It’s Getting Hot In Here

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.