Hello Family and Friends,

Many know me as a musician but today I am appealing to you on a very different subject that we are all confronted with.

What can we do to protect our world from climate change?  It is an overwhelming challenge that demands a response from all of us.  It starts with actions by each one of us. 

I have signed up to do something amazing!

I have joined Over the Edge in support of the New Jersey Highlands Coalition. Over The Edge is much like it sounds: I will stand on the roof of the Hilton Meadowlands in East Rutherford and step Over the Edge and rappel 200 feet to the ground! I’m not making this up: check out the event website www.give.overtheedge.events/ote-NJHighlands.

I will need your support to get to the top of the building. I am not only going Over the Edge, but I am also committing to raise $1,000 for the New Jersey Highlands Coalition, of which I am a board member.

Since 1998, the New Jersey Highlands Coalition has helped NJ grassroots groups help themselves in the constant battle against ill conceived and destructive land uses.  The particular focus has been on protection of water quality and quantity in the forested Highlands of NJ.  As the challenge of climate change has become increasingly apparent, the Coalition's lens has widened to broad protection of forests on NJ public lands, which are under immense threat from the logging industry.  The threat to publicly owned forests is not confined to NJ either.  Increasingly, logging interests are finding ways to greenwash logging by claiming that forests gain ecological benefit from the wholesale removal of the trees.  I'm not making that up either! 

Forests are key to protecting water quality but are even more important to reducing carbon in the atmosphere, absorbed by living trees and stored in forest soils hen dead trees are able to decompose in the forest.  Protection of forests is the least costly, most technologically feasible method for sequestering carbon that is currently available and there is no time to lose in reducing carbon in our atmosphere.   

How can you help? By making a 100% tax deductible donation to my website here:

https://give.overtheedge.events/92JEV5?ref=ab_8CzLCb 

You may also send checks or money orders made out to insert New Jersey Highlands Coalition at 508 Main St, Boonton, NJ 07005.

The Highlands Coalition's staff, volunteers, member organizations and community partners work to:

• Safeguard the water resources, ecological integrity, biodiversity, and the cultural and scenic resources of the New Jersey Highlands.
• Promote capacity-based planning and protective water policies throughout the 88 municipalities of the Highlands region.
• Educate decision makers and the public statewide about the importance of the Highlands to our economic stability and quality of life
• Create formidable partnerships and alliances to strengthen our advocacy to protect, preserve and enhance the New Jersey Highlands’ natural and cultural resources

Please help me support the great work that the New Jersey Highlands Coalition is doing. I promise to rappel a building in return! Thank you for supporting the Highlands Coalition and helping me to go OVER THE EDGE.

Best wishes,
Laura