Yesterday,  I was arrested today along with 11 other Greenpeace activists for hanging a 2300 square foot banner on the face of Mount Rushmore. We hung this banner on the opening day of the G8 meetings in Italy, and while the Senate looks to debate the Waxman-Markey bill - the first piece of comprehensive climate legislation in the US (and industry and many Democrats have rendered the bill more harmful than helpful).

The banner was hung just to the side of Lincoln’s head – and read “America Honors Leader – Not Politicians: Stop Global Warming”. Concurrently in Italy, over 100 Greenpeace activists currently occupied FIVE coal-fired power plants across the country. At least one of these Italian actions is from aa US/Canadian team – and activists from 18 countries are involved in the protests that intend to last the duration of the G8 meeting.

With our best scientists stressing the urgency of the climate crisis – we cannot afford compromises or pandering to dirty industries – we need bold action that reflects the best climate science -  not political convenience. This is the type of bold action that is needed to bring about real action to solve the climate crisis. Whether you believe him or not – Obama often has good rhetoric around the need to address climate change. But we need to take heed from the famous words of Franklin Roosevelt – “I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.”

At the disappointing G8 summit in  Italy, an announcement was made of a new commitment to keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius – a target already endorsed by over 100 nations. While this is certainly a worthy goal, President Obama and the other G8 leaders did not commit to short-term greenhouse gas emissions reductions necessary to achieving this long-term target. Despite promising to “restore science to its rightful place” in the administration – Obama has been conveniently sliding around emissions targets, and arbitrarily pushing baselines dates for emissions reductions from 1990 levels (where most climate science has been based) to 2005 levels. The G8 statement for emissions targets read a fuzzy….“of 1990 or more later years”.

The actions at Rushmore and across Italy are meant  to put some heat on Obama and world leaders – and create political space and broader awareness to the urgency and seriousness of the climate crisis. Already, we were the #4 story on  CNN, the lead story on Yahoo.com, and featured in Newsweek, Guardian UK, Fox, NBC, Washington Post, ABC, Daily Kos, Huffington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor, and hundreds of more major media outlets. In addition to doing traditional media work – we also had streaming video and photos from multiple perspectives being watched live on the Greenpeace website – with thousands of viewers watching the action in real time. (Yes, we had helmet cams). We were live-blogging while on the ropes, as well as using Twitter and other social networking forums to make sure the world saw our message. All of you were vital in helping this story gain such a huge audience – from posting it on Facebook, telling your friends, and re-Tweeting the story.

You can see further photos, video, and press release on the action at Greenpeace.org More updates still to come!