The title says it all – we’ve gone global. And it’s not just because of Saturday.

Photo courtesy of 350.org (and inspiring people in London, Sydney, and Copenhagen)

I won’t even try to sum up the awesomeness that was the October 24th International Day of Climate Action. Instead, I’m thinking about how this fits into the even bigger awesomeness that is the international youth climate movement:

International Day of Climate Action – Yesterday was the largest day of distributed political activism ever. It was temporarily the top news story globally. While people of all ages can celebrate in making this day happen, youth played a huge role in creating and participating in many of the actions, in spreading the popularity of the day of action, and working behind the scenes (or more likely in the middle of them) as members of the 350.org staff.

The YOUNGOs – International youth have recently become a recognized constituency within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations. Called the YOUNGOs (youth nongovernmental organzations), they now have the same rights, privileges, responsibilities, and representation as businesses, indigenous peoples, or environmental organizations. That couldn’t have happened until youth had developed the size, institutional and policy knowledge, and organizational capacity to handle such a full-contact struggle for a safe, stable future.

Since the first explosion of youth participation in the climate negotiations in December 2005 in Montreal, to the beginnings of an organized, year-round youth presence after the December 2007 negotiations in Bali, we now have a coordinated, lasting, increasingly (but not perfectly) inclusive and diverse coalition of young people from all over the world participating in the climate negotiations year-round, and actually having an impact with our coalition-building, heartbreaking and eye-catching demonstrations, thoughtful policy submissions, and creative and honest speeches.

Global Power Shifts – What only two years ago was a cool, inventive meeting of mostly United States youth climate leaders in 2007 is growing into an international phenomenon. This year saw Power Shift: The Sequel (otherwise known as Power Shift 2009…), Power Shift Australia, Power Shift UK, Power Shift Canada, Power Shift Regional Summits in the U.S.A., and a host of other power(ful) youth climate summits all over the world, that, while maybe not carrying the Power Shift name, definitely continued its legacy of giving youth the tools and energy to remake their world, cleaner and safer. Transformative meetings, like the Indian Youth Climate Network’s Badlaav, shouldn’t have to call themselves by the Power Shift name, but they are empowering youth just the same.

The Next Bold Move – Despite all of this exciting progress, let’s not kid ourselves that we’ve accomplished all we need to. The planet is still warming up. And so are we. The International Day of Action might just have been the next in a continuing series of coordinated youth actions. Earlier this year, international youth staged a coordinated embassy lobbying campaign in almost a dozen cities. Having youth from a bunch of different countries show up at your country’s consulate door to talk about climate change is uncommon enough. Seeing us show up at them in multiple countries in the same week really got their attention.

So what’s next?! What about multiple, coordinated Power Shifts all happening at the same time worldwide? This already sort of happened October 9-11, when UK Power Shift, Power Shift Indiana, and Power Shift Michigan all held summits. Imagine that, but bigger and more diverse, virtually linking summit after summit together, youth literally seeing each other learn the skills and build the passion needed to care for our world and each other. Imagine not just a coordinated embassy letter drop, but massive simultaneous lobbying of legislatures and elected leaders the world over. Imagine an endless string of Power Vote campaigns – election after election in country after country, the same clean energy message echoing planetwide. Imagine youth taking their organized constituency to every major international negotiation affecting our climate, our jobs, our development, our environment, our rights … affecting our very quality of life.

Imagine that, and you’ve just dreamed of change. And we’re making it happen.

Beyond the Numbers (and the Irony)

By Jesse Jenkins, reporting for the Energy Collective and WattHead – Energy News and Commentary

On February 27th-March 1st, 12,000 young leaders from all fifty states, every Canadian province, and about a dozen other nations convened at the Washington D.C. Convention Center for Power Shift 2009, the largest ever gathering of climate and clean energy activists in U.S. history. On Monday, March 2nd, fueled by a fiery passion no snowstorm could chill, thousands stormed Capitol Hill, braving subfreezing temperatures to rally, lobby and even risk arrest in their efforts to ignite a clean and just energy future.

Image credit: Shadia Fayne Wood

If you read the mainstream media’s accounts of this historic weekend, that’s about the extent of the story you likely read. The focus of most coverage was the numbers – 12,000 students, 2,500 protesters, 350 lobby visits – or the supposed irony of a climate rally held amidst a few inches of snow. But beyond the numbers and ironic headlines, there’s a far deeper story on display at Power Shift 2009 – if only the press knew where to look.

I’ve been close to this movement for three years, as both a participant and as a writer and editor chronicling its progress at ItsGettingHotInHere.org, where voices from across the movement share their stories. Rather than wait for the mainstream media to write an in-depth expose on this dynamic and growing movement, I’ll take you behind the scenes to uncover the stories behind the numbers in this three part series:

• Part One focuses on the history of the maturing movement on display at Power Shift 2009
• Part Two takes a look at the diversity of tactics and cutting edge activism employed by the movement
• Part Three looks at how the movement has grown into an expansive effort to build a more sustainable, just and prosperous future and on the road ahead for these young leaders

On February 27th to March 2nd, 12,000 students and recent graduates left their homes and dorms, put on their green hard hats, and headed to the Nation’s Capitol to advocate for green jobs and clean energy solutions at PowerShift09.

Despite driving snow and bitter winds, students lined the West Lawn to rally for PowerShift09

I was one of the 14 percent who attended PowerShift07 just 15 months before, where 6,000 of us came to speak to our Congressmen and women about our demands. PowerShift07 was considered the largest lobby day on climate change in the history of the United States…now just 15 months later- Energy Action- the group behind much of the organizing, was able to double the number and make this the largest lobby day on any issue in our country.

Students gather in the D.C. Convention Center for state breakout lobby training sessions

Standing Room Only

There is power in numbers. You don’t have to convince me on that…but it goes far beyond the “Standing Room Only” signs that hung outside so many of the workshop doors- from “Creative Activism” to “Climate Justice” to “Building a National Movement to Power Past Coal.” There is an electric energy that circulates when humans come together- especially when we are there to unify our voices. That energy is undeniable and unreplicable. It builds ideas, it builds confidence, it builds spirit. It’s the stuff that movements are made of.

Standing room only in much of the rooms

Now I’m not the type to hold hands and sing “Kumbaya,” but there is power in standing in solidarity. I was there once again at our testimony to the Select Committee on Climate Change & Energy Independence, the second time that young people would go on record to encourage, if not implore our Congress to take bold actions. In 2007, I sat behind Billy Parish. This year, I sat behind Jessy Tolkan, the newly anointed Executive Director of Energy Action. It was calmer this year – or maybe a bit more serious. Edward Markey, the Chairman on the Select Committee addressed the crowd first: “To truly launch a renewable revolution,” he began,

“Congress must pass climate legislation that will cap pollution and invest in the technology of tomorrow. It is a moral obligation to the children of the generation testifying today.”

Juan Renosa, a member of the New Mexico Youth Organize – a green jobs program in his state, remarked that the job growth in his area relies on the prison industry, the uranium extraction industry, and the gambling industry. “It puzzles me,” he said to audience, “because New Mexico is #2 in the entire nation for solar potential, and #12 for wind potential. We are literally having an opportunity shine right down on us, but we are letting an opportunity blow right past us.”

Youth delegates testify to the government on climate change and green jobs

Kandi Mosset, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nations in the state of North Dakota and a representative of the Indigenous Environmental Network, emphatically spoke to the uranium mining and tar sand extraction that happens on and near her native lands. She also spoke out on the rare form of cancer (that is not so rare in her homeland) that she was diagnosed with at the tender age of twenty years old.

