* We are past the point of arguing the scientific vailidity of climate change. The general public gets it. Now we are planning how to act. Our fledgling actions are getting stronger and we are drawing in massive amounts of people. Step It Up II is going to be awesome.
* We have greater access to media than ever before on the climate change issue. The media is jumping now to cover our events when just six months ago they could care less.
* Our cause is celebrated by people and groups with integrity, and our own have recently won a Nobel Peace Prize.
* People are making the climate change issue part of how they do business. The local government I work for just went “green.” Discovery is launching a channel called “Green Planet.” It’s rapidly integrating into the mainstream.
* The tone and calibre of the movement is emerging. Our climate change groups are coordinating with each other. The tone is positive, affirmative, active. There is a new wave of environmentalism emerging out of it. It is miraculous to see.

The President and Congress and our other elected “leaders” can begin the institutional chance that we as individuals and as a movement have already begun to put into practice in our lives, or homes, or communities and our campuses. But it’ll take continued leadership, continued movement, and a hell of a lot of innovation, commitment and hope to do what’s truly required: nothing less than changing the way we make and consume energy and relate to the natural world of which we are an interdependent part.

This is our generation’s challenge and opportunity. It is our task.

The “old farts” in Congress and the White House and even at the reins of the big national environmental groups won’t be around to deal with the mess they can leave us if they compromise or settle for half-measures. But we will! This is our future we’re talking about, and it’s time we speak in an ever-louder voice, as youth to send a clear message: “This is OUR FUTURE at stake and we will accept NO COMPROMISE, NO HALF-MEASURES, NOTHING SHORT of a SUSTAINABLE, JUST, and PROSPEROUS FUTURE for ourselves and our children.”

Here in the Northwest we’re organizing to spread that message as part of the Cascade Climate Network, a growing activism network of student leaders and climate activists at more than a dozen colleges and universities in Oregon and Washington. We just finished our Cascade Climate Declaration and are building support behind it to make our voices heard.

At Power Shift, and at Step it Up events across the country next weekend, we’ll be able to send this message loud and clear as well. And on Monday, November 5th, thousands of us will take that message into the halls of Congress to tell our elected representatives.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

Bringing in other voices is exactly what we need. That means voices from other causes, voices from non-activists, and the voices of activists practicing a diversity of tactics. Focus the Nation (www.focusthenation.org) is shaking up the campuses. Powershift (powershift2007.org) is taking it to the offices of Congress. Step it Up (www.stepitup2007.org) is getting creative back in the districts.

The next step is really engaging ordinary people. The People’s demands for progressive policy action on climate change will never be met without the real weight of the People, and that means not just academically-inclined greens and political rabble-rousers, but John Q. Factory Worker and hio wife the Suburban-driving Soccer Moms.