Update on Climate Change Blog Action Day 2009

The subject was Climate Change, and the response was overwhelming. More than 13,000 blogs from 155 countries with reach to 17 million readers participated, demonstrating the power of the web to connect people across the world who despite their varied backgrounds have one shared desire: to make a difference.

Several national governments also participated to express their support for the grassroots effort. United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown kicked off the event by publishing the first Blog Action Day post in Britain at 12:01am, and The White House added a blog post of its own later in the day, saying "it's a real thrill to see that the worldwide blogosphere is turning its attention to an issue as important as climate change."

Also involved were more than 50 of the world's leading nonprofits: World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace bloggers added their voices from around the globe, Oxfam helped emphasize the human side of the climate crisis, 1Sky wrote about the front lines of political activism in the U.S., TckTckTck released a beautiful new video, and The Nature Conservancy helped describe the science of climate change.

So much for talk. Now let's get to work.

World Climate Change Blog Action Day 2009

Today, I'm going to get off my personal smack-box and join over 7,000 other bloggers around the world in uniting to raise the issue of Climate Change and the threat it brings to man (and woman)-kind. Climate Change is a fact, and further inaction or denial will most certain bring disaster to us all, perhaps in my own lifetime.

I join this chorus to cajole, motivate and challenge others to open their eyes and face that fact: WE ARE KILLING OUR PLANET. To remain silent is to accept complicity. I join this chorus to be able to say to my young daughter, when she is old enough, that I did what I could to save what remains of a paradise that has been ripped apart by the human race - architects of world-wide devastation that has been perpetrated in a nano-moment of our planet's life.

Simple example: Here in South Florida, we've gone 178 days straight without the temperature EVER dipping below the 70 degree mark, and we're still counting. After 20 years of living here, it's another record. Global warming is a fact.

So join in, contact your government, from the President to the local County Commission, and demand action.

The Blog Action Day homepage above will have a live action stream of posts all day long today. If you want to join the conversation, sign up on the web and make sure to include the words "Blog Action Day" in your posts to have them pulled in. And if you are on Twitter, use the hashtag #BAD09.

What makes Blog Action Day special are the thousands of individual choices of bloggers around the globe to break from their daily routine and unite to write about a topic that impacts us all.

This is it. One day, one issue, thousands of voices.