Travelers on the metro in the US capital risk coming facing to face with Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, smiling and wearing an "I Love Guantanamo" T-shirt. The metro billboard is "to remind policymakers that torture is illegal, unethical and a top recruiting tool for the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network," creators from the Avaaz activist group said.

There will be a lot of noise around the world on Sept. 21st when people all over the globe -- from New York to Guatemala to Dakar -- join together in a Global Climate Wake Up Call. Organized by the amazing folks at Avaaz, Oxfam, Greenpeace and 350.org, the Global Wake-Up Call will see people from all walks of life get together in public places to sound the alarm and urge our political leaders to stand up and take bold action at the Copenhagen Climate Treaty

"This is a crisis of leadership. The rich-country G20 leaders -- especially Merkel and Obama -- set themselves a deadline for a climate finance proposal, and then slept right through it," said Ben Wikler of Avaaz. "Until the US, EU and Japanese leaders wake up and put together a serious climate finance plan, there will be a 150 billion dollar pothole on the road to Copenhagen," he told reporters in Pittsburgh for the summit.

The protests were planned as a "wake-up call" for world leaders in advance of the United Nations summit on climate change in New York on Tuesday. Participants in so-called "flash mobs" held up mobile phones synchronized to sound alarms at the same local time, 12:18 p.m., a time chosen because it corresponds with Dec. 18 — the 18th day of the 12th month — and the last day of expected climate treaty talks in Copenhagen, Denmark.

From campaigners TckTckTck and Avaaz to the UK climate secretary's office and the UN, organisations are using the web to harness people power on a scale not seen since Obama's famous digital election strategy. It's not hard to see why.

Environmentalists converged on parliament on Monday and chanted "tick! tick! tick! tick!" to symbolise a wake-up call to world leaders ahead of December's U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen.

"Aung San Suu Kyi 's detention today on spurious charges removes any shred of legitimacy" of the government, said Ricken Patel, director of an online campaign network called Avaaz.org.

“Citizens across the globe are asking world leaders to hold this brutal regime to account,” said Ricken Patel, director of an online campaign network called Avaaz.org. “Aung San Suu Kyi ’s detention today on spurious charges removes any shred of legitimacy.”

In Rome today, a “Strip Mob for Cooler Climate” took place on the Spanish Steps in order to send a message to Silvio Berlusconi to keep his clothes on and get to work on the serious problem of climate change.

The Avaaz Climate Action Factory, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and the Energy Action Coalition hold a rally to urge the House to pass the climate bill.

Not being here at the Port of Spain Summit of the Americas has not stopped Cuba from being the centre of attention of leaders inside and outside of the conference.

EU recovery plans are focusing on environmental investment and manufacturing, but the road is strewn with obstacles

"We still have a massive democratic deficit in the world today and the technology revolution that has been sweeping the globe has allowed people to connect across borders like never before and that is what we are doing. We are trying to connect up this huge global community to be able to take action rapidly and effectively when moments of opportunity on these issues present themselves."

Whatever might unite or devide them, George Bush, Vladimir Putin and the other leaders of the G8 nations will have afresh topic for small talk, and perhaps serious talk, when they meet in Germany this summer. They and their underlings will all have been bombarded with emails from every country in the world urging them to take faster action on climate change - in a campaign mounted by Avaaz.org, a new web based protest movement.

At a preparatory meeting, the Environment Minister Kamoshita pulled up an Indonesian newspaper, the Jakarta Post. Faces of Prime Minister Fukuda, the president Bush and Prime Minister Harper appeared, covering the entire back page of a special section on the Bali negotiations. Under their faces, read the line "No targets, no icebergs, just global disaster coming soon, world don't give in".It was an ad of Avaaz.org Minister Kamoshita reacted: "Japan is regarded as resistance power by the world. Can we get away with this?"Why don't we propose an emission target?" asked the Chief Cabinet Secretary, a comment that was seconded by the Environment Minister and Foreign Minister. This talk convinced the Prime Minister to develop a national mid-term goal.