Yesterday, the Pace Center for Environmental Legal Studies sponsored a tree planting event on campus in coordination with Bill McKibben’s (of 350.org) Global Work Party Day (10/10/10). Across the globe, organizers, activists and volunteers devoted their time and effort to a broad range of over 7,000 environmental projects – from record-setting tree and community garden plantings to the  installation of solar panels and stoves.

The underlying purpose of these events was twofold – to creatively mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions and, more importantly, to send an unambiguous message to politicians and world leaders to get to work themselves on aggressively tackling climate change. Considering the dim prospects for success associated with the upcoming UN climate change negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, the Pace environmental law community was honored to help spread this critical message and to demonstrate our solidarity with the international community. Three beautiful sugar maples now stand as a testament to this ongoing support.