Bill McKibben is well-known for writing the first book on global warming for general audiences. Published in 1989, The End of Nature is routinely cited as the seminal work on our ongoing environmental crisis.

In addition to his writing, these days, McKibben is a Scholar in Residence in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College. I doubt it's a coincidence that (according to the College Sustainability Report Card) Middlebury is rated highly for its sustainable policies and programs by the Sustainable Endowments Institute. Nor is it a coincidence that Middlebury was recently featured in an ABC News story that preceded the Campus Climate Challenge.

In that piece, ABC News called the climate change movement "a new civil rights movement," and called McKibben the "pied piper" of the students. But it's not just students McKibben is trying to lead: he's also leading Step It Up 2007, a national day of climate action, scheduled for April 14th.

While it's called a national event, Step It Up 2007 is really hundreds of locally organized community actions (to date, there are already 554 events in 47 states planned). The goal is to demand that Congress enact immediate cuts in carbon emissions and pledge an 80% reduction by 2050.

According to McKibben:

Instead of doing a march on Washington–which would burn a fair amount of carbon–we will have a nationwide rally, occurring more or less simultaneously, in all the places that people love around the country.

A big group of scuba divers have signed up to hold a rally underwater off the coral reefs in Key West and in Maui, Another group just signed up to ski down the huge, but dwindling glacier above Jackson Hole; there will be people on Mt. Hood; on the levies in New Orleans' Ninth Ward; and on Canal St. in Manhattan, which will be the new tide line if the seas go up a few feet.

We wanted these to be in the sort of iconic places that would remind everyone of what's at stake.

McKibben wants to engage and influence folks on the level he feels is most productive–at home. You see, McKibben has come to the conclusion that our own sense of community may be the most powerful and vital component in the fight against global warming–the fight for the future.

In the online introduction to his newest book, Deep Economy, McKibben says:

The time has come to move beyond “growth” as the paramount economic ideal and begin pursuing prosperity in a more local direction, with cities, suburbs, and regions producing more of their own food, generating more of their own energy, and even creating more of their own culture and entertainment.

I believe that the more we nurture the essential humanity of our economy, the more we will recapture our own.

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