North Dakota
In July 2021 the Knights of the Climate Covenant have cleared the first hurdle in becoming a non-profit environmental organisation. From then onwards they are certified as a non-profit corporation in North Dakota.
But it is not just an organisation for North Dakotans. They continue to strive to be recognised as a nonprofit by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, so that people from the United States of America can help by contributing to their GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to go toward legal fees for the necessary legal assistance and guidance, and to have a tax reduction for the contributions.
NASA and scientists
In 1988, Dr. James Hansen, who was then the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Institute for Space Studies, took a seat before a Congressional committee and told senators that
“Global warming has begun.”
He and other scientists attempted to educate the senators about the dangers of the “greenhouse effect” and “climate change,” to explain to them that human activities — like burning coal, gas and oil — were the cause, and to warn them that if world leaders didn’t change course significantly and quickly, the future of the human race would be in jeopardy.
In other countries, all over the world, were other scientists also trying to convince the leaders of their nation to take action before it would be too late.
Martin C. Fredricks IV and a populist
The fourth Martin Cornelius Fredricks, whose name flows down from Ostfriesland, a.k.a., East Frisia or Eastern Friesland, in Germany, got his worst day in his nearly 53 years of life, on election day 2016 in the United States. No wonder when we could see how that American politician, media personality, and businessman, who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021, did not show any respect to human beings let stand nature.
As populist, protectionist for the economical businesses, isolationist, and nationalist, that man was able to bring the worst division in the United States of America since the civil war. Now the world could see again the growing sectional friction over slavery, inequality on all sorts of fronts, though equality of opportunity was the founding creed of U.S. society. But equality among all peoples and between the sexes has proved easier to legislate than to achieve in practice.
Inequality, renewal and countermovement
Sadly, we could also observe an inequality in the improper use of goods produced by this earth all over the world. This made Marcus Ampe also cross, him seeing all their efforts of May 1968 having no lasting good solution. As ‘greenies’ and ‘hippies‘ we fought for liberty, equality, unity and respect for nature. In Belgium and France we created a countercultural movement, which got her name from the United States, where also such a youth movement arose, that rejected the mores of mainstream American life.
At the beginning of this 21st century it looked like we needed again such renewal or countermovement. This time we do not need our beards, long hair and colourful multi-ethnic clothing to become more commonplace, but we urgently have to hear again the call for respect for nature.
Devastation for Earth and the prospects for the human race
In foreign policy, Donald Trump pursued an America First agenda: he renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) and withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade negotiations, the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and the Iran nuclear deal.
Probably this was also something that Mr. Fredericks made him sit on his horse and make her prance. We here at the European continent had to watch with dismay as such a ‘gentleman’ as his compatriot, with the title of president, did not care how he could help to destroy the world. But also how this President of America took others in his wake.
How could my fellow U.S. citizens do this?
Mr. Fredericks kept asking himself. For him
It was a horrible turn of events for the nation, not to mention a long list of people and groups of people who were bound to suffer under a Donald J. Trump presidency. But it was especially devastating for Earth and the prospects for the human race as a whole.
His environmental awareness, if not all-out activism, began in the early 1980s when he was in high school. Back then, the issue was a severely damaged ozone layer caused by chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), dangerous chemicals created for use in products from spray cans to air conditioners.
Climate-change denial
From the moment Donald Trump took office climate-change denial was on full display and in full force at the highest levels of the U.S. government. For some the impacts can not be seen first-hand, though lots of people all over the world do see and feel it first hand. As the planet warms, and human fingerprints are all over the consequences: bigger, stronger hurricanes; deadly heat waves; more intense downpours; and devastating wildfires are felt spread all over the world, without making preferences or exclusions of certain groups of people. Everyone will have to feel it.
Martin C. Fredricks IV started the Knights of the Climate Covenant in 2021 as a spinoff to his blog, IV Words. As a freelance copywriter, content creator and messaging strategist, a blogger, a husband, a father and basically just a regular guy based in Fargo, N.D., USA. He’s been talking about global warming and advocating for policy reforms to address its impacts for about 30 years.
Mr. Fredricks is convinced that there’s something powerful about making a promise in writing and putting your signature to it. For that reason he also could get people from several countries to join around his Round Table. They range from hardcore, badass marchers and protesters to grandmothers who carry their own containers to the local deli. Each of them is doing whatever they can, wherever they can and whenever they can to slow climate change.
Knights of the Climate Covenant was launched on Earth Day 2021 to allow more everyday people to identify as climate activists and commit to making a difference in the fight against the climate crisis. Regardless of whether it’s changing personal behaviours, helping others change theirs, advocating for climate action or holding elected officials accountable, and no matter how substantive or seemingly insignificant our activities, they are all committed Knights of the Climate Covenant.
The act makes the promise more concrete, more real, which means we’re more likely to think about it when making decisions and, ultimately, more likely to keep the promise. It helps us consistently maintain our integrity, if not for others then at least for ourselves.
From this month onwards, you shall find the emblem of the Knights of the Climate Covenant, as a sign of our commitment to our planet and willingness to share our aims and projects for a better climate and better future for generations to come, joining forces with lots of motivated people from all over the world.
“Our house is on fire,”
keeps Greta Thunberg telling the world leaders, but they fail again and again to do anything that will truly turn the tide on global warming.
Climate change doesn’t care who we are, where we live, or how much or how little money we make. It is altering things around the world in ways that are devastating to human habitation.
If enough people begin doing the right things and, more importantly, stop doing the wrong things we can bring change in this bad situation. There is still some (though not much) time left.
We all can do something to protect this planet! But we have to act Now!
We can’t afford to wait until tomorrow.
We must put an end to it today.
That’s what The Climate Covenant is all about.
Knights of the Climate Covenant is an idea as much as it is a community, and a promise more than anything else, to do whatever we can to slow global warming and counter climate change deniers. The community provides an easy, obligation-free entry into climate activism for everyday people, and in so doing confers upon us the ‘climate activist’ identity. That personal identifier, in turn, makes it more likely Knights will expand our engagement in the future, from contacting their congressional representatives to writing letters to environmental voters before elections to protesting in Washington, D.C.
Download the covenant and sign it today!
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Some View on the World 
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