The Climate Stick provides the basis for individuals to break the Cone of Silence around the subject of climate change. Individuals, by talking about the basic science of climate change and by wearing the Climate Stick, show that they are part of the mass movement to end carbon burning. These actions can produce many new activists that will enhance the activities of groups focused on young people like the Sunrise Movement, the Alliance of Climate Education, Imatter and others. Also the Climate Stick Project can assist established groups like the Sierra Club, Green Peace and 350.Org.
While the Climate Stick Project, Inc. is a 501c3 non-profit and cannot support political candidates, it can help individuals create their own Climate Stories that make their actions on political work more successful. The next few months will be a time of intense activity for helping the American Public learn, and act on, the science of the climate crisis. Demonstrations all around the US are planned for Earth Day on April 22. Democratic Primaries will bring candidates with very strong climate positions in debate with others of weaker responses to the climate crisis. The impeachment actions, and aftermath, bring the a focus on a President who thinks climate issues are a hoax. This is the time to create your climate story and tell it as you participate in the many actions that will happen in the next five months. What it will be like after that depends on what you do now.
The following Plan comes out of the work that the Climate Stick Project has done with several high schools and colleges over the past three years. It is a starting point for you and your school to do what is needed. You will need to fashion it so it fits for your group, but the Climate Stick and the material at www.climatestick.org can help a great deal. We stress that it is important to start now rather than a few days before April 22, so more people get involved.
The PlanThe plan has 6 Steps to make a Climate Stick Club or a Climate Stick Committee within an existing green organization at a high school or college.
Step One (Educate yourself in how the Climate Stick can help you)Go to the website and read under Street Info Page One, Page Two and Page Six. Reread Page Two. Find a friend who has similar views to your own on the climate crises. Exchange your stories. Read Page Three and Page Four. Determine what things you are doing or will try to do, to reduce your carbon footprint. Make sure that somewhere in your climate story you have committed yourself to reducing your climate footprint.
Step Two (Break the Cone of Silence and become a Climate Stick Supporter) There are four distinct activities that you can do the break the Cone of Silence:- Wear the Climate Stick to show you are a member of the mass movement to end the burning of carbon and begin talks about the climate crisis.
- Tell your Climate Story widely, to friends and family and to elected officials.
- Place your name on the Supporters page of the Climate Stick website (See Breaking the Cone.)
- Help us grow by donating your time and funds for our grassroots efforts.
If there is no obvious existing group that is focused on climate change issues, and then contact your friends or people in your classes, or even teachers, to see if they will help you start a Climate Stick Club. If there are existing green groups, contact them and ask to make a presentation to see if a Climate Stick Committee can be part of the group. If it makes sense to form a separate group, do so.
Step Four (Get needed material)- Getting written Climate Stick material is easy – you can just download it from www.climatestick.org. If you have items that can add to what we have we will be happy to try to include them if they add to our goal of helping people create and tell their own climate stories. We are not trying to duplicate the many sources of great material about the climate issue that exist.See Helpers for our main sources.
- Getting Climate Sticks is another story. There are more than 10 million high school students and more than 10 million college students. It would take $15,000,000 to get the plant based bio-resin (Ingeo) Climate Sticks (that we have been giving out) for half of the 20 million student that would be willing to wear a Climate Stick. We do not have the money to accomplish this goal. The solution is to make them yourselves. Sticks for Schools has the details of how to make your own Climate Sticks of any size, and also with specific directions to make 4” wood Climate Sticks or bracelets or printed ones your printer. Or you can order Climate Sticks from the website for a small donation.
As stated in the second paragraph there are many actions that will be occurring organized by environmental, political and climate focused groups. The Climate Stick Project is not in competition with them. Our purpose is the grassroots task of getting informed people to break the Cone of Silence by using the Climate Stick to talk about Climate Change. Climate stories should end by encouraging people to be Climate Stick Supporters and to join other green/climate groups that are doing other actions that assist with the movement to end carbon burning and to support green energy production and energy conservation.
As the Sunrise Movement has called for demonstrations on April 22, this is one organization that students should be in contact with: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/. Another is: https://www.imatteryouth.org/.
Step Six (Student Actions at School or On Campus)These are various activities that can spread the information of the Climate Stick more widely within your school or college. Each can be helpful depending on the people you have to develop them.
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Use your social media to get people to support the Climate Slick and go to
www.climatestick.org to learn to
tell their Climate Stories.
- Use Instagram to post and share Climate_Stick to your friends. Try to get them to the web-site so they can learn about the Climate Stick. Use Snapchat in your own extended community to get people to see and learn about the Climate Stick.
- Use Facebook to get your parents and grandparents involved.
Additional Information: The following may be of interest to those who will use the Climate Stick to assist with the building of a mass movement to end the burning of carbon.
Trademark for the Climate StickBoth the words Climate Stick and the four color image of the Climate Stick are Trademark Protected by registration with the US Patent Office. This was done so that when our efforts to make the Climate Stick as recognizable as the Peace Sign are successful, and the general public wants to buy items with the Climate Stick on them, we can make sure that some of the money spent on Climate Sticks and apparel go to education about our issue, not just to the manufacturers and retailers as most money spent on Peace Sign items does currently.
What is good plastic and what is bad plastic?In the past we have said that the Climate Stick is not plastic, by which we meant it was not made from fossil fuels and that it was compostable and can go with food to a compost heap. While these are true statements many people have told us that the general term plastic means a material that can easily change its shape. So to be correct we will now say that the Climate Stick is not bad plastic (from oil and not degradable in the short term), but good plastic made from plant material and compostable.
Please get started on your own Climate Story and creating plans to make many events in the next five months into opportunities to use the Climate Stick as part of our effort to work of saving your future life.