A global campaign to raise awareness of the connection between extreme weather and climate change saw thousands of people take part in Climate Impacts Day on 5 May 2012
Photographs from over 100 countries, collected by the campaign organisers, 350.org, show visual demonstrations of how people are ‘connecting the dots’. Campaigners believe there is now global understanding that climate change is already affecting people’s lives and that action needs to be taken.
“There isn’t a country left that hasn’t felt the sting of climate change, that’s why this effort is so widespread,” said Bill McKibben, 350.org co-founder. “People everywhere are saying the same thing: our tragedy is not some isolated trauma, it’s part of a pattern.”
Participants in the day of action also promoted potential solutions to the climate crisis. In Lund, Sweden, students collected old bicycles to form a large visual dot, before shipping them to South Africa to be re-used.
350.org communications director, Jamie Henn told Positive News: “Climate Impacts Day was a chance to reaffirm our commitment to the cause and to each other. The faces in these photos are our allies and together we make up one of the most diverse, widespread movements in history.”
Following Climate Impacts Day, 350.org is urging people to maintain pressure on politicians to act on climate change and is building a database of stories and photographs from people affected by extreme weather.
