The day of action was founded on the belief that people are passionate about preventing climate change, yet are told to do things like change their light bulbs or recycle more. The responses lack the needed systemic approach to truly tackle a global challenge.

While the group believed people wanted to make change, they never imagined the kind of support, energy and action the plan would unleash.

Across the United States people showed their support to address climate change, rallying in front of coal plants, skiing the shrinking Dinwoody Glacier and scuba diving amongst fragile coral reefs. 1,400 actions in all fifty states were recorded. In many cases participants snapped photos of themselves, which were later aggregated and shared.

It was the birth of 350.org, and its core model fuses people’s desire to see climate change leadership with creative, visual actions.

Five years later, 350.org is a force to be reckoned with. The organization has 40 staff members and seven directors, all under the age of 30. It’s been hailed as the first climate movement to build leadership and connection among people across the globe, engaging hundreds of thousands of people in more than 180 countries.

After dedicating its focus (and name) to a campaign calling on governments to adopt a globally safe carbon target — 350 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere — 350.org has evolved into a powerful grassroots environmental campaigning organization. It most recently rallied support against the Keystone XL pipeline resulting in the Obama administration effectively killing the pipeline.

Osborn presented 350.org‘s work and impact as a case study at Social Change Institute (SCI) June 8.

Case studies are a core component of the conference that aims to advance social change, providing a space for organizations to share intimate details of their operations and seek expert feedback and advice.

Osborn’s case study asked how the young organization can continue to build on its success while creating systems that enable organizational growth and scale.

This article written by AxiomNews.ca is part of a series featuring changemakers attending Hollyhock’s Social Change Institute.

Related Stories:

Adding More Color to the Green Movement

Renewable Energy Leaders of the World Unite

Protecting Human Rights in a Changing World

Homs has been a center of opposition since the uprising in Syria began in March of 2011. Activists have been reporting that 30,000 government troops and pro-regime militiamen have laid siege to the city for the past week. Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights(SOHR), described the humanitarian situation in Homs as “very difficult” in the Guardian, adding that “it is very clear that the army wants to retake Homs.” The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) has said that “the country is under a violent attack, especially Homs,” where a massacue could be imminent.

Other towns including Rastan are described as “living through tragic hours and days.”

In Turkey, Abdulbaset Sieda, the leader of the SNC, said that the UN observers’ cessation of operations is a sign that “the international community has given up hope on this regime that is in its last days.” He called on the UN Security Council to invoke Chapter VII to protect civilians, which authorizes enforcement actions that include military intervention.

Mood is to brief the UN Security Council’s five permanent members about the observer mission on Tuesday.

The Syrian government has emphasized its support for the peace plan negotiated by Kofi Annan, special envoy to the UN. That plan had called for a ceasefire on both sides starting on April 12 but the violence has never ceased. As it has throughout the uprising, the Syrian government blames armed “terrorists” and foreigners for the unrest.

Activists reported at least one person killed in the shelling on Homs and others in the Damascus suburb of Mleiha, as well as further assaults in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, the eastern region of Deir el-Zour and the southern province of Deraa. The Syrian state news agency SANA reported that Syrian troops had killed and injured “infiltrators” from Lebanon and that Syrian forces had prevented an “infiltration attempt” from Turkey in the northern part of the country.

The UN estimates that at least 11,000 have been killed in the uprising while activists estimate the death toll to be at least 14,000.

Previous Care2 Coverage

UN Observers Suspend Syria Mission, To No One’s Surprise

Syria is Officially in Civil War…Although the Opposition Rejects Claim

Syrian Children Used As Human Shields on Tanks, Says UN Report

This week, political leaders from around the world are gathered at the Rio+20 Summit to identify the path forward for our species. For many, achieving a sustainable future for the human race first requires us to admit the other species we’ve pushed to the brink.

Today in Rio, The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released its most recent Red List, a comprehensive index of the world’s most threatened species. The plants and animals assessed for the IUCN Red List are the bearers of genetic diversity and the building blocks of ecosystems, and information on their conservation status and distribution provides the foundation for making informed decisions about conserving biodiversity from local to global levels.

Just over the past decade, the number of species considered vulnerable, threatened, and critically endangered has risen steadily. According to BBC News, two thousand new species have been assessed for this edition of the Red List, bringing the total to 63,837.

As the graph below demonstrates, approximately 41 percent of all amphibians, 33 percent of reef-forming corals, 31 percent of sharks and rays, and 25 percent of mammals are considered threatened. And as the Red List summary acknowledges, these are just the more comprehensively assessed groups.

CR – Critically Endangered, EN – Endangered, VU – Vulnerable, NT – Near Threatened, DD – Data Deficient, LC – Least Concern

The IUCN Red List alone can’t do anything to change these results, but the researchers behind it hope that its stark realities will motivate world leaders to see the links between conservation and our own survival.

“Sustainability is a matter of life and death for people on the planet,” said Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director General at IUCN. “A sustainable future cannot be achieved without conserving biological diversity – animal and plant species, their habitats and their genes – not only for nature itself, but also for all 7 billion people who depend on it. The latest IUCN Red List is a clarion call to world leaders gathering in Rio to secure the web of life on this planet.”

Related Reading:

6 Things To Expect From Rio+20

Renewable Energy Leaders Of The World Unite

Will Putting A Price On Natural Resources Make Businesses Care About The Environment?

Written by Brian Merchant

We rich nation-dwelling greens are often unawares, at least on a visceral level, to just how dangerous practicing activism in more corrupt countries can be. And we respect the boldness of figures like Tim DeChristopher, who’s now serving a two-year jail sentence for disrupting a land auction, and rightfully so, but we likely can’t name a single one of the many Brazilian environmentalists who’ve been killed trying to halt deforestation in the rain forest.

Underlining this grim truth is a new report from Global Witness, which finds that it’s more dangerous than ever to be an environmental activist. The study finds that in 2011, environmentalists worldwide were killed at an average rate of one per week.

The Guardian reports:

The death toll of campaigners, community leaders and journalists involved in the protection of forests, rivers and land has risen dramatically in the past three years, said Global Witness. Brazil – the host of the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development – has the worst record for danger in a decade that has seen the deaths of more than 365 defenders, said the briefing, which was released on the eve of the high-level segment of the Earth Summit …

“This trend points to the increasingly fierce global battle for resources…” said Billy Kyte, campaigner at Global Witness.

What’s more, the report is presumed to be conservative, due to the difficulty of obtaining stats on murder victims and the ambiguity that often surrounds their deaths.

There’s already quite a legacy of environmental activists placing their lives on the line, and the list of martyrs is already too long. The story of Chico Mendes, for instance, is one of the most gut-wrenching and inspiring on the books. But this developing trend towards even more violence—and what lays at the root of the tumult—is something we should all be watching closely and with trepidation.

This post was originally published by TreeHugger.

Related Stories:

Read the Disturbing Death Threats Sent to a Top Climate Scientist

Amazon Loggers Caught in the Act

Who Is Behind the Conspiracy Against Climate Change Science?