Think Big

If you take a group of a couple dozen motivated, forward thinking and skilled people, and trace the connections that are within 2 degrees of separation, there are thousands of amazing people. My friend Zo Tobi refers to this as the tribe. I don't have a name for it, but its clear that I can have an instant bond with any number of these thousands of people.

We have the internet to thank, and we have the amazing work of the Sierra Student Coalition and the rest of the climate movement, and we have our college networks. We have the connections to translate an amazing idea into action in a matter of months. In the book Fight Global Warming Now, the crew points out that sometimes organizing an action in a few weeks is better than a few months because it just flows and happens. And with the internet, we don't have to. (I don't just mean the internet, but rather the innovative tools that we're constantly developing and the skills to use them.) Ideas spread fast, the people who can contribute the most have nothing holding them back to contributing, and the people who wouldn't have heard about it hear about it.

Step it Up was organized in 10 weeks last spring. The marchs to Re-Enegize NH and IA were done in a summer. Power Shift came together in a few months, and over 75% of the students signed up in the last 2 weeks. We're learning how to use the internet better, and we haven't even scratched the surface.

What does that mean? WE NEED TO THINK BIGGER. We are no longer held back by the scale of action that's possible. Instead, we are only held back by the scope of our imaginations. I'm challenging us to think bigger than we've ever thought before, bigger than we're comfortable doing.