That was the message loud and clear at the climate rally held yesterday in Washington, D.C., delivered by the 40,000 or more people who congregated around the Washington Monument before marching to the White House in the largest climate-focused rally in history.

Though the weather was absolutely frigid, the crowd could not have been more fired up. Parents and kids, students and seniors, people of all races and religions came together to demonstrate their love for the environment, their concern for their families and their communities, and their commitment to a cleaner, greener world.

The biggest focus was on President Obama, who made climate change a top priority in his recent State of the Union Address and who must decide whether or not to greenlight the controversial Keystone Pipeline, which would carry oil from Canada, across the U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico. Former White House green jobs advisor Van Jones told the audience from the state, “This will define your legacy, Mr. President.” Indeed, it will.

 I marched with the Alaska Wilderness League, a terrific organization that’s been leading the fight to keep oil drilling out of America’s Arctic Wildlife Refuge for more than 15 years. AWL staffers dressed like polar bears carried signs reading Save the Arctic as we chanted, “What do we want? Polar Bears! What do they need? Ice!”

Moms and dads brought their children to the rally to demonstrate the impact that climate change is having on our families. In many parts of the world, poison ivy has gotten much worse because hotter than normal temperatures have created such ideal growing conditions for this noxious plant. Moms Clean Air Force was there, too, reminding us that the same fossil fuels that cause climate change are polluting our air, a big reason why so many more kids are suffering from asthma these days.

Speaking of kids, they were everywhere at the rally: on their dad’s shoulders, getting their pictures taken with the polar bears, clapping their hands in time to the music. It was great to see so many college students, too. In fact, they’re the ones who led the “Yes, We Can!” chant when one of the stage speakers asked, “Can we stop climate change?”

Thousands of people traveled from far and wide to lend their voices to the rally crowd. When I boarded my local subway to get down to the event, the car was brimming with folks from as far away as Texas and Oklahoma, two states that are directly in the path of the Keystone Pipeline. At the Washington Monument, a woman from my home state of Michigan sported a big cut-out poster to remind us that an oil leak into an important river in the northern part of that state still had not been cleaned up. Meanwhile, rallies were happening in many other cities in the U.S., too. Mary Clare Hunt was among the 2,000 or more who turned up in Los Angeles to say “not” to climate change. You can read her report here.

After rousing speeches at the Monument and much cheering, the massive crowd headed toward the White House. The point of this, afterall, was to persuade President Obama to make good on his pledge to bring climate change to a halt.

But I couldn’t help but feel like a bigger point had been made, too. We live in a democracy, and we have the right to exercise our free speech, assemble for peaceful protest, and determine our own future. That future, and the future of our children, grand children, and great-grandchildren, is very much at stake as we determine not just whether, but how to stop climate change. Peaceful rallies like this one show elected officials, corporations, and other citizens that we take our right to democracy seriously — and so should they.

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The post We Can Stop Climate Change. Yes, We Can! appeared first on Big Green Purse.

This year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will make some big decisions about the future of America’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. For the first time, a new management plan for the Arctic Refuge could include a recommendation for Wilderness protection for the Refuge’s critical Coastal Plain – the strongest level of protection  for the Arctic Refuge’s polar bears and natural areas – and the place that that has been in Big Oil’s sights for decades.

This plan will guide how the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be managed for the next 15 years or more. The Obama administration has asked for input from all Americans on this plan.  To make sure the final version includes this important recommendation, we must demonstrate overwhelming support for protecting the Refuge’s Coastal Plain. If we speak with a loud and united voice, we’ll be sending a strong message that the Fish and Wildlife Service can’t ignore.

The Alaska Wilderness League is working on your behalf to achieve that goal. How? by collecting one million signatures on a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Salazar in support of protecting America’s wilderness in the Arctic Refuge. Can you add your name and help Alaska Wilderness League meet its goal?

What it means to be an American…

There are some places in this country that define what it means to be American – the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska is one of those places. For the past 50 years our country has remained committed to protecting one of our last wild places.

Some places are just too extraordinary to drill, and the Arctic Refuge is one of them.

A Wilderness recommendation could protect this unparalleled area and the abundant wildlife that depends on it – including polar bears, musk oxen, caribou and millions of birds from around the globe.

So please, speak out!

If we all speak out, we can make sure that the critical Coastal Plain is given the strongest possible protections from Big Oil and harmful development.

Please take a minute RIGHT NOW and write to Secretary Salazar of the U.S. Department of Interior. He is the one who will recommend to President Obama whether YOUR wilderness in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will be protected – or degraded by oil production and development.

Thank you!

The post Protect America’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge appeared first on Big Green Purse.

The Wilderness Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson on September 3, 1964, created a National Wilderness Preservation System so that wild lands, including national parks, national forests, and lands overseen by the federal Bureau of Land Management, would be managed “for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness…”

Today, 45 years later, this prescient legislation seems more essential than ever. Though 109 million acres of land in Alaska and the lower 48 have been protected under the Act, many exquisite regions of forests, prairies, coastlines, mountains, and wetlands remain threatened simply because they haven’t yet been classified as federal wilderness.

Fortunately, citizens and concerned members of Congress are working to protect as much of America’s remaining wild lands as possible. The Alaska Wilderness League (on whose board I served for six years) is striving to secure federal wildernesss status for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Campaign for America’s Wilderness is spearheading wilderness protection campaigns in a dozen states. President Obama recently declared September 2009 “National Wilderness Month” and signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which designated over 2 million acres of wilderness from coast to coast.

But that is not enough. Wild lands clean our air and filter our water. They protect open space from sprawl, and provide much needed wildlife habitat, especially for endangered species.  And increasingly in this shell-shocked, post 9/11 era, people are using wilderness to escape the stress of modern-day life.

Americans are losing 6,000 acres of open space every day, acreage we can ill afford to lose. If we want to protect the environment and the lands that restore our bodies and souls, we need to legislate more land as wilderness, and the sooner the better.

You can help.

* Make time to explore the nation’s wild lands. Become a strong advocate for the untamed nooks and crannies of our country that have helped define our natural heritage for centuries.

* All wilderness must be created by an act of Congress. Tell your local official to vote for wilderness legislation being proposed by the Campaign for America’s Wilderness, the Alaska Wilderness League, and other environmental and consumer groups.

*  Use your purse. Donate to local and national organizations like the Campaign for America’s Wilderness and Alaska Wilderness League that are working on your behalf to protect America’s wilderness.

For more essays on the importance of conserving our natural resources, read this month’s Green Moms Carnival conservation posts; you’ll find a directory to them at Mindful Momma.

The post “In Wildness is the Preservation of the World” appeared first on Big Green Purse.