Power Shift - Breaking the Rules: Climate Communications for a Climate in Crisis?

Energy Action Coalition Staff performing the It’s Getting Hot in Here dance in front of thousands of students. Represent.

I just sat through a panel at Power Shift on “Breaking the Rules” in Climate Communications and It’s Getting Hot in Here and the work the youth movement has done to build unity around global warming actions and communications were profiled as the gold standard of this work. The problem is that the panel had ‘distinguished’ communications folks who have spent years working within the limiting communications standards of Washington D.C. Youth are leading many of the most innovative communications work on Global Warming and I would have preferred if we had set all the chairs in a circle and shared our stories.

It’s Getting Hot in Here and the community that we have all built together is now the keystone of the youth climate movement’s online communications. We were nominated for the COM+ Award for Outstanding Climate Communications and I am hope that we are recognized in Bali, but there is so much more dynamic activism happening online that isn’t just “communications.” It is digital organizing, leader development, cultivation of youth ideas, a common platform and an online community.

We have focused on moving beyond the endless use of numbers and stultifying slogans in the climate movement, to talk about building a Clean Energy Future and a just and sustainable world. We have highlighted solutions, when others have focused too much on disaster, we have focused on justice when others focused on photos of polar bears, and our ideas are powerful. They are winning and the astounding size and energy of Power Shift 2007 demonstrates that. The energy is palpable here, with dynamic young activists, filmmakers, bloggers, and general kick-ass people having come together in the most exciting, biggest, and best run climate conference in US history. We are breaking the rules of what people expect from climate activists and ready or not, our big, diverse, digital-savvy, and pumped up movement is coming.

About Richard

Richard Graves is the blogmaster for It's Getting Hot in Here: Dispatches from the Youth Climate Movement and served as the New Media Fellow for the Energy Action Coalition. He helps over a hundred youth leaders from around the world tell their stories in the fight against global warming and for a more just and sustainable world. Richard graduated from Macalester College after winning campaigns for green building, green roofing, renewable energy investment, and energy conservation. When he isn't organizing against global warming, he likes to make Italian, Mexican, and Japanese food, read books, and to sculpt.

3 Responses to “Power Shift - Breaking the Rules: Climate Communications for a Climate in Crisis?”

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1 kwolph Nov 3rd, 2007 at 5:25 pm

I recently relocated from DC and am so disappointed to know that I am missing the excitement of Powershift 2007. I first learned about Powershift from the recent NYT article with Thomas Friedman and have been anxiously waiting to hear about how the weekend has been going. I am working with a coalition that is trying to push better fuel and energy standards in Congress. If you like the message at http://energybill2007.org, sign the petition.

Here is an example of our most recent efforts to wake up Congress: http://smnr.us/thespookytruth/.

Have fun and good luck with spreading the message!

It’s Getting Hot In Here