what you can do

As the international climate meeting in Bali hurtles towards us, you're probably concerned that it may turn into another one of those diplomatic exercises in generating a lot of hot air and the only benefactors will be the hordes of translators making a nice earning. But you can make sure that fingers are pulled out and tough action is taken by contributing to the Climate Message In A Bottle video.

Keeping up with everything that's happening at Greenpeace is a challenge - I work here and sometimes I find it a struggle. But we have got some nifty services to make that a whole lot easier and instead of coming here to find out what the latest news is, we can come to you instead.

For instance, there's a automated service which will send an email when we publish new stories or information on the site. It's a daily digest so you won't be bombarded with emails, and if we don't publish anything you won't receive anything. Also included are links from our del.icio.us page which we use to bookmark interesting news items, blog stories and videos from elsewhere on the web, so you can see what we've been reading in the office.

Follow this link to subscribe to (almost) daily updates from this blog (it takes about two seconds), but we also have email updates for other sections on the site such as press releases, report or videos. Or you can pick the campaign topics you're interested in and updates on those - here's the full list.

Indian farmers campaigning against GM rice near Lucknow earlier this week © Greenpeace

A couple of GM stories have popped up recently over on our international site, one of which requires your help.

For me one of the coolest things about our new-look site is that we're carrying a lot more streaming video courtesy of the good folks at YouTube. But did you know that we now have our own YouTube Greenpeace UK Video Channel?

With 2 billion pairs of eyes expected to be firmly clamped on the Live Earth concerts tomorrow, the word about climate change will be spread far and wide. Although, as George Marshall argues, perhaps enough people already know and they're just waiting to be forced into doing something about it through new laws introduced by their government.

We don't have to wait, though - in fact, we can't wait. Even the most optimistic predictions about the effects of climate change say that we need to take immediate action. So if watching Madonna cavorting around has spurred you on, what can you do here and now? Funny you should ask...

Is your website feeling drab? Is your blog looking a bit boring? We've got just the thing for you - a new set of snazzy banners to add to your site, pointing towards our ongoing campaign to remove old-fashioned and inefficient light bulbs from the shelves of UK retailers.

UPDATE (18/06/07 9.30am): The competition has now closed. Thanks for all the fantastic entries! View the winners, images, animations and other videos.

We have two pairs of Glastonbury tickets to give away to whoever creates the best picture or short video about climate change.

The theme of this year's Glastonbury is climate change, so we're asking you to create a picture or short video on the subject. We'll choose two winners - one picture and one video - and each winner gets a pair of tickets.

Your entry can be about pretty much anything to do with climate change – what you think about it, how it makes you feel, what you're doing about it, what you think others should be doing, the impacts, the solutions etc. It can be serious, heart-breaking, funny or downright daft. It can be a photo, a sketch, a graphic, a film, an animation, mash-up or pretty much any format you like. It can be abstract, with the connection to climate change explained in the title or caption. It just can't be offensive. And videos must be less than two minutes long.