“Over the last year there have been over 30 cancer-related deaths that I know of on the Forth Berthold Reservation…and I’m here to tell you that I don’t believe that is a coincidence,” she said fighting back her tears and finding her voice. “Indigenous peoples have been systematically targeted by the fossil fuel regime for years…Because our cultures are so dependent on our relationship with the land, we ultimately become economically dependent on our own cultural destruction.”

“There is a wealth of renewable energy on indigenous lands,” she continued, “Wind capacity on our reservations in North Dakota and South Dakota alone are equal to 200,000 megawatts. That is enough energy to produce 1/3 of America’s energy demands. The solar electricity potential generation on Indian lands is 4 1/2 times greater than the current U.S. annual generation.”

It’s this type of emotional upheaval that hits you right in the back of the throat. And the type of information that when you hear uttered from a strong, sensible young woman makes you wonder how on earth we got here – and where in fact, we are all heading…

Erasing the borders

My grandmother had placemats – in fact, she still does – with the North American map confined to it’s 12″x18″ plastic blue borders. The state and national borders were distinctly defined, outlined in solid black lines, each state flaunting it’s own bright hue to show it was different from the next. I used to eat a bowl of spaghetti-o’s and look down at that map, analyzing the different state shapes and learning the state capitals. I would look up to Canada – just a shaded map of gray with no provinces listed – or let my eyes head down south to Mexico – another land body awash in some other tonal color. That’s how we’re taught to think about the world, isn’t it? In a piecemeal fashion – confined by borders, when really, our environmental issues, rights and responsibilities operate in a borderless environment, hitting on the fact that we do not represent just our interests and our rights, but the interests and rights of all beings.

This became much clearer to me upon speaking with our legislative assistant to one of our Senators in the State of Pennsylvania. This year we had the second largest delegation and we spanned from inner city schools in Chester County to rural areas in Bradford County; steel towns in Pittsburgh to old coal mining towns in Scranton…It was a diverse mix of people – something I think we could be very proud of.

A large international delegation came to represent PowerShift09. Since PowerShift07, many other youth-led conferences have cropped up all over the world. Considering that we had such a representative contingent on American-soil is a testament that shows what we do will greatly affect – and matters – to everyone else on the planet.

Some of us were still in a meeting with Spector, our other Senator, but about thirty of us made our way over to Russell Hall to request a meeting with Casey. We couldn’t get an initial scheduled session, so a few of us went to the secretary to request one. Alexander, the Legislative Correspondent, came out to meet us. “Sure I’ll be happy to meet with you three,” he said with gusto.

“Actually, there are a bunch of us waiting in the room over there,” I said pointing.

“Oh,” he said with a hint of surprise. “Did you clear the room with the secretary?” he asked.

“There wasn’t anyone in it, so we just camped out there,” we replied. “And we’re expecting about a hundred more.”

I have to say that our conversation with Alexander was quite amicable. He engaged us with questions for at least twenty-five or so minutes. I looked at him and saw a spark of young, hungry, realistic idealism balanced by the sensibility of the political sphere he works in. He agreed that coal is dirty, but “How -” he asked, “Are we to stop coal production in Pennsylvania, a state that is disproportionately reliant on it? We are not like California. Fifty two percent of our energy demands come from coal,” he remarked…and I can say he was genuinely interested in an answer.

I have to say that we didn’t have all the answers. Here we are asking for bold legislation – cutting carbon dramatically, investing in green jobs, renewable energy investments and representation of the U.S. at Copenhagen’s climate meeting in December – and we don’t have the exact road map on how to get there.

Rainforest Action Network and the Indigenous Environmental Network helped organize a strong voice on tar sands extraction. Most tar sands tailings are just 500 yards away from 1/4 of the clean energy water sources that supply North America. Areas are stripped-mined and piped to be refined.

“I think it will be wise for us,” I began, “to get a number of us here together in this room to form a council that will help research and inventory Pennsylvania’s renewable energy capabilities and help advise and guide you for those answers,” I said.

“That would be extraordinarily helpful,” he remarked. “As you know, we’re not scientists here, and Casey knows this is important and where we need to head,” he said. ” Alexander asked if CO2 is listed as a pollutant by the EPA – whether we would even need to pass legislation. We chorused back that we would need legislation to help with job creation and ensuring we have a cap-and-auction mechanism that provides revenue for clean, renewable energies and job creation. “It’s a good start but it’s not good enough.” He cocked his head towards the ceiling – and nodded in agreement – as if he hadn’t considered that. “And by the way, what do you all think about nuclear?” he asked us all.

I felt a lump form in my throat. The same lump I had in 07 when the last legislative correspondent asked us about “clean coal.” It was the same fist-sized rock that hit me earlier that day when I heard Kandi’s impassioned talk about uranium mining on North Dakota’s land.

“As you know,” I said. “We’re here at PowerShift representing 12,000 young people from all 50 states, every Canadian province, and over a dozen nations. We are here representing a much larger movement – and those of us who couldn’t be with us today. Our environmental issues know no borders. We want clean, renewable energy that is safe for all. The uranium mining that is happening on indigenous lands is causing great sickness – and how we store that waste – is expensive and contentious. We prefer to concentrate on realistic, clean renewables, but we need to the appropriate legislation – and your support to get there.”

Within the next 3-4 months, important climate legislation will be sent to the House and Senate for approval, but our voices need to be heard.

We need more than you vote

For so long, the entire legislative process was enshrouded in mystery for me – and remains that way for so many of us. Of course I would go to the voters booth and cast my vote – sometimes never knowing who the people were on the ballot – and just voting by party lines. I’ve learned however, that our vote doesn’t begin – or even remotely end there. We often talk about our rights – as voting citizens – but much less so on our responsibilities. I firmly believe that it is our individual and collective responsibility to continually be engaged in our democratic process, to learn about the issues that affect us, and to help guide those that we helped put in office. If we do not speak up, those that we hired to speak for us will be silent. And in this case, there is no honor in silence, only missed opportunity.

See you in Copenhagen,

In solidarity,

Summer Rayne Oakes

The video above is a highlight of PowerShift09

Cutaways from the testimonies to the Select Committee on Climate Change & Energy Independence

I’m proud to unveil (and be done with!) the Ohio Student Environmental Coalition 07-08 wrap up video. It features stuff local to Ohio as well as collaborative efforts like Power Shift 07 and Mountain Justice Spring Break 08.

If you think this video is as good as it ought to be considering how much time I spent on it, donate here!

-> You can also grab the full quality (23MB) version which looks prettier.

Anyone who attended Power Shift 2007’s Saturday keynote presentations/festivities was surely struck by the performance of Youth Speaks poet Just Greg. Greg delivered an inspired and powerful performance of his spoken word piece, “There’s Something in the Water” before the pumped up crowd up thousands at Power Shift.

Now, thanks to some digging by Jenny Bedell-Stiles, I can finally post a link to a video of Greg’s performance for those who missed out, or who just want to see it again. I unfortunately can’t seem to embed the video here at IGHIH, but just follow this link to see Greg’s performance of “There’s Something in the Water.”

I’ve been surfing the net all morning trying to catch up on the Energy Bill debate. It’s reminded me of one thing: Congress is a muddy place.

Approval ratings for these people are down around 20%. If you visit on the wrong day, you might catch senators fillibustering popular tax breaks for energy efficiency or flip-flopping and forking over $10 billion to the coal industry. Even our beloved Speaker Pelosi, who rallied the crowd with chants of “80 by 50″ and “we want more” at Power Shift has since gotten her hands dirty along with Senator Reid by plucking clean energy tax credits from the Energy Bill. But, before I suck all the hope out of you and send you screaming for plane tickets to Denmark, there is a bit of good news.

