Let’s face it: the Internet can be one big time suck. Take Cheddarvision, a site sponsored by a British cheese maker filming a year of cheddar aging (cheddarvision.tv). In just one minute, you can see the first three months in time-lapse form. Since its January launch, Cheddarvision has had some 500,000 hits. But you can use the Internet to accomplish something extraordinary. Bill McKibben, long concerned about global warming, is doing just that, and there’s still time for you to join in. Step It Up: A National Day of Climate Action (stepitup2007.org) has logged over a thousand actions across the country. The number’s climbing, practically daily. One shared message unifies these events: “Step it up, Congress! Enact immediate cuts in carbon emissions, and pledge an 80% reduction by 2050. No half measures, no easy compromises-the time has come to take the real actions that can stabilize our climate.” McKibbben’s approach is to encourage a chain of events each tailored to city or neighborhood or iconic natural site on April 14th, 2007, rather than people swarming the Mall in DC for one big march (a tact that certainly has its place). Think of Step It Up as Earth Day for the new millennium.

  Actions vary widely, from scuba divers diving off of Key West, Florida, or a large rally in New York City to screenings of films, lectures, garden tours, opening of farms and gatherings at naturally scenic spots. The effect, organizers hope, will create a wake-up call of sorts. The message writ simple: urging us to remember why we care—or why we should care—about preserving the planet’s health and wellness. If you open the newspaper or just check the weather, it’s almost impossible to avoid the fact that global warming presents huge dangers to the planet. And while organizers acknowledge that individuals making change is essential, they assert that individuals are incapable of making adequate accommodations to stem climate change; Congress must act. There are currently five proposed Senate bills that propose mandatory greenhouse gas caps.

  McKibben is an author, whose most recent book is entitled “Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future,” and is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College. Envisioning the Internet as a tool, McKibben’s idea relied upon the momentum that could build when so many people pooled their passion. A significant component of McKibben’s message is “now.” As he writes on the Step It Up website, “And by now, we mean now.”

Could this be a tipping point? Step It Up has inspired regular people to leap in headfirst, ones who do not generally call themselves activists, like Ruth von Goeler, a key organizer for Northampton, Massachusetts’ Step It Up event (a large, family-friendly really in a downtown park). Having experienced Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” as a “pivotal call to action,” she and a friend, Nell Lake, had been discussing opportunities to get more involved in the climate change movement. Upon hearing about Step It Up, they jumped on the chance to “do something.” Ruth has two young daughters. She feels responsibility—or perhaps, “a healthy load of guilt,” she reasons—about what she can do to leave her daughters “a livable world.” She says that as a family, global warming issues are addressed in daily life: “we have done many things— had an energy audit, replaced windows and light bulbs, turned down the heat, recycle, compost, use canvas totes, supported the local Food Co-op, grew a vegetable garden—but I definitely feel there is more we can do.   Some future projects include getting rain barrels, looking into bus service for our kids' school, and possibly getting solar panels. Becoming more critical consumers and buying fewer ‘things’ is big goal. ” The task of organizing Northampton’s event has been much like a job. Lake, too, has children and since becoming a parent, she finds herself more concerned about global warming, saying “in general the fact that we're making our planet unlivable terrifies and appalls me.” Inspired by McKibben’s declaration that it’s time for the choir to sing really loud, she elaborates, “We in the ‘choir’ can’t solve this crisis ourselves. We need leadership. We need laws.” Lake’s a writer and editor, who spent her first few years after college working as an organizer for political and legislative campaigns before she moved into journalism. Since then she’s kept her political involvement to letter writing and phone calling. However, becoming involved, she says, “feels necessary.”

  Regardless of whether this issue has captured as many of your waking hours as it has for McKibben or von Goeler or Lake, Step It Up is an opportunity to remind our leaders, and one another, how critical this planet is, for us (and our children and grandchildren). Now.