It’s Getting Hot In Here

For many of us organizing to combat global warming and create a just, sustainable and prosperous future, the last six weeks probably felt like an emotional and political roller coaster. The events of the last six week are not all good, but also not all bad. I have felt the exhilaration of victory and a swelling movement taking action, the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach because the world nations are not moving as quickly as they need to, and the crucial but not always comfortable feelings involved in examining our growing movement. It has been difficult to pause and reflect when so much is happening at such a quick pace, so here is my take on the last six weeks and some thoughts about what lies ahead of us.

Six weeks ago, around 6,000 young people gathered in Washington, D.C for the largest single gathering on climate change in the United States to date. Power Shift 2007 was a chance to see what the climate movement looks like. Interacting face-to-face with thousands of other young people working on climate issues was an invigorating and remarkably personal experience. When the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing with on climate, the youth who testified brought much of the room to tears and to cheers at various parts of the hearing.

Following Power Shift, these thousands of young people went back to their campuses and communities to take their organizing to a bolder level. November was a peak of organizing during the semester, as students translated the energy from Power Shift into action on their campuses, in their communities, states and on the national level.

In November, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the final of four reports detailing its findings on climate change, its patterns and its likely effects on earth systems. The findings are sobering, frightening and may even have underestimated some of the factors involved in accelerating climate change.

News from across the much larger pond (the Pacific) gave hope to those of us battling for progress in North America. With coal protests and marches, our friends in Australia took action to send a message to the Australian government that they needed to take action on climate change. A few weeks later, Australians elected a new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, one of whose two major priorities is to join the Kyoto Protocol and bring Australia fully into the fight against global warming.

After Thanksgiving work on the Energy Bill in the U.S. Congress reached a fever pitch. After weeks of intense lobbying, speculation and public pressure, a remarkable bill was passed by the House, but it’s momentum was brought to a halt in the Senate when the bill was blocked from coming to the floor. After multiple tries to pass a good Energy Bill, the Senate passed a stripped-down version whose only major improvement is the increase in vehicle fuel economy standards. It felt like we snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory.

As I wrap up my first semester working for the Sierra Student Coalition, I have about discussed students’ work across my region. Some of the amazing stories include: students in Free The Planet at Grinnell College who have just joined in the fight against a coal-fired power plant in Marshalltown, IA; students in Environmental Justice Organization at Columbia College in Chicago whose spring festival could be highly influential in passing the California clean car standards in Illinois; Sierra Student Coalition students at Missouri State University working to join the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment and to install a graywater system on campus; Ecocentric members at Iowa City West High School who generated hundreds of comments and photos to send their Congressmen on the Energy Bill with less than a week’s notice. These are just a few exciting stories, and I know there are thousands more young people across the country doing amazing work that I haven’t heard about yet.

And then there’s Bali.

I don’t think I can fully sum up the ride that was the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Bali this week, but to hear directly from the youth in Bali, just read the earlier posts here or visit BaliBuzz. I was particularly caught by the poem by Bambou Chieppa which was read in the youth delegation’s final statement to the conference:

“It’s haunting me

A crowd of he’s and she’s

I’m not a hero

I’m not even a big show

Every time I look cameras

as flashing me in the eye.

It would surprise them if they knew

I was only a little girl who is scared

the world will die”

The past few weeks have been inspiring and discouraging, exciting and frustrating to no end. They have tested my optimism, but deepened my commitment to the climate movement. I have been brought to tears by some of the stories from Bali. I have been heartened by this movement’s commitment to create a future where, to quote Van Jones, “we do not have any throwaway resources, we don’t have any throwaway species, and we don’t have any throwaway children or neighborhoods either.” If this is what I have experienced in the last six weeks, I wonder what the next six years, six decades, six generations, will bring and how we will respond.

We are approaching both a tipping point of political action and one of climate stability. I have no delusions that the path we are on will be easy, but ultimately the path I have chosen is one of hope. I believe that we can break down the destructive habits ingrained in our society and build a future where we can live sustainably on this planet. This will be hard, this will be painful, this will test our faith in humanity and our faith in ourselves. While we see the impacts of global warming increase it will be difficult to believe that we can create that better future.

In order for us to succeed, we must draw strength from each other. We need to share the moments of despair and hopelessness along with the moments of victory and elation. Shared pain is lessened and shared joy is increased. So please, in light of the recent events and as we move forward, share your experiences and emotions, good and bad, that we all may become stronger, as individuals, as a movement, as a species in peril.