As usual, it all starts with the youngsters. After seeing the compromise House and Senate Energy Bill heading for Yucca Mountain, 19 freshmen lawmakers wrote a letter to Pelosi using football references in an attempt to put the 15% by 2020 Renewable Energy Standard and the 35 mpg fuel economy increase by 2020 “over the goal line”. Sounds like they’re not getting any special gifts from K Street this Xmas. Now, word has it that the Speaker is pushing to split the bill in two and wants a vote next week. She wants to split up the fuel economy increase with the Renewable Energy Standard so that at least one of them can make it through. It sounds like the latter may be in more trouble than the former in the Senate, but who really knows? I do have to hand it to her for acknowledging the youth saying, “We owe it to our children and to our future to act now.”

She’s got that right. Congress owes it to their future to act now, because it doesn’t look like voters are feeling too keen on offering second chances right now. Rather than just sitting around and waiting for them to make the right choice, some folks have busted out a big spotlight in attempt to show them the light on the Energy Bill:

• The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has put together some detailed recommendations for the Energy Bill debate.
• Solar Nation has put out an action alert asking its members to call Congress to save the renewable energy tax credits in the bill.
• Energy Action Coalition has put together a toolkit for taking action on the Energy Bill, emphasizing the RES, the CAFE standards, a $125 million green jobs training program, and the removal of all nuclear, coal, and other dirty subsidies from the bill. The first action in the toolkit is a national call-in day to representatives tomorrow (11/28).

This next week or so is a big deal. With the Bali climate talks on the horizon and the end of the legislative session approaching, this is the chance to build on the momentum from Power Shift before everybody puts on their sweater vests and shoves a bit of coal in the stove for the holidays. Denis Du Bois of Energy Priorities Magazine does a good job of framing the situation in his article, “Energy Bill 2007 Could Give Renewables Green Light — or a Lump of Coal”. Basically, we could either repeal $23 billion in subsidies to Big Oil and give it to renewables or steal the subsidies that these emerging technologies need to grow at a time when they’ve just started to get off the ground.

What’s it gonna be Congress? Are you going to wake up and smell the 21st century or go the way of Pat Buchanan on Hardball?

The following is the testimony delivered by Energy Action Coalition co-founder and coordinator, Billy Parish before the House Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence during Power Shift 2007 Lobby Day, November 5th, 2007.

For those who were there, let us remember that we have delivered a loud and clear message to our leaders on Congress. For those who missed Billy’s inspiring testimony, read on or listen to/watch the video. Let us all keep our call for “Green Jobs”, “80% by ‘50″ and “No New Coal” as loud and clear as it was on the 5th of November. Thanks Billy for this testimony and for all you’ve done:

Thank you, Chairman Markey, for inviting us here today. I want to also thank you and Speaker Pelosi for addressing Power Shift on Saturday night, and for your leadership over the past 30 years on these critical issues. I want to finally recognize the thousands of young people today standing shoulder to shoulder for the largest climate lobby day in U.S. history.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November. An unstoppable movement has taken root in every school and every community in this nation. A generation has come to Washington today to lead, to be heard, and to find allies in this Congress who are ready to do what is necessary to solve our climate crisis.

My name is Billy Parish, and I’m the coordinator of the Energy Action Coalition, a diverse alliance of 46 organizations working to support and strengthen the student and youth clean energy movement in the U.S. and Canada to create change for a clean, efficient, just and renewable energy future. I have brought with me our coalition’s “Youth Statement of Principles on Climate and Energy” and other supporting documents for the Congressional record.

We come here today with three demands for Congress:

1. Create 5 million new jobs through a Clean Energy Corps to weatherize, solarize, rewire and rebuild this country. Let’s put people to work, and create green pathways out of poverty. Green Jobs Now! Green Jobs Now! Green Jobs Now!

2. Cut Carbon at least 80% by 2050, 30% by 2020 and auction 100% of the pollution allowances from day 1. Science tells us we can aim for nothing less. 80 by 50! 80 by 50! 80 by 50!

3. Pass an immediate moratorium on the construction of new coal plants. We should shift all federal subsidies from fossil fuels and nuclear to wind and solar, and create a just transition for workers from the old economy into the new green economy. No Coal! No Coal! No Coal!

We will be heard because at 50 million strong, the Millennial generation outnumbers even the Baby Boomers by 3 million and represents the single-largest demographic age group in this country. Polling data, recent voter turnout, and the swelling ranks and increasing coordination of the youth climate movement all demonstrate that this young generation is engaged and ready to carry out a historic Power Shift. Youth turnout in the past two elections hit the highest level in at least 20 years, and is only on the rise.

We are not alone: youth are assembling coalitions that are bringing together a diverse and powerful set of allies including unions, businesses, people of faith, farmers, civil rights groups and millions more. And we are not just here in D.C., we are in every Congressional district in America – and we are organizing.

Politicians would be wise to take note. Exactly one year from today, we will have a new Congress and a new President. You have one year to prove that you are worthy of being our “representatives” in this government – and if you don’t, you will need to look for a new job, as millions of young voters throw their support behind more progressive, pro-environment candidates committed to ending the climate crisis and protecting the future of our generation.

We will be heard because we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

As the Bush Administration and our federal government has done almost nothing for the last seven years, young people have organized and made change. Through the Campus Climate Challenge, tens of thousands of young people have engaged in the hard work of making their schools models of sustainability for the rest of society. In just the last year, 426 colleges have committed to becoming climate neutral, and more sign on every day.

We are building partnerships with community groups to block the construction of new coal-fired power plants and launch a green wave of urban and rural renewal. As our government abandoned the people of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, tens of thousands of young people dropped everything to serve and rebuild. Over 6,000 of us came to Power Shift this weekend, thousands more took part in Step it Up around the country – a generation of solutions, but we know we cannot do it alone and have come to seek your help.

And we will be heard because we are, quite literally, fighting for our lives.

This can no longer be a political issue – for the survival of our people and our planet, we must put aside partisan politics and come together as humans, as mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, to heal ourselves and our planet.

This is no small task.

As Evon Peter told us on Saturday night, this is not only an ecological and economic crisis, it is a spiritual and cultural crisis that is centuries old. We must begin the long process of reconciliation with the original peoples of this land, with the people that were brought here against their will, especially those from Africa, and all the people that are poorly served by our society. We cannot sacrifice communities for our overconsumption today, not only because it is wrong for those communities today but because we will be sacrificing the basis of life for our children and future generations.

I’m 26 years old and about to become a father. I implore the members of this 110th Congress to hear our demands – but I ask that you hear them not only as politicians, but also as mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. We can do this if we work together, but we must begin today.

1. Green Jobs Now! Green Jobs Now! Green Jobs Now!

2. 80 by 50! 80 by 50! 80 by 50!

3. No Coal! No Coal! No Coal!

Thank you.

Other inspiring testimony from the Select Committee Hearing on Nov. 5th can be found online at The Gavel here.

I just received this sermon from one of our movement’s finest chaplains and co-founder of Religious Witness for the Earth, Reverend Fred Small. I wept when I read it.

The New Youth Climate Movement

A sermon by Rev. Fred Small

First Church Unitarian, Littleton, MA

November 11, 2007

“And now abide faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

So wrote Paul the Apostle to close the thirteenth chapter of his famed letter to the Christian community at Corinth. It’s still my favorite passage in the Bible, no matter no how many weddings I hear it at. Love is the most important thing, the one essential thing, the most powerful force, I believe, in the universe.

