10 Steps for Children

This is what the children are saying:

“I’m going to help the earth by recycling more and planting trees.”

“The first thing I will do is to help my family save water.”

“I am extremely happy to be in the 10 Steps Program because I love and care for the world.”

“I will try to help you, but I can’t promise that everybody will help… I will tell my friends and family about your blog!”

“I will try to make people participate. I just LOVE this idea.”

“Our planet really needs help and I appreciate that you care about it.”

“”The first thing I’ll do when I leave the school is that I’m gonna recycle more and use less energy.”

“I love this idea, I always liked the idea of helping the planet. Now I have the opportunity.”

“I eat fruits and vegetables from my farm, we have lots of trees and flowers. I really like thinking that I can do a part by helping the world.!”

“I always thurn off the television when it’s not in use.”

“And yes, I’ll use less make-up, cause it uses petroleum! It will be fun being a more ‘green’ person.”

“The first thing I did to reduce the plastic bags I use was to buy cloth bags so I can re-use them.”

“Ways I will help: 1. shorter showers; 2. share ‘going green’ with others; 3. Go blue, also help save water; 4. avoid plastic cups; 5. dance the RE-USE RE-DUCE AND RECYCLE! jingle; 6. make earth day a daily habit.”

“This weekend I talked to my parents about the 10 Step CAP!!!”

Walking for the Climate - Saturday, April 24

Once again we will be walking for the Earth's Climate, for all our grandchildren, for the animals, and for all the vulnerable people who are first in line to suffer the consequences of the Climate Instability. Everyone is invited to join the walk for the whole 6.7 miles or for any portion of it.

A new group, Gas Truth, convened to deal with the calamitous threat to groundwater in many parts of PA and elsewhere, due to the Marcellus Shale drilling, will walk with the Climate Walkers organized by Greta.

We will meet at 10 am this Saturday, April 24, at 5th and Hamilton Streets in Allentown. Our route will take us along Hamilton, Hanover, W. Broad, Main, and Church Streets, then down across the New Street Bridge to South Bethlehem. We will end at the Wildflower Cafe around 1:00 pm, still in time to enjoy the festive spirit of Spring on 4th and the annual Chili Contest - Wildflower's Michelle makes a great vegan version.

The Official Launching of the 10StepCAP will occur soon after we arrive at the Wildflower Cafe. It would be wonderful to have many 10StepCAP members present. We now have 25 members, 16 of whom are from the Lehigh Valley. The others are: Massachusetts, 1; Texas, 4; New Mexico, 2; and Brazil, 2. Hopefully there will be others soon as this is the week we go public and at least two of our members have sent out notices to their contacts. I hope to put the Program out on Facebook yet this weekend.

For the Earth,

Greta

A new website for 10StepCAP

I have created a website for 10StepCAP in anticipation of going public on April 24th during an Earth Day event here in Bethlehem. The website is still under construction and open to creative suggestions. Please check it out at 10stepcap.com. There's a blog on the site - leave a comment if you have time.

Thanks, Greta

Count up to 22; 78 to go

Two new signees are listed on the list in the left column - check it out!

Can anyone help invite new signees so that we can reach the magic ONE HUNDRED by April 22?

Too busy to participate?

I got an email from Paul in Texas, explaining why he was too busy to check the blog as I requested in an email:

       Too many of the following--R/r/recycling meeting, Earth Day survey, Grow Local Festival, Southern Plain soils conference, community garden projects--on the plate right now.


As far as I'm concerned, that's as good as reporting in to 10StepCAP. Certainly fulfills steps 7, 8 and 9. Thanks, Paul.

Exciting news! Last night I got a phone call from Jim in Wilkes Barre. He'd received a copy of the Invitation to sign on to 10StepCAP and he found it inspiring, giving him a boost in his flagging efforts to lower his own carbon footprint. He wants to start up an effort to get 100 signees in Wilkes Barre, and I'm encouraging him to consider launching the program there at the same time it is officially launched here, on Earth Day. Jim's call was a huge boost for me! Thanks, Jim.

10 Steps for Children

I want to thank Christina, a fifth grader from the Boston area, who added her comment to the last post on this blog. She followed my Climate Walk last year and often left comments on the Children's Blog. On her own blog she described a dream of hers where the Climate Crisis had been successfully resolved and President Obama was giving out awards to those who helped save the planet. In her dream I received an award for my Climate Walk. How inspiring!

I asked Christina if she thought we should start a 10 Step Program for children and she was enthusiastic. So I've drawn up a first draft and would love to have some of you help me get this going. I can imagine getting it ready to be launched along with our 10StepCAP on Earth Day next month. Please email me if you would like to help.

Also, please notice the two additional pieces that are now posted in the left column: a list of all the signees, and instructions for signing on. I also added the extra words to Step #2.

The first article about 10StepCAP

One of our participants, Jeff from Bethlehem, wrote an excellent article about 10StepCAP for the Lepoco monthly newsletter. For those of you who don't live here, Lepoco is our wonderful peace center, that has been in existence since 1965, one of the oldest non-stop peace organizations in the country. To see the article, go to www.lepoco.org, and click on current newsletter (or March 2010), and scroll down to page 4, The Struggle Shared, where our 10-StepCAP shares the page with Howard Zinn!

I've received three responses to my questions in the last post: there is some disagreement as to whether to change the wording of Step #2 or leave it as is, or was. I hope to hear from a few more people. Changes can easily be made before Earth Day, but after that I would be reluctant to keep changing the basic pledge. So if you can spend a bit of time in the next three weeks or so thinking about the pledge and the explanation sheet I would be grateful.

Thanks, Greta