. The warming of the earth is actually a natural phenomenon however it is the impact on the earth by humans that has caused the earth to warm unnaturally through huge amounts of carbon emissions and greenhouse gases.

To find out more on the effect of climate change on the earth go here: http://www.google.com/landing/cop15/ The presentation is narrated by former US Vice President Al Gore using Google Earth.

While investigating Climate Change and relevant sites on the web, I unexpectedly stumbled across the Department of Energy and Climate Change, a UK Government agency (see screenshot). Not sure about other readers but until I started looking I was not aware of its existence. You can find it here: http://www.decc.gov.uk/

About 40% of high carbon emissions are by individuals and households. So if people only slightly changed the way they did things at home it would have an impact. Even doing a small thing could help. Doing lots of small things that could cut carbon emissions could have a big impact on emissions if everyone did them. It comes down to a better way of managing waste by recycling all recyclables such as tins, paper and glass. The Grimsby Wargames Society recycles. Those bins are regularly filled up with empty tin cans from drinks. Myself I recycle a lot of tins. I use a lot of them and go through quite a few of them because I buy a lot of tinned cat food. Also recycle paper too. There is place near me that recycles everything else: somewhere to take the plastic and glass basically. For those in Grimsby, coming from Littlefield Lane go down Chantry Lane towards St James Square and look to your left. The bins are on the edge of the car park.

Then there are other things like installing Loft Insulation to preserve heat in a house so that less or no heating is required, Turning off all equipment when it is not being used and not leaving it on standby, Turning off unused lights. Using energy saving lightbulbs. For more information on little things to do to cut down on carbon emissions in the home go to:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bloom/

Another site offering ways to cut down carbon emissions in the home is the Act on Co2 site here: http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/actonco2/home.html

In December there is going to be a Climate Change summit at Copenhagen. With the help of the US and President Barack Obama, we can get action taken to cut down on carbon emissions. Add your voice here: http://www.blogactionday.org/en/takeaction

It is time for Governments to sit up and take notice. Action must be taken all over the world. What will it take for any sceptical governments to believe in climate change, an island in the pacific or other region wiped out due to rising sea levels? Another disaster which involves a drastic change in the weather?

Another interesting piece I found on global warming and climate change can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8299079.stm

I am just 1 of over 9000 bloggers worldwide participating in Blog Action Day. Even Prime Minister Gordon Brown has contributed to Blog Action Day. Read his contribution here: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page20931