It\’s Getting Hot In Here

So take Virginia, the old Commonwealth, the birthplace of some of the most esteemed leaders of American history: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and television’s the Waltons. Where are Virginia’s leaders now? On today’s political front, you have politicians such as potential VP candidate Governor Tim Kaine, a strong outspoken proponent of a new waste coal plant in Wise County Virginia and a dismal goal of 7% green house gas reductions by 2025. This is not even in the ball park of where scientists says we need to be. If that wasn’t enough, you have Rick Boucher in Virginia’s fightin’ 9th and one of Congress’s biggest champions of so called Clean Coal and the myth buster Carbon Capture and Sequestration technology. Granted there are some potential Clean Energy champions in the mix, but they need the loud uncompromising voice of the people in their ear demanding a clean and just energy future.

There’s an old story about Franklin D. Roosevelt that captures how the movement needs to think in terms of responsive leadership. A group of activists met with FDR in the Oval Office to urge his support for some liberal reform. After listening to their arguments, Roosevelt responded, “Okay, you’ve convinced me. Now go out and put pressure on me”

His point: Even a president can’t always act with ideal freedom. He too faces constraints–powerful leaders in Congress, bureaucratic resistance and inertia, opposition from state and local government leaders, potential roadblocks in the courts, and so on. Sometimes a president needs “pressure” in the form of a visible, well-organized, vocal, and articulate public movement to provide him with both political cover and supportive energy that permits him to do what he really wants to do anyways.

Student leaders from across Virginia are calling for exactly that, a PowerShift this October 10th – 12th at Virginia Tech. Noticing that the politicians of the Old Dominion aren’t quite where they need to be, the youth of today are excited, driven, and frankly a little pissed at the prospects being put on the table for their future. You saw it when they blockaded themselves to Dominion’s headquarters in calls of desperation and solidarity from a generation that will bear the load of a coal filled economy. Now they’ll show it with the largest mobilization of young people (apart from the Civil War) in Virginia’s history.

The plan:

1) Bring 1000 students from across the Commonwealth to Virginia Tech to be and hold the largest state summit on clean energy and youth activism. We need to be a LOT louder and where better to start then the cradle of coal country.

2) Get trained and inspired to take this movement on as our own for the taking.

3) Influence the major media: The Society of Environmental Journalists will be holding their annual conference three days after Virginia PowerShift. We will make sure they know what was accomplished!

Check out www.vapowershift.org and get more plugged in. There is a need for speakers, trainers, sponsors and great minds who can help make this thing a reality.