By 2006, a powerful climate movement was itching to be born. Awareness was growing, state and local action was accelerating, students were mobilizing, businesses were engaging, investors and entrepreneurs were pioneering solutions. Momentum was building rapidly, but the physical reality of the problem was accelerating at a frightening pace. Despite an extraordinary outpouring of support and commitment, the climate movement still lacked the coherence and moral power to drive solutions as big as the problem. The tinder was dry, but we needed a match.

So, late that year, a small group of diverse leaders gathered and asked themselves: What would it take? How could we support the emergence of a bold, powerful, coherent climate movement? How could we unify the growing public demand for climate solutions that deliver broadly shared economic opportunity? How could we transcend the many institutional and political limitations that divide our efforts and prevent us from developing the collective power and public will we need?

Beginning in April of 2007, these leaders and others met with leaders of environmental, faith, human rights, anti-poverty, business and youth groups as well as policy analysts, communications experts, climate scientists, and many others. We determined that what we needed more than anything was not another new institution, but a place to stand together -- above the level of our separate institutional imperatives and political alignments. We needed a platform on which we could converge to create irresistible public demand for a clear, simple, specific national policy platform that would set America on the road to real solutions.

That place, that platform, became 1Sky -- not a new organization, but a collaborative campaign aimed at bringing hundreds of diverse organizations together in support of a unified platform for transformational change. In the brief time since it was founded, 1Sky has hit the ground running. We are spearheaded by a powerful field operation with a budget to support five organizers in our national headquarters and another 28 full-time organizers co-located with state partners and key constituency organizations, skilled policy staff ensuring our influence on Capitol Hill, a visionary Internet team and experienced communications support. Our campaign now combines the force of more than 164,000 citizen advocates, volunteer Climate Precinct Captains covering 50 states and more than 390 congressional districts nationwide, 3,200 small businesses, and more than 425 diverse allied organizations focused on the environment, social justice, youth, health, humanitarian aid, faith and more. We are all united in a single cause: communicating an urgent, highly visible public demand for a single set of policy objectives -- the 1Sky Solutions -- that will tackle global warming and create millions of new green jobs.

Today, the 1Sky campaign is in full gear. Our non-partisan campaign is focused on delivering bold climate and energy policy in 2009. We're calling for the solutions to match the scale of the problem we are confronting. We're investing 40% of our resources in existing organizations to avoid duplication of work and to reinforce the existing infrastructure. And we're collaborating with local, state and national environmental groups while enlisting new constituencies.

In all of its diversity, a powerful climate movement is beginning to converge. The movement will never fly a single flag, or narrow itself to a single brand or institution, nor should it. Unity, not uniformity, is our goal. We are many; we are diverse; we are growing. And we need to stand together. In the end, we have only 1 sky.

Examples of 2007 Garrison Institute Retreat Attendees

• Betsy Taylor, Consultant, Garrison Institute
  
• Kevin Knobloch, President of Union of Concerned Scientists & Chair, Green Group
  
• KC Golden, Policy Director, Climate Solutions
  
• Jonathan Rose, CEO, Jonathan Rose Companies, Inc.
  
• Kelly Sims Gallagher, Director, Energy Technology Innovation Project, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
  
• Reverend Sally Bingham, Executive Director, Interfaith Power & Light