Dear friends,

A confession: I like to tweet.

When I come across something particularly sweet or peculiarly depressing, I feel better once I’ve shared it on Twitter.

Twitter was designed as an outlet for individuals, but we think it can also work for social movements. And so, today, we’re launching an effort to amplify our movement’s message on Twitter, for a truly important cause.

The world’s leaders are gathered in Rio for the “Earth Summit”, and we need to tell them to end fossil fuel subsidies. It’s going to be a Twitter Storm, and we need all the help we can get.

Join in here: www.endfossilfuelsubsidies.org/twitterstorm

We know that world leaders aren’t likely to achieve a comprehensive climate breakthrough in Rio — we aren’t expecting new binding rules that would slow the carbon emissions that are heating up our planet. But our governments could at least stop sending nearly a trillion dollars a year to the fossil fuel industry. If they did, it would help weaken the coal and oil and gas tycoons, and give renewable energy a fighting chance.

Ending fossil fuel subsidies would also stop wasting our money. Why on earth should taxpayers subsidize the richest industry on earth? It’s bad enough they wreck the planet, without us paying them a performance bonus for doing it.

So here’s the plan: we’re going to kick up a Twitter Storm. We need you to help create this storm by sending a message with the hashtag #EndFossilFuelSubsidies. We’ll be beaming your messages on famous landmarks in cities around the world, and a young team of climate activists will be on the ground in Rio to make sure world leaders hear us loud and clear.

If you don’t already have a twitter account, we need you to sign up for one, which is easy to do. Tips and tricks for all this can be found here: www.endfossilfuelsubsidies.org/twitterstorm

Look — sending tweets and emails alone will not win this fight. But we can’t go to jail or hold rallies every day. This is an easy way to make a statement. A loud one, if we all work together.

Thanks,

Bill McKibben (@billmckibben on Twitter)

P.S. The world record for tweets in a day was set earlier this year, with birthday greetings for the adorably mop-topped teen idol Justin Bieber. Let’s try to beat it.