And that’s a good thing, because my faith and hope have been taking quite a beating lately. If faith demands confidence in the outcome and hope optimism, then global warming can really do a number on faith and hope.

With accelerating certainty and alarm, the scientists are telling us we’re in for some very rocky times, our children even more so.

It’s really nice that Al Gore won the Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize, but in the nearly two years since An Inconvenient Truth premiered, the United States government has done precisely nothing to stop global warming. Instead of inspiring international cooperation to change how we produce and use energy, the melting of the North Pole has incited an international race to see who can exploit its resources the fastest.

As Lily Tomlin likes to say, “Things are going to get worse before they get even worse.”

So I’m relieved and a little astonished by the news I bring you this morning. News of love, yes, always, but news as well of faith and hope, even in the same breath as global warming.

Last weekend I joined nearly six thousand young people at Power Shift 2007, the first national youth summit to address the climate crisis. One of a handful of middle-aged and elder guests, I sat on a panel on “Faith and Climate” and presented two workshops, “Spiritual Practice in Sustaining Activism” and “Songs and Song-leading for Activists.” I felt honored to have been invited, but I felt awed to be in the presence of these dedicated young people as they come into their power, and not a moment too soon.

The new youth climate movement is big, it’s diverse, it’s savvy, and it’s determined.

These young people know they’re the first generation ever to inherit a habitat globally damaged by their parents, and frankly they’re not thrilled about it. They’re not going to settle for political lip service or corporate greenwashing. These kids are dead serious, they’re wicked smart, and they’re fired up.

Thousands of teenagers, college students, and twenty-somethings streamed to the University of Maryland campus for Power Shift. They came from all fifty states, 300 congressional districts, and more than twenty countries. For three days they listened to speakers like Nancy Pelosi, Ed Markey, Bill McKibben, Winona LaDuke, George Lakoff, and Van Jones, as well as their own youth leaders. They attended panels on environmental justice, human rights, alternative energy, green jobs, communications, lobbying, and voter registration. They jammed classrooms for workshops with titles like “Strategic Tools for Movement Building,” “Non-Violent Direct Action 101,” “History & Principles of Environmental Justice,” “Ecofeminism,” “Wind Power on Campus”, “Digital Organizing,” “How to Be the most Persuasive Person in the Room,” and “Preparing for Bali: Effective Youth Engagement in Global Negotiations.”

The young people I encountered struck me as idealistic, pragmatic, and eager to learn.

Christians, Jews, and Muslims attending the “Faith and Climate” panel sought scriptural and religious grounding for climate stewardship. Others less religious were curious how faith might support and inform activism. A number were delighted to be introduced to Unitarian Universalism. At the workshop I led on spiritual practice, participants were looking for practical tools to sustain their commitment and avoid burnout. My workshop on songs and songleading, attended by over thirty singers, reviewed the powerful impact of singing in movements past and shared tricks of the trade. Misreading the schedule, I arrived ten minutes late to find the room already filled with song. They were teaching each other!

Power Shift was far and away the most racially diverse environmental gathering I’ve ever witnessed. Sure, white folks were in the majority, but people of color were everywhere-in the seats, on staff, as presenters, as performing artists, and as keynote speakers. African-American teenagers sported t-shirts emblazoned with the words “Green the Ghetto.” Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr. President of the Hip Hop Caucus, fulminated against global warming with the fervor of a Baptist preacher denouncing fornication. One African-American hip hop artist rhapsodized on “the energy between God, Mother Earth, and me”; another linked polar bears, the evacuees of New Orleans, and detainees at Guantanamo.

Faith Gemmill of the Gwich’in people of Alaska told us of the Porcupine River Caribou Herd, upon which the Gwich’in have depended for subsistence since the dawn of time. Each spring, the caribou cross the frozen Porcupine River to reach their calving grounds in the north. But in 2000, the river thawed early, blocking their migration. The pregnant caribou dropped their calves on the southern bank, but instinct demanded they reach the safe haven of their calving grounds or perish. The mothers plunged into the swollen river, calling their calves to follow. 45,000 calves drowned.

Majora Carter, Executive Director of Sustainable South Bronx, told us global warming is an issue transcending race. “Don’t all people want beauty in their lives?” she asked. “Don’t we want all of our people to be happy, healthy, and productive people? Everybody needs someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. If people don’t feel that their life is contributing to something, they feel isolated, angry, and alone. Don’t we all want to be part of a larger movement to improve the society we share?”

The United States, she lamented, represents just 5% of the world’s population, but 25% of the world’s greenhouse emissions-and 25% of the world’s incarcerated. Her voice broke as she spoke of one in three African-American men facing imprisonment in their lifetime. “I am tired of looking at my brothers and sisters and praying they beat the odds. I am tired of thinking, ‘Which one is going to be doing time because of opportunities denied?’” She led thousands of us in a chant: “Green jobs, not jails! Green jobs, not jails!” “I need to hear you say it,” she entreated, and who could deny her?

With so many voters in one place, it didn’t take long for politicians to come calling. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Ed Markey both appeared unscheduled Saturday night on the main stage.

Congressman Markey spoke first. In full-throated Ted-Kennedy-style rhetoric, he had the crowd cheering his call for youth to lead in against global warming. They cheered again when he called for legislation to increase fuel economy and support renewable energy. But when he boasted the bill would reduce global warming pollution by 40%, the cheers turned into a chant: “We want more! We want more! We want more!” and then “80 by 50! 80 by 50! 80 by 50!” meaning 80% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2050, which is what the scientists say we’ll need to stop global warming. It seemed to me a pretty sophisticated chant for five thousand kids.

Congressman Markey, figuring if he couldn’t beat ‘em, he’d better join ‘em, led a brief chant of “Hey, Hey, What do you say? Global warming stops today!” and swiftly surrendered the stage to Nancy Pelosi.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives immediately endorsed 80% by 2050. She compared the assembled youth to the “magnificent disrupters” who founded the United States of America. The crowd responded positively, although I noticed one young man standing silently throughout her speech holding aloft a human spine (whether real or replica, I couldn’t tell) as if in offering.

Later that evening, Bill McKibben, at age 46 the grand old man and reluctant rock star of the climate movement, ascended the stage flanked by the shock troops of the Step It Up campaign a generation younger. “I got to tell you what you guys look like out there,” McKibben began, leaning his gangly frame into the microphone. “You look like a movement. . . . This is the next great movement on this planet, and we better get it right or it will be the last great movement on this planet. You can’t just change your campus, you’ve got to change your world. My colleagues behind me in Step It Up have organized 2000 demonstrations in all fifty states of this country. You can see the impact of all this organizing tonight. A year ago 80/50 was a radical idea, and tonight the most powerful person in the US Congress was leading a chant with those numbers. In twenty years of working on this, in twenty years of fearing on this, tonight’s the most hopeful I’ve ever been.”

On Monday, thousands of young people energized by the conference and trained in lobbying descended on the Capitol, rallied on the steps, and visited hundreds of lawmakers. Many wore green hard hats to dramatize their demand for green jobs, They crammed the hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming (chaired by Congressman Markey).

Among those testifying was Billy Parish, founder of Energy Action, which organized Power Shift. At 26, Billy is now an elder statesman of the youth climate movement. “In four months I will be a father,” he told the panel. “I urge you to consider what we say, not as politicians, but as fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. This is our future. . . . We will solve this [crisis], but we cannot do it without you. And if you do not join us, then find yourself another job. We are in the millions, and we are organizing. We put you in office and we will take you out of office. This is our lives at stake.”

