This is the email I received as a follow up to inform us about the full roundup of the day …

Hey bloggers,

You did it!

Yesterday you and bloggers in 155 countries across six continents wrote about a single issue that impacts us all, and turned Blog Action Day 2009 into one of the largest social change events ever held on the web.

Your participation helped change the conversation and showed the power of the web to connect people across the world who despite their varied backgrounds have one shared desire: to make a difference. According to blogpulse, we increased the number of posts about climate change on a given day by 500%, and CNN wrote a great article covering the excitement and diversity of today’s event across the web and around the world.

A full recap is up on our blog, and here are some highlights:

We hit 31,000 total trackable blog posts, and our current estimate is that together we reached at least 17.9 million people yesterday. We just exceeded 13,000 registered bloggers on the site and are working to get all of you who posted but haven’t yet registered into the final count.

We had at least three major world governments as active participants in this year’s event. United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown posted the first Blog Action Day entry in Britain at the stroke of midnight on the 15th, which was followed by Foreign Minister David Milliband and many others from the UK stationed around the world. The PSOE governing party of Spain hosted a bloggers event focused on climate change and transformed their website for the day to promote Blog Action Day. And late in the day, President Barack Obama’s White House blog joined in become part of the global movement of bloggers shaking the web.

Of course, well-known bloggers were a big presence yesterday as well:

* The Official Google Blog gave a green tour of the company’s campus;
* Mashable asked what you’re doing to reverse climate change;
* The Unofficial Apple Weblog suggested “Five apps to help save the world”;
* Treehugger gave us two simple things that could, by themselves, stop climate change;
* Global Voices posted a roundup of bloggers from around the world writing in many languages;
* Gadling spent the whole day posting about green travel;
* BlogHer covered the road to the next international climate negotations in Copehagen.

There are many more, and we encourage you to check out the Featured Posts on the blogactionday.org homepage for a longer list of some of the world’s largest blogs.

Many of our nonprofit partners, leading organizations from around the world, were also actively involved in making the event a success:

* TckTckTck released a beautiful and touching new video;
* Greenpeace bloggers from around the world joined in;
* World Wildlife Fund featured Blog Action Day on their international climate blog;
* Oxfam helped emphasize the human side of the climate crisis;
* 1Sky wrote about the front lines of political activism in the US;
* The Nature Conservancy helped us understand the science of climate change;
* NRDC’s Switchboard bloggers wrote informative posts all day;
* Consequence wrote a whole series of posts on youth climate leadership.

You should all feel proud of this remarkable collective effort. And it doesn’t have to end today. For many, we hope this serves as an entry point into the broader movement to address the issue of climate change. There are a number of ways and some amazing organizations through which you can continue to remain involved, and we encourage you to check out our Take Action section to learn more.

We will continue providing updates and information about the success of today’s event and ongoing opportunities for involvement–including the the October 24th International Day of Climate Action organized by our friends at 350.org–here in the weeks ahead, and we hope you’ll stay with us.

Thank you so much,

Robin Beck
Lead Organizer
Blog Action Day 2009

Something to be proud of

It is no secret that our planet is undergoing a lot of changes, and if we read through history, Planet Earth witnessed and survived major changes; lines of species disappeared because of these changes and Earth is what it is today as a result of all these changes. However; what accelerates the changes that we are witnessing these days is that the dominant species’ actions are contributing negatively and causing the change to happen faster than it should.

Nature has its own special way of creating a perfect balance; that’s how God meant it to be and He took care of all necessary details to maintain and retain this balance, but human beings are the most superior creatures in this life and they enjoy having a unique feature which is the free will. Humans are not driven by instinct alone, it is combined with the power of choices; but how do humans use this power??

Unfortunately; when it comes to climate and preserving the environment; I am afraid that our choices are not the best out there. Pollution, wars, killing forests, ozone layer damage and many other effects are caused by our choices and how we consume the environment, and the problem is that now we understand the problem, but we fail to contribute to the solution which makes us a part of the problem itself. If each one of us did a small thing in the right direction, these small actions will make a huge action in the same direction, then why aren’t we trying???

