Subject: In the New Year, It's Our Turn to Lead
From: "Denis Hayes, Earth Day Network" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 15:48:11 -0500

Denis Hayes
Chairman 

Kathleen Rogers
President 

_ 

Earth Day Network
1616 P Street, NW, Suite 340 
Washington, D.C. 20036 
Tel: +1.202.518.0044
Fax: +1.202.518.8794
www.earthday.org [ http://www.earthday.org ] 

Earth Day Network is a 501(c)3 organization. All donations are tax-deductible. 

December 18, 2014 

Dear Friend, 

2015, the 45th anniversary of Earth Day, is an historic year for people and planet. It is the year when global leaders will meet in New York City in September to launch a new 15-year plan to end extreme poverty by 2030 and then again in Paris in December to forge an agreement to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. 

At this key moment in time, Earth Day Network is mobilizing citizens and world leaders to ensure that these goals are meaningful, well -financed and embraced worldwide. We must settle for no less. 

Scientifically literate people accept human-induced climate change as a fact. Yet few Americans, even among the best informed, fully appreciate the severity of its impact on growing numbers of the world's poor, and the inextricable link between climate change and extreme poverty. 

Unless we change course, radically and fast, climate change will result in more loss of life, more displaced refugees, and more permanently destroyed property than all the wars in the history of the world combined. 

On Earth Day 2015, we will engage hundreds of millions of people around the world-including a massive rally in Washington DC-to demand the moral equivalent of a war to save the planet. 

We will bring a million people to Washington DC for an event that coincides with the annual spring meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and we will demand that those powerful institutions announce new and groundbreaking commitments to promote a just, sustainable future. 

Earth Day 2015 will unite those who advocate for a sustainable energy policy with those who fight starvation; those who protect polar bears with those who tackle emerging epidemics; those who stand up against coal exports and oil pipelines with those who demand women's empowerment and equal human rights. 

Earth Day Network will enlist the most prominent leaders of the world's major religions to speak out on the moral outrage of climate injustice. We will hand microphones to public health leaders, development experts, and scientists to map out the unavoidable calamities headed our way and plan how to forestall even worse outcomes in the future.  

We're now deeply engaged in this campaign and found we've tapped into an enormous response from diverse constituencies. But we cannot accomplish our goals without your financial support. 

Thus, the ask. [ http://earthday.org/donate ] 

There are many, many worthy causes. But unless climate change is halted and the expanding gap between the grotesquely wealthy and the utterly destitute begins to close, all other causes will wither. 

Earth Day 2015 will confront the greatest moral challenge of our lifetime in a way that is demanding and activating, frightening and inspiring. Climate justice will no longer be a vague concern but rather an approaching imperative with muscle and political legs. 

Please make a donation to help us achieve this vital goal.  [ http://earthday.org/donate ] 

Denis Hayes
Board Chair