When Billy Parish says we solve this crisis, he doesn’t know when or at what cost. He doesn’t know how much damage already will have been inflicted on our precious earth. He doesn’t know how much suffering we will endure before we learn the lesson of ecological and spiritual interdependence.

Neither do I.

In my spiritual practice workshop, I reminded the young people that Mahatma Gandhi had persisted in more than a half-century of devoted activism by heeding the counsel of the Bhagavad Gita: “Action alone is in your control. It never extends to the fruits. Be not attached to the fruits of action nor be attached to inaction.”

Who knows what the future holds? Maybe the skeptics are right, and global warming will turn out to be vastly overestimated. Wouldn’t that be relief? Or maybe we’re already doomed and just don’t know it. All we can do is act with courage and integrity on the best knowledge we have.

“As for prophecies, they will come to an end. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will come to an end.” Only love never ends.

But like Bill McKibben, in the glow of Power Shift I find myself strangely hopeful. Thousands of young people are taking the information, skills, and contagious energy of Power Shift back to their schools, colleges, and communities, and the movement will multiply. However dire the threats we face, as these young people take up the watch, the earth is in good hands.

The day after Power Shift 2007, a second-year student at New College of Florida named Amy Ortiz posted a blog on itsgettinghotinhere.org, an online forum of the youth climate movement. She captures the spirit of this movement far better than I ever could.

“The whole experience at Power Shift 2007,” Amy writes, “was one of such incredible joy and optimism. Unlike most experiences I have had with climate change focused events, it didn’t feel like we were facing incredible, unsurmountable odds. Instead, I felt empowered, inspired and activated. This weekend, I realized more than ever before, that we CAN do it, and we WILL do it. As youth, we have the vision, passion and inspiration to lead our country towards the just, clean energy future we all dream of.”

Amen.

Choice speaker clips from Power Shift with exclusive interviews with Van Jones and Majora Carter. “We don’t want people using our need for Oil, with their need to go to war.” – Nancy Peloci at Power Shift.

Power Shift was a powerful experience for me. I am happy to finally post the first “official” video from the California Student Sustainability Coalition. CSSCTV will be following the movement as it grows and we hope to share the experience with all our new friends from Power Shift.  This video contains new footage from Van Jones, as well as an Interview with one of the sexiest men alive, Billy Parish.

Want to know which “Final 50″ members of the House of Representatives stand between the status quo and real action to stop global warming? Good, because the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) wants to name names.

NWF just launched a campaign to build support for global warming legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The “Final 50″ campaign targets 50 representatives who have supported solutions to global warming – renewable energy, energy efficiency, etc. – but have yet to join the 170 other representatives who have co-sponsored either the Waxman (HR 1590, equivalent to Boxer-Sanders in the Senate) or the Olver-Gilchrest (HR 620, equivalent to McCain-Lieberman) cap-and-trade climate bills.

If the Final 50 sign on to global warming legislation, that would push the total number of representatives supporting climate change bills to 220, a majority of the 435-person U.S. House of Representatives.

Head to the Final Fifty site or read on below to see if your representative is one of the Final Fifty.

NWF’s “Final Fifty”:

Jason Altmire
Joe Baca
John Barrow
Melissa Bean
Judy Biggert
Mary Bono
Ginny Brown-Waite
Vern Buchanan
Jim Cooper
Tom Davis
Charles Dent
Joe Donnelly
Mike Ferguson
Vito Fossella
Rodney Frelinghuysen
Jim Gerlach
Gabrielle Giffords
Charles Gonzalez
Bart Gordon
Tim Holden
Darlene Hooley
Bob Inglis
Tim Johnson
Marcy Kaptur
Dale Kildee
Carolyn Kilpatrick
Peter King
Tim Mahoney
John McHugh
John Murtha
James Oberstar
Collin Peterson
Tom Petri
Todd Platts
Ciro Rodriguez
Mike Ross
John Salazar
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin
David Scott
Chris Smith
Vic Snyder
Zack Space
John Spratt
Bart Stupak
Betty Sutton
Tom Udall
Fred Upton
Melvin Watt
Heather Wilson
Frank Wolf

Head to www.final50.org to see the profiles of the representatives and to take action.

The thousands of students and youth at Power Shift 2007 must have made an impression on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi, who attended the massive Saturday night festivities at Power Shift and delivered a presentation to a crowd hungry for action from Congressional leaders had this to say in a youth-focused email newsletter sent yesterday:

Young Activists are Shifting the Power

The 110th Congress has a powerful and effective ally to combat climate change: America’s youth. Last week, thousands of students from the Power Shift 2007 Summit flooded the steps of the Capitol to show their commitment to a green future, where Speaker Pelosi addressed these young activists.

“As you demonstrate today, young people want to end global warming and preserve the planet—God’s beautiful creation,” she said.

The students extended their efforts by testifying in front of a committee established by Speaker Pelosi—the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming—in favor of active measures to improve the planet’s environment.

Two key priorities for this Congress are fighting climate change and working toward energy independence. Speaker Pelosi has highlighted these issues by establishing the “Green the Capitol” initiative. This project outlines a plan for the House to completely offset its carbon emissions by the end of this session of Congress. It also includes a plan to cut the House’s energy consumption by half in 10 years.

“An unstoppable movement has taken root in every school and every community in this nation,” said Billy Parish, co-founder of the Energy Action Coalition, in his testimony last Monday. “A generation has come to Washington today to lead, to be heard, and to find allies in this Congress who are ready to do what is necessary to solve our climate crisis.”

The email included links to video highlights from the Congressional testimony and to several blog and news stories focusing on Power Shift. (But where’s the link to It’s Getting Hot In Here Madam Speaker?)

Later in the email newsletter, Speaker Pelosi has this to say about America’s youth:

Speaker Pelosi: Young People are Hungry for Progress

Recently, Speaker Pelosi accepted a Spirit of Liberty Award from People for the American Way. During the ceremony, she spoke about the continuous optimism of America’s youth, from the time of the Founding Fathers to today.

Speaker Pelosi noted that more than one quarter of those who drafted our Constitution were in their twenties and thirties. She said their optimism and impatience for progress were valuable in the founding of our nation.

“With the impatience of youth, these young leaders founded our democracy,” she said. “In my recent travels as Speaker, I have met with presidents, prime ministers, and kings. But I have been most impressed and inspired by my encounters with young people like you. Young people around the world are hungry for progress. They want to know if their leaders have the courage to stop war. They want equality, democracy, and freedom.”

Read Speaker Pelosi’s full speech>>

We’re glad to be you allies, Madam Speaker. And damn right we’re impatient! Now let’s go get us a good energy bill, shall we? We’re with you if you can stay strong!

For video of Pelosi’s speech at Power Shift see here (part 1) and here (part 2).

[A tip of the hat to Sean Siperstein for sending along the email from Pelosi]

If you made it to Power Shift (and that’s well over 5,000 of you), we need your feedback – please take a couple minutes to complete the Power Shift 2007 Survey.

Your responses will help us plan the next awesome conference and build a bigger, stronger movement. And if you participated in the Lobby Day, we want to hear your stories, so we can find out who the real leaders in Congress are and keep putting the pressure on our politicians. Thanks for all your hard work!

“With the Millennials set to be the largest demographic bloc in America history, it might be time for Washington to listen” to them when it comes to Climate Change, says Time Magazine in an article published online last week.

