Tom Friedman’s piece in yesterday’s New York Times gets a few things right: Waxman-Markey (ACES) is disappointingly weak thanks to the GOP’s unwillingness to find solutions, we must strengthen and pass it through the Senate, “We The People” owe it to the future to rise up like never before to make this happen.
But he narrows “We The People” to mean We The Young People.
I’ve got news for you Mr. Friedman – young people are rising up like never before to make this happen. We’ve been to DC twice and stormed Capitol Hill with young lobbyists to counter dirty energies hired hacks. We’ve held hundreds of events engaging members of Congress with their constituencies to call for action. We’ve flooded their offices with phone calls and letters. And we’re just getting started.
The youth climate movement deserves at least some of the credit for the passage of ACES – the bill barely made it through, and the youth movement has been pushing on it hard via campaigns like Power Shift and Focus the Nation’s nationwide clean energy town hall.
You say we should get off of facebook and into legislators’ faces, out of the chat rooms and into the cloak rooms. Check and check. We’re in their faces, we’re in the cloakrooms, we’re doing every last thing we can. And by the way, we use the internet to organize real on the ground action – that’s called innovation, something you’re supposed to be a fan of.
Now we’re turning up the heat even further to push Senators to strengthen this bill and make it something we can be proud of. My question to you, Mr. Friedman: When is your generation going to rise up the way we have? You owe it to us, to your kids, and to ours.
When I read his article I was also frustrated that he didnt give any love to the youth movement, so I definitely feel your sentiment. However, we do need to grow – we aren’t big enough, there are way too many youth coasting through when they could be helping us stand taller and become more powerful. And that’s not to knock the work that we’re doing,it’s just something I think we all agree on. In the same vein, when you take a shot at his generation you’re not giving credit to all of the tireless advocates that have devoted much of their life (for many, more time than we have) to this cause. I don’t think we want to overlook their good work because of the fact that the more pervasive apathy of their generation overshadows it.
At the end of the day though, we don’t need Tom Friedman’s recognition/acknowledgment/or commentary. We know what the deal is, there are thousands of us putting our hearts into this work and we’re going to keep growing and get done what needs to get done.
yeah, tom missed out on this:
and of course the 3000 who lobbyied months ago with powershift.
but this part of the article was dead on, about why this bill was so compromised:
“They had to make the compromises they did,” said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, “because almost every House Republican voted against the bill and did nothing to try to improve it. So to get it passed, they needed every coal-state Democrat, and that meant they had to water it down to bring them on board.”
12,000 people at Power Shift 2009 is a big conference. It’s not a movement. Not yet. It’s nice that there are tens of thousands of young people who are active, hundreds of thousands who care, but until that translates into a movement that can actually challenge the power structures that are running our future into the ground, I’m afraid Mr. Friedman is right in his criticism of young people. Don’t take it personally.
meh to thomas friedman. i’m organizing to help save the future of humans and ecosystems, and to protect the bioregions that i love and give me life, not to get the approval of greenwashers.
Tom Friedman lives in a 14,000-square-foot house. No need to listen to him!!!!