That is why I am so happy to be a part of this Blog Action Day 2009, I am considering the words I am writing here on my blog to be only a part of what I can do as a human benefiting from our Planet. Maybe I do not know exact numbers and facts that I can share here, but I have a strong belief in the power of words that can reach intellectuals all over the world and make a difference even if small.

If you are reading these words, ask yourself about what you can do to contribute in creating a better tomorrow for your children, how you can be a positive force towards maintaining Planet Earth for a good future, how can we prevent the drastic change that is crawling and becoming a sad reality every coming day, if each one of us treated this as his own personal mission, we will be able to make a positive change, together, we can, so let this be a good start for a great cause.

But what about the consideration for the simplest rights one should have and enjoy?? If you want to cut all public holidays and turn the whole year to working days, why don’t you consider increasing vacation days the Jordanian worker is allowed to take????

A Jordanian worker has only 14 days a year for a vacation; when exactly is this going to change?

Most countries have 21 working days or one calendar month a year and I cannot think of a good reason why we are still stuck at the 14 days?

People working in Jordan have to accumulate their vacations for a couple of years to be able to take one decent vacation and they look forward to these public holidays that are scattered around the year so that they can enjoy a random day out with the family or just resting at home and now they are taking that away from us!!

It pisses me off when I see the country flooded with tourists and expats during the summer for a month or so while we are stuck in our long working days and not even able to take a few days off to see relatives and enjoy the summer like the rest of the world because all what we have is 14 days, and we try to keep them for major issues during the year or to add them to the balance of last year to have a good long needed vacation. These expats and tourists coming from other countries have jobs too, but they are not enslaved by these jobs and they have good vacation balance every year which allows them to travel and refresh and they go back to work energized and willing, which makes them more tolerable to difficult working conditions, while their peers in Jordan have piled up fatigue and frustration because they cannot afford to take unpaid leaves and the labor law does not give them better options … and the world wonders why Jordanians frown and have a big “kashrah” and do not smile …

In France, they reduced working hours to 7 instead of 8, which allowed them to introduce shifting systems that provided more work opportunities for the jobless, and they also increased the annual vacation days to 35, and did you know that in France, universities do not have summer semesters because people should rest and have fun in the summer which is a concept that does not exist here!!

In Cyprus, donkeys have lunch breaks because they have the right to relax and take some time off work as this is the simplest right any creature needs, but in Jordan; we are canceling public holidays because we should not be a lazy nation … give me a break!!!

This guy from the education ministry argued that they do not want to reschedule the school year because we should not be a lazy nation, but did they even spend one minute to consider the huge traffic problems that schools create? add that to Ramadan traffic problems and the excessive heat along with an angry populace, well; these are the ingredients of a disaster waiting to happen if you ask me …

With all the problems that we have in Jordan, we need 100 human rights organizations because one will not be able to cover them all …

I am sitting here and thinking about how this human characteristic is actually controlling us … at least subconsciously, otherwise; why do we keep doing the things that we do???

They say that if you want to change something, begin with yourself, but here is the thing, what if you did? what if you changed and tried to affect others and induce this change but it wasn’t enough? and it never is??? What now? Keep on going with the change or just go back to the old way that seems the norm where everyone else is concerned? What now?

For example; I really hate it when drivers cut in front of you at a traffic light, blocking the left lane altogether just to make it to the beginning of the line, and then maneuver to cut in front of you so that they don’t hit the island in the middle and you have to get out of the way … he is more important than you, his time is more valuable, he is more skillful than you and you have to live with that … it does not really matter if you are following every rule and law and going by the book, because those who don’t get to do that to you and piss you off and just drive away .. and if you don’t like it … that is your problem!!

You might argue that this has been the case for ever and that I should be used to it by now, but you see, I keep asking myself, why should I accept this? what changed that I cannot even tolerate these things any more? is this a part of growing older? or am I just becoming intolerant? maybe it is me!! or maybe I need a major change in my life to make it worth while because right now, I don’t really see the point of it!!

WHO CARES????