In the wake of Power Shift 2007 and Step It Up 2, Time Magazine ran a story featuring interviews with Energy Action’s Jessy Tolkan, 20-year old University of Tennessee-Knoxville junior, Katelyn McCormick, and yours-truly, Jesse Jenkins of the Cascade Climate Network. The story is accompanied by a long podcast interview with author, activist and Step It Up co-founder Bill McKibben.

After talking about Power Shift in the intro paragraphs, the article gets into the main story: individual actions are insufficient to solve the climate crisis and it’s high time to organize for climate solutions:

Over the past few years there has been a grassroots groundswell on global warming, but the focus has been on personal action, small behavioral changes individuals can make — or more often, buy — to reduce their impact on the Earth. It’s the light bulb theory — switch your wasteful incandescent lights for more energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs, and you’re doing your bit to save the planet.

But while individual action is important — and the increasing ubiquity of green consumerism is a sign that the business world is getting the environmental message — the sheer scale of the climate challenge is so overwhelming that only a worldwide revolution in the way we use energy will be enough to stave off the worst consequences. That requires far-sighted political action from the top, starting in the capital of the world’s biggest carbon emitter: Washington. Unfortunately, while scattered cities and states across America have begun to move on climate change — Gov. Schwarzenegger, take a bow — the federal government has been more roadblock than revolutionary.

That will change only if politicians hear loud and clear that global warming matters to Americans, not just in the brand of light bulbs they buy, but where they cast their vote. The focus on individual solutions “rings hollow to a lot of people,” says Jesse Jenkins, a member of the Cascade Climate Network and an environmental blogger. “The solution is to organize and organize and organize.” And the agents of that change will be young people like Jenkins and Tolkan, the college-age members of the Millennial generation, born after 1980. These post Cold War kids have grown up with the threat of global warming — just as their parents grew up with the fear of nuclear war — and they know that they’ll be left to cope with a warmer world tomorrow if nothing is done to slow carbon emissions today.

So can Millennials shake off their reputation for apathy and create environmental change on a national level? Last weekend suggests they might be on their way. At the Power Shift conference, student activists gave testimony to members of Congress and demanded a slew of aggressive measures on climate change, including a 30% cut in carbon emissions by 2020 and 80% cuts by 2050. While students marched on Washington, activists from around the country launched Step It Up 2 on Nov. 3, a nationwide, single-day campaign to kickstart political movement on climate change. …

For the Millennials, climate change is emerging as the defining issue of their time, just as civil rights or Vietnam might have been for the generation before. “This is a new generation that sees itself at the forefront of a great movement, just like the greatest movements of the past,” says Tolkan. With health care, Iraq and the economy all jostling for voters’ attention, it remains to be seen whether climate change — still an amorphous threat to most Americans — can seize center stage, but Washington should know that there is a growing core of young activists out there who care about nothing more. “This past weekend, we gave politicians a bit of a heads up that we’re watching and we’re demanding change,” says Katelyn McCormick, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. “We’ve said what we want and now it’s time for them to do something about it.” With the Millennials set to be the largest demographic bloc in America history, it might be time for Washington to listen.

Sounds like someone read this…

Widely reported in the news today is the fact that Hilary Clinton’s campaign “planted” a question in the audience.  What was the question the Clinton campaign was so eager to have asked?

“As a young person, I’m worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?”

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007.  The DAY AFTER POWER SHIFT.  The day after we take to the nation’s capital to demand action on climate change, the leading democratic candidate for president has a question about youth and climate change planted at her Iowa rally. 

The coverage of Presidential elections in the American media is sadly more about appearance than substance.  I’ve scoured the web looking for her answer to this question.  All I can find is this:

“ Well, you should be worried.  You know, I find as I travel around Iowa that it’s usually young people that ask me about global warming.”

NONE of the sources I find actually go into her plan to combat climate change.  NONE.  OK.  A question was planted.  Clearly she had something she wanted the people to hear.  What was it?  The press didn’t seem to think that was important.

 It seems like this might be a solid opportunity for some Letters to the Editor.

 The press missed the real story:  youth are demanding climate solutions, and politicians are paying attention.  Let’s help them see that.

As we recover from Power Shift the message that Nancy Peloci sent us rings true, we want a new direction as a country. We are locked into a war with a country that has never attacked us, over a resource that will eventually run out. It is as if we are playing a game of “Who wants to use all the worlds oil?” in prime time on Fox. It is in these times that voices emerge and challenge us to put our actions where our ideals are, and deciding how to take those actions can be hard. What message do I send? What is my voice?

I also agree with Teryn Norris’ statement that we must leave behind our focus on “the “planetary crisis” and the regulatory-centered agenda, and embrace an energetic and inspiring vision that captures people’s minds, hearts and votes.” The key that we must not forget as we forge these new politics, is who we are doing this for. I am a father, and when I look into the eyes of my son I do not want to think about a crisis, I want to think about an opportunity. If we can’t agree on global warming as a nation, can we at least agree that sustainable living with renewable energy and practices cuts down on air polution? Cuts down on landfills? The Church of fossil fuel will no longer be able to wage a war in our names when we stop praying at the pump in its name.

Continue reading “Sustainability vs. the Crisis Catch Phrase”

I wrote this in response to Teryn Norris’ post on crisis and regulation. Coming out of Power Shift, the voice of the climate movement has never been stronger in Congress. Let’s not muzzle it.

I agree that climate activists and Al Gore should absolutely be focusing on a positive, bold vision for the future and should lobby hard for major investments in the clean energy economy. That is exactly what has gotten us to where we are now, a powerful and vibrant movement that is starting to re-write the playbook for U.S. politics on energy. However, I think it is dangerous for Norris, along with Shellenberger and Nordhaus, to say that we should not also be pushing for hard regulations as well. As we build our movement and begin to gain political power, it is more essential than ever to both define what we are for and what we are against. If we do not fight the status quo, our proposals will be co-opted by corporate interests, Big Coal and Big Oil will rein for many years to come, and people at the bottom of the political and economic food chain will be exploited in the name of clean and green.

The main problem I had with Shellenberger and Nordhaus’ last major essay, the “Death of Environmentalism” was not the substance of their arguments, but the antagonistic approach the authors took toward what had come before them. Three years after this text was published in 2004, green is more popular than ever and we have a smarter and more powerful movement than ever before. Clearly it has been proven that environmentalism did not have to die in order that something better could emerge. Part of what has made this shift possible is the work of Al Gore to call a spade a spade and get the word out that we are reaching a real planetary crisis on climate change. Before An Inconvenient Truth came out, most U.S. environmentalists were timid about calling climate change a crisis and the public responded by dropping the issue to the bottom of their concerns. Granted, we still have a long way to go toward making climate a top voting issue, but I would argue that the way toward doing that does not involve abandoning a sober description of the problem as a crisis that demands action now, not in ten years.

A major shift in incentives and investments is sorely needed, which is why many of us have been pushing for things like 5 million green-collar jobs and a major shift in subsidies away from dirty energy toward clean technology. However, there are some very crucial regulations that I believe ought to go along with this shift in dollars. The coal, oil, and gas industries are not going to abandon their core business without a fight. Big banks and other major investors aren’t going to make this shift without clear signals from government and consumers. Part of what we need is to reduce the cost of the clean energy economy. However, we also need to increase the cost of the dirty energy economy.

