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My Climate Action Event

FOR THE NATIONAL DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION

APRIL 14, 2007

Hiking Up Breakneck Ridge

By Susanne Schulmeister

Initiated by Step It Up 2007, hundreds of rallies and other events took place in all 50 states of the USA
on the National Day of Climate Action, April 14, 2007. I heard about this a couple months in advance
through one of the environmental email lists I'm subscribed to.
Thursday, March 29: I have the idea of turning the Dynamic Outdoors hike planned for April 14 into a climate action event.
I suggest the idea to Igor Bass (founder of Dynamic Outdoors) and Jared Nissim (founder of The Lunch Club).
Since Igor is leaving to Marocco the next afternoon, we need to act fast. We discuss the idea via email and devise
a plan how to bring the maximum number of people to Breakneck Ridge and up the mountain.


Friday, March 30: By early afternoon, the main organisation is taken care of. The event is posted on
The Lunch Club website and emailed to all members. I have created a webpage about the event,
with a photo of what the final product is supposed to look like.
A description of the event has been posted on the Step It Up 2007 website.

Tuesday, April 3: Al Gore emails the link to StepItUp2007.org to 555,000 people.

Wednesday, April 4: Volker Detering from EventMe.com emails the link to StepItUp2007.org to 14,000 people.


Thursday, April 5: Bettina and I make the banner in
her house in Princeton. The whole process takes about
8 hours. We buy the paint (which is mixed in front of our
eyes). I create a font for the banner, make a draft on the
computer on a grid, and sketch the letters with
pencil on Bettina's old bedsheet while Bettina irons
the sheet.




Bettina and I fill the
outlines with green paint. For the corners and details we
use a tiny cosmetics brush. It's a lot of fun, but also hard
work – kneeling on the floor for hours, our hands and feet
fall asleep and tingle.






Afterwards, we recuperate by
taking turns in her massage chair :-)
Thanks a lot, Bettina, for all your help,
support, and enthusiasm!

Saturday, April 14: The big day has arrived. 13 people who found the event through The Lunch Club, through StepItUp2007.org,
and through my email to the German meetup listserv, meet up with Brad and I at 7:30 am in Grand Central Station and take the 7:51 train.

After getting off the train at the flag stop, we walk back along the tracks to get to the foot of Breakneck Ridge,
where we meet up with 25 people from Dynamic Outdoors.
This is our goal, Breakneck Ridge.
Photo by Daniel Case.
The arrow indicates where we took the photo with the banner.




Hiking up





















No wall was too steep to prevent us
from reaching our goal!
Or from keeping our good spirits.
:-)
















































Igor Bass, "da Boss",
our leader,
founder of Dynamic Outdoors.




The result of all our efforts. It was so worth it! (Photo by Larry Burks)
50 people asking Congress to step it up.
A big thank you to everyone who participated and helped make this a success.
Back down at the Hudson River, we saw another Climate
Action Event in Cold Spring. They were incessantly shouting:
"Step it up! Step it up!" Very energetic environmentalists.


Aren't they cute?
I love the colorful banner and the posters that say:
"Save my Future" and
"Help cut our CO2 -- it's the right thing to do"
(only when I read it aloud I noticed it rhyme








Exhausted, but veery happy.

On the way home, after a day of fighting to save our climate.


Updated: April 15, 2007, 2am