Oxfam America Blog

Medhin Reda depends on rain to water her fields of teff and corn. Erratic weather has a profound impact on the well-being of her family. Photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America

Climate talks in Copenhagen are just a few weeks away. Here at my desk in Boston, I’m hearing a growing urgency in the pitches from campaigners who have been working long and hard to get the United States and the European Union to own up to their responsibility for the future that is facing us all.

But what I hear louder, still, are the voices of the people I met in Ethiopia in August for whom changing weather patterns and increased cycles of drought mean failed crops, skipped meals, and deeper poverty. Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Blejwas is Oxfam’s regional communications officer for the US.  

When I first moved to Alabama five years ago, just about all I knew about the state was that it was hot, and Montgomery was known as both the cradle of the Confederacy and the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement. But mostly, it was hot. So last week when we had what amounted to a cold snap—about three days of weather in the 50s—conversations usually started with some variation on the theme of global warming: “So much for global warming,” someone would say. Or, “We really could use some of that global warming about now.”

If only it were that easy to turn global warming on and off like a switch. For a lot of us, global warming is a euphemism for climate change, something we don’t fully understand, something happening somewhere else—certainly “not in my backyard.”  Even in sweltering Alabama, we don’t talk about global warming until it gets cold. But climate change is happening, and it is in our backyard.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oxfam America supporter Thao Nguyen (of Thao with the Get Down Stay Down) is a San Francisco-based singer-songwriter, whose new album “Know Better, Learn Faster” has just been released.

Hello out there. I am very pleased to be writing you on Blog Action Day, as it is my favorite day of the year. Last year on this day I dressed up as a blog, but because I’m more of an idea person, execution was poor and no one could really tell. This year will be clearer and different.

Thao with the Get Down Stay Down. Photo: Tarina Westlund

I am a songwriter and musician by trade, and although that is incredibly fortunate in and of itself, I feel especially lucky for such job placement because it has afforded me the unique opportunity to closely work with and support Oxfam America.

I have always loved Oxfam’s focus and application of energies and issues to real live people, and how the scope and arch of causes great and small always return to how real places with real people are being affected, and what can be done to help improve their quality of life. Climate change is a real bastard, as we all have heard. And it’s happening, let’s not deny it. If you keep turning a blind eye to climate change it will probably be injured in a surprise gale force wind. Or not. The issue of climate change has painted the town so many times with so many brushes, it is understandable that those of us with the ability and privilege to forget, would.

Enter Oxfam and others of its ilk to keep us aware and connected: The people the world over who have done the least to upset nature are always the ones who bear the brunt of its imbalance and fury.

Read the rest of this entry »

By now, most of you have probably seen the great news photos from Sunday’s Human Countdown event in Central Park. But to get the full effect, you really have to see the massive, 1,200-person stunt in action. Check out Oxfam’s official video of the earth and hourglass from above:

And here’s the slightly shaky, but fun video I captured from my spot in the bottom of the hourglass:

As I write this from a borrowed office near Manhattan’s UN plaza, a police officer leans against the window a few feet away. I can hear the crackle of her radio and the tap of her nightstick against the glass; I can see her stance, weary yet alert. For the last hour, she’s been carefully eyeing each pedestrian who wanders past.

Because of this week’s UN General Assembly, including a high-level climate summit that begins tomorrow, the neighborhood is full of police officers guarding newly erected metal barriers. With more than 100 world leaders in town—including President Obama—security is understandably tight.

I also noticed this extra security at today’s Climate Week NYC opening ceremony, where celebrities and world leaders (including Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, Hugh Jackman, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon) kicked off a week of climate change events. In just one day, I’d gone from a grassroots stunt led by Oxfam campaigners and featuring thousands of volunteer activists—the Human Countdown in Central Park—to an invite-only panel that showcased the voices of power.

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Kate Vacanti / Oxfam America

Yesterday I found myself wrapped in a pale blue plastic poncho, arm in arm with my friend Kate on one side and a total stranger on the other. Hundreds of people rushed toward us as we stood squinting in the late afternoon sunlight—and then, in time with the music echoing over the sound system, they all turned as one, raising both arms to point at the sky. As a sea of extended arms lowered, beat by beat, an ominous countdown echoed overhead: “Tck. Tck. Tck.”

That’s what it looked like from where I stood, anyway—one among the thousands who turned out for Oxfam’s Human Countdown event in New York’s Central Park.

Viewed from above, the carefully choreographed spectacle makes more sense. An army of volunteers transform themselves into a massive, perfectly rendered planet earth, which trickles down through an hourglass, then forms the words “tck tck tck.” Our group was the bottom of the hourglass, while the blue- and green-clad dancers in front of us formed the earth’s oceans and continents.

But beyond just looking really cool, yesterday’s event sends a clear message: Time is running out for our leaders to act on climate change.

Read the rest of this entry »

This weekend in New York City, I’m going to be part of something truly unusual. I’ll be one of more than 2,000 people who will form a moving human sculpture of our world in a race against time: a massive, living planet earth and hourglass. Called the Human Countdown, this event will be broadcast by media outlets around the world, and will send an urgent message to leaders that time is running out to take action on climate change.

Why is now such a crucial time? Because, two days after this event, world leaders are gathering in New York for the UN Climate Summit—the first in a series of key moments when presidents and prime ministers will make major decisions about the future of our planet. Leaders, including President Obama, are meeting in New York and Pittsburgh in September and in Copenhagen in December, where they will decide whether or not to stop the clock on climate change.  

I’ll be there, blogging about the event for Oxfam. And if you’re concerned about climate change—especially the way it’s already affecting poor people here and abroad—I hope you’ll be there too. Having just come back from Ethiopia, where I saw communities facing increasingly severe drought, I feel a new sense of urgency to get away from my desk and actually do something about it.

The Human Countdown will be held at the Wollman Rink in Central Park on Sunday, September 20, and will feature national and international speakers, celebrities, and great music. Sign up to be part of it on our website—hope to see you there.