FARMINGTON – People will gather Saturday across the country to express their desire for Congress to take action to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. A Step It Up 2007 event in Farmington will be one of more than 1,300 events on April 14.

The movement is part of environmentalist Bill McKibben’s call for a grassroots national day of civic action to stop the dramatic increase of greenhouse gases caused by global warming.

Kyla Grasso, a sophomore at the University of Maine at Farmington, has organized a public gathering to take place from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday in front of the Farmington Post Office. All are welcome and she’s hoping that by holding the event downtown instead of at the college, residents will feel more welcome to attend the event.

Along with banners and posters, photos will be taken at each event, she said and forwarded to every member of Congress via the Web.

“Even if only 10 people show up at each gathering,” she said, “multiplied by 1,300 actions planned in all 50 states, that’s quite a statement.”

More than 37 events are being planned in Maine, according to McKibben’s Web site, www.stepitup2007.org. Participants are planning different activities in different areas. Lewiston people, for example, will ride bikes to Augusta on April 14 to hand a statement to Gov. John Baldacci to encourage him to Step It Up. In Portland, a parade along Fore Street, the new waterfront under a 6 meter sea level change, will be followed by speakers, music and exhibits.

Grasso said she became involved after receiving an e-mail about McKibben’s grassroots effort to work on climate change. She visited the Web site to see if one was taking place in Farmington, but was surprised to see there wasn’t. After inquiring where she could go to get involved, she said, she was invited to put one together. Saturday will be the culmination of a couple months work for Grasso, who is studying environmental science and international policy at UMF, and other UMF student volunteers.

McKibben, a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont, Grasso said, was talking to his students about the climate problems and debating what to do when they came up with the Web site, Step it Up, that soon became overloaded. The site had to be redesigned, she said, because of the number of hits it was getting.

“People don’t know what to do,” she said, “we have to have a car. Congress needs to create better emission standards and require car manufacturers to do better.”

For more information, contact Grasso at 778-3856, or e-mail: [email protected]