If CO2 enacts a cost on society, it should be internalized in the price of dirty power. If mountaintop removal coal mining, oil and gas resource wars, and the disposal of nuclear waste were better internalized in the price of those resources, we would have transitioned away from them years ago and perhaps never reached the point of destabilizing the climate. Carbon cap and auction and a carbon tax are two ways to internalize climate impacts into the energy market. The merits of each have been debated in this forum many times before. In addition, members of the Energy Action Coalition and the 1Sky campaign believe we need an immediate moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. This regulation alone would do far more than any new investment program to keep countless tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Other important regulations that would do an enormous amount of good include an increase in CAFE standards, a national Renewable Electricity Standard, a ban on incandescent light bulbs, and a requirement that businesses report their carbon emissions.

I believe that now is the time for bold action and bold activism. I am not one to equate the current climate movement with the civil rights movement of the 60s. Until people are being shot and beaten in the streets for defending what they believe in after decades of legalized discrimination and oppression, the comparison just won’t make that much sense to me. However, since it has been brought up, I will say that if the civil rights movement had waited for public opinion to come around on segregation before taking a stand for exactly what was needed to end it, Jim Crow may still be in place today.

While it is important to be smart about our activism and to remain in touch with the motivations of everyday Americans, this is not the time to follow public opinion polls. It is the time to re-make them. As we reach tipping points on climate change and corporations start to dig in their heels politically, we will have no choice but to fight for what our future demands. We demand green jobs now, 30% reductions by 2020, and no new coal!

Global Warming After Gore
By Teryn Norris
Published: Alternet.org, Nov 10th

Al Gore’s Nobel Prize was a momentous event we should all applaud. Now it is time to move on and get smart about the climate movement’s next steps. First, we should deal with some of our own inconvenient truths: global warming continues to rank extremely low among voter priorities, and Congress is going nowhere fast. The question we should ask ourselves is, how can the climate movement retool its politics for the post-Gore era?

It is high time for global warming activists to leave behind their focus on the “planetary crisis” and the regulatory-centered agenda, and embrace an energetic and inspiring vision that captures people’s minds, hearts and votes.

Despite last year’s “tipping point” in public attitudes toward climate change, Pew polls find that it still ranks dead last among voter concerns. It is of little surprise, then, that the Washington Post ran a front-page article on recently titled “Climate Is a Risky Issue for Democrats.” Nor is it surprising that the best provisions of today’s congressional energy bill would still allow U.S. carbon dioxide emissions to grow 22 percent by 2030, effectively making the recommendations of the world’s leading scientists unattainable.

One of the most hopeful signs is young activists, who are already making the breakthroughs necessary to build an expansive climate movement. The Campus Climate Challenge has rapidly grown to include over 500 colleges and achieved hundreds of innovative clean energy policies across the country. Power Shift 2007, the first-ever national youth summit on global warming, drew 6,000 students to Washington, D.C., last weekend and featured guests ranging from Nancy Pelosi to Van Jones. Indeed, the youth movement is quickly becoming the largest and most influential student movement in nearly a half century.

How can young activists best capture the moment? Thomas Friedman offered some ideas in his recent op-ed, “Generation Q.” He said that today’s young adults are “too quiet, too online, for [their] own good, and for the country’s own good.” We’ve got to wake up, he said, and reform our tactics: “Activism can only be uploaded, the old-fashioned way — by young voters speaking truth to power, face to face, in big numbers, on campuses or the Washington Mall.”

But Friedman is mistaken. It is easy to get nostalgic for the ’60s, but the direction of today’s youth movement must be profoundly different from that of the baby-boomer era. Vietnam was about stopping a war. Civil rights were about equalizing freedoms. The energy and climate movement, in contrast, is about creating an entirely new clean energy economy — a fundamentally different undertaking that requires us to transcend the models of the past.

The “old-fashioned” tactics of protest, demand and complaint just aren’t enough. Global warming is one of the most complex challenges the world has ever faced, vastly different from those of the 1960s. It calls upon us to innovate, politically and economically, at an unprecedented scale. Our politics must be retooled, not only to achieve immediate policy changes but to create new and lasting political majorities. And instead of constraining our economy, we need to unleash it, driving our engineers, scientists and manufacturers to hone their skills and knowledge, and put these forces to work toward building the next energy economy.

A powerful climate movement — one capable of capturing the public imagination, defining new political identities and fully unleashing our economy — should put forth an even stronger vision of American greatness than the neoconservatives once offered. It must tap the optimism and can-do spirit embedded in our nation’s history that has driven us to overcome the daunting crises of the past. “A new story of American Power begins by acknowledging what our country is great at: imagining, experimenting and inventing the future,” argue Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, authors of Break Through. “First we dream — and then we invent.”

An “American Power” program would advance a massive public investment project — $300 billion to $500 billion — to develop and deploy clean energy technology, revitalize the economy, achieve energy independence and create millions of new jobs. Its politics would thus begin from a position of strength — innovation, economic growth and national security — speaking to the aspirations and securities that we all value as our birthright. And it would renew America’s global leadership by dedicating us to responsible energy use and creating drastically cheaper forms of clean technology for the developing world.

The opportunity for such a resounding vision couldn’t be greater. The failure of the Iraq War and the collapse of the Bush presidency have left the American public hungry for an inspiring message that gives us new direction. Redefining American greatness around our inventiveness can unite us behind a common purpose, invigorating us to unleash our forces of innovation.

Today the climate movement faces a choice. As it begins to emerge from the margins of the national debate, it can revitalize itself to become potent and expansive, or it can continue to define itself by an old-fashioned activism. Whether the movement will fully seize the moment is uncertain. But one thing is clear: Young people must begin advancing a new politics if we are to overcome this challenge and achieve a more secure and prosperous future.

With the wrap-up of Power Shift, youth activists are getting the attention they deserve – testifying before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and being featured on Treehugger, Discovery Networks, and Sierra Club Radio. Oh yeah, and our own Jessy Tolkan destroying Pat Buchanan on Hardball. Post any more media hits you have in the comments!

Treehugger:

“Ring, Ring,” Elizabeth Martin-Perera, a Climate Policy Specialist with the NRDC’s Climate Center picks up the phone. It’s an acquaintance at BP. The voice on the other end asks, “What is this Power Shift thing that I keep hearing about. Is it something I should know about? Should I be concerned?” Powershift: Save the Polar Bears, Save the Humans

Discovery Channel:

Young People bring Green Demands to Capitol Hill. See it here

MTV:

Thousands of students from across the country gather in Washington, D.C., to shift attention to climate change and other green causes. See it here.

Sierra Club Radio

Sierra Club Radio host Orli Cotel is featuring a special show on “Youth and the Environment.” The radio show interviews 17-year-old activists Q’ Orianka Kilcher and Erica Fernandez, winners of this year’s Brower Youth Award and Kim Teplitzky from Power Shift 07, the largest youth climate conference that took place this past weekend in Washington D.C. Also featured is Sierra Magazine’s list of Top 10 “green” colleges and universities with Sierra Club’s Jennifer Hattam. Download and listen to it yourself!

This is a letter I just sent to the Energy Action Coalition/Power Shift 2007 organizing team.  Please add your thanks in the comments below…

Dear beautiful Power Shift/Energy Action people,

I wanted to write to thank you sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, for making this past weekend at Power Shift 2007 possible.  Power Shift was simply incredible: incredibly inspiring, incredibly energizing and incredibly empowering!

We certainly made an impact this weekend: on Nancy Pelosi who didn’t know what she was in for when she stepped on stage Saturday night but now certainly knows what we’re looking for in our leaders; on anyone who saw the stirring and heartfelt testimony at Monday’s Congressional hearing; on anyone who saw the hordes of Power Shifters that took over the halls of the House and Senate office buildings all day on Monday; on the legislative staffers who didn’t know how to respond to a dozen fervent, articulate and committed young citizen-lobbyists who came to their offices demanding green jobs, science-based carbon reductions and no new coal; and most importantly, on each other – on the thousands of amazing young people who you helped bring together to meet, learn from, inspire, and empower each other.

