Try something with me.
Stop and take a breath.
Imagine for a moment what a clean energy future in the United States really looks like. Imagine what it feels like to know that our climate is secure and we are damaging it no further.
Now envision the road that will lead us into that future. Think about your campus …your city …your tribe …your community …your home.
Look around in that vision of the future. What do the faces of the people put back to work with green jobs look like? What do hillsides look like with wind turbines instead of smoke stacks? What does the air smell like absent of coal smog and other pollutants?
What are the politicians and business leaders of the future talking about when you turn on the news? No more wars fought over oil? The release of the next generation of automobiles that don’t even use terms like ‘miles per gallon?’
When I envision this future, I smile (and even laugh a bit) as I keep thinking about one of those USA Today graphs with red bars going right through the top under titles like “Jobs Created” and “Rain Forest Restored” and “Coal Factories Shut Down.”
Certainly that ultimate vision would be years in the future, but especially when I think about the newspapers and those graphs, what I keep seeing is that they all started their rise in 2009. The headlines and books and stories in my clean energy future all talk about the year our country reached a true tipping point. “The Year a Power Shift came to America.”
Friends, we live in a rare country in which things never thought possible have consistently found their way into reality. It’s a country where seemingly insurmountable obstacles are inevitably overcome by movements of its people – especially young people – coming together and demanding powerful, dynamic change.
This is one of those times.
Every day, our staff and countless volunteers are busy here in Washington, DC and around the country preparing for your arrival at Power Shift 2009 on February 27. More than 10,000 of you will descend on our nation’s capitol for 4 days of lobbying, learning, dancing, inspiration, empowerment and most importantly: holding our elected officials accountable for the bold clean energy and climate policies our generation and our planet demand.
It will be one of the defining moment’s of our generation’s history, and it would simply be tragic for you not to be there with us.
http://www.powershift09.org
When we look back at 2009 at this time next year, we’re going to know that this was the year our clean energy future started truly taking shape. I feel it.
You’ll be hearing a lot more from us in the next couple weeks about ways you can be involved, and we hope so very much that you’ll join us – and invite all that you know to do the same – as we come together and bring a Power Shift to America.
For daily updates on Power Shift, be sure to follow us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/powershift09 and after you register don’t forget to let your friends know you’re coming by joining the 1,800 people already in our Facebook group!
Who’s coming?