I’m still moved to tears of joy and tingle with goose-bumps as I write this letter.  I assumed I’d be exhausted when I got home from Power Shift, but instead, I’ve been buzzing with so much energy I feel like I’m on a caffeine high that’ll never end!

And just think about the tremendous impact that 6,000 young people will have when they go home to their campuses and communities with that kind of new energy, with new friends and connections, new ideas and projects, and a new sense of power, commitment and purpose!  This is how movements are built.

So thank you, thank you, thank you all for the long hours, the hard work, and the persevering vision that resulted in Power Shift 2007, the most amazing weekend of my life.  You’ve given us all a priceless gift, and for that, we will be forever grateful.

Sincerely, your friend,

Jesse Jenkins
_____________________________________
It’s Getting Hot in Here and WattHead blogger,
Cascade Climate Network co-founder, and
Your friend in Oregon if you ever need one.

You couldn’t slap the grins (and some tears) off our faces as we sat with six thousand students dedicated to changing the world this weekend at Power Shift.

It was incredible to be in the same spot at the same time with thousands of other people our age who get it and want to do something about it.

We needed it.

We needed to know there were that many of us who cared (and think of all the people who couldn’t make it).

But now the real work starts. This weekend alone will not force our leaders to listen and act – we’ve just begun to heat things up – we need to engage them in their districts with some serious education.

If anything inspires us more than the raw enthusiasm unleashed this weekend, it’s what that enthusiasm will become when we all head back to our campuses and gear up for Focus the Nation. We used to think January 31st would be huge; now we know it is going to change the world!

In less than 90 days, millions of student-citizens will combine the knowledge of academia with the drive our generation has sparked by creating the largest teach-in in U.S. history.

Not only will we help more people get educated on the issue, we will take that knowledge into a solution-oriented discussion with politicians where we get to grill them on how well educated they are on this crisis. And then, we’ll vote on top solutions and send the word back to Washington DC and our state capitols.

Will your campus and community make history? Is your community a part of the solution yet? How can you make it happen there?

Check out our new Organizers HQ with all the tools you need to harness this weekend’s excitement back at home and lead your community to the brighter, cleaner, more just future we deserve and demand.

Consider this a call to all who were moved this weekend by Power Shift and Step it Up to come home and Focus the Nation so we can hit DC with another wave February 1^st. Let’s keep the heat on!

Watch the 11/06 DISCOVERY NEWS clip on Power Shift 07 HERE. Discovery gives a great overview of the rally and testimony. Let’s here it for the people that support us!

Power Shift 2007 has come and gone. Again I will acquaint myself with the concept of sleep, meals might once again occur three whole times in the same day and the whereabouts of the nearest 9v Battery retailer will cease to haunt my dreams.

As a part of “I Shot Power Shift” I spent my days dragging camera and crew to and from speakers, sneaking into panels and placing our CSSC flagged microphone in the face of anyone willing to talk to us. Even though Power Shift is over, and I will again focus on my own personal sustainability, I am going to sorely miss playing in that playground with my new friends.

I want to share a story with you, be it related to Power Shift at your own discretion.

I spent my weekend with fellow CSSCers Nikki Henderson (who introduced Nanci Peloci) and Montgomery Norton. Both were voluntold for video hosting duty, and both were my heroes keeping me healthy while I filmed Power Shift with a nasty cold. We did not sleep in the same place twice, bouncing from one friends floor to the next friends couch, we transferred our gear so many times we were bound to lose something, and we did.

I packed my backpack light, my laptop, a book about slowing down in life, an iPod, and my Nintendo DS. Each has a price tag and importance to me and I was feeling quite screwed realizing they were lost to me. As I thought of the items I’d brought in my backpack, I slowly came to accept that while these material things were lost to me, they were really not required items in my role on the CSSC Media Team. Watching Van Jones speak would not be enhanced by my iPod, having a video game handy would not help me while I was interviewing Majora Carter. These toys in my life were distractions, things I would utilize to kill time.

It was walking into a meeting in the Senate Office that I came to terms with my lost possessions. These things were not who I was, nor were they required to fulfill my mission at Power Shift. I had accepted that I would never see them again. Then the phone rang.

It was our good friend Ildiko, she had learned that my bag was not lost to the Taxi gods like I had feared, it was in fact simply sitting against the couch I had snored from the night before. These material possessions that were lost to me, as they were, toys and distractions, and only after I accepted that I was not reliant on them to function were they returned to me, but not as they were. The book about taking life slow will no longer be read to fix me, but to enhance me. My iPod and Video Game will compliment my down time, not create an excuse to slack off. My laptop returned as a resource, and not a technological leash.

To borrow from Mr. Parish’ testimony before congress, I am the one I have been waiting for. My actions in combating the climate crisis are what is important in my life, my attachment to my technology as necessary components to my success is my own reflection of who I felt I needed to become. It took panicking about losing my prized distractions at Power Shift to realize that my actions will go on because of my heart, and my faith that we are doing the right thing. All I can do is get out of the way of my own self, and believe in this new movement, our one movement.

Mr. Parish was right in addressing Congress, we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We represent this one movement. Pushing for green collar jobs as a pathway out of poverty, demanding that this country not only reduces coal use but discontinue using it all together culminating in a 80% reduction in overall emissions by 2050, and pursuing convenient paths for Americans to embrace sustainable lifestyles. My eyes were opened by the nature of Power Shift, by the power of so many likeminded young adults under one roof. I held my finger high as Mr. Parish and others gave our requirements to Congress, video camera in one hand, and joining so many others in that building showing our support with the other.

I cannot thank the coordinators of Power Shift enough, specifically Arthur Coulston and ‘I Shot Power Shift’ for the journey we took together getting from Friday to Tuesday in one piece.

We are one people, and this is one movement.

WHEN RUSH LIMBAUGH GETS YOU DOWN, CLICK ON THIS VIDEO HERE. STAND STRONG, SMILE. WE ARE ONE.

Most of us came away from Power Shift inspired, passionate, and ready to take on the world. However, we also finding out that Van Jones was prescient when he said that not everybody would be so happy to see this diverse, powerful, youth climate movement. Why? Because they are evil. With so much positive energy in the room, the point may not have hit home. But we are seeing it already. Rush Limbaugh mocked Cheryl Lockwood, a native youth climate leader, who cried during her testimony about the loss of her people’s traditional ways of life and their lands due to the devastating impacts of a changing climate. He mocked her testimony, for crying, and told his audience that if she wanted to meet people who lost their homes to visit New Orleans. I wonder if Alaska Senators Stevens or Murkowski, who met with her yesterday, will stand up for the future leaders of Alaska? So far, the answer appears to be “No Comment”.

Showing his pathetic cluelessness and cowardice, I think we should take Limbaugh to meet people from Alaska and New Orleans and see if he would mock them to their face. But, the fact is that his flailing and resorting to new lows are the desperate efforts of those who have no idea how to face the diverse, broad, and powerful youth movement that we are a part of and is fighting for good jobs for all, a prosperous and sustainable economy, and solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. He is the past and in his desperation he will fume, but he would be nothing more than a crazy old man in the street, if someone hadn’t given him a microphone.

See the inspiring Cheryl Lockwood for yourself!

Want to tell your local station that Limbaugh is just a hateful old man with no place on their radio station or in a civilized community? Find them here