Jessy Tolkan rallies the crowd on Capitol Hill as the House votes on ACES inside
As a young person, you care about global warming. You know that a clean energy economy will create millions of jobs and pathways out of poverty, reduce pollution, and save the planet. And you are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Right?
Well, Thomas L. Friedman, the popular New York Times columnist, isn’t convinced. In fact, Friedman concludes his latest column* by calling us out! He writes:
“Attention all young Americans: your climate future is being decided right now in the cloakrooms of the Capitol, where the coal lobby holds huge sway…. Play hardball or don’t play at all.”
Does Friedman have a point? Do we need to be bigger and louder?
I think the answer is yes.
We know that thousands of young people across this country are working tirelessly to usher in a clean and just energy future for us all. But if we want to truly achieve our goals, we need our elected officials to know that we are watching closely as they debate the climate policy that will shape the rest of our lives.
Let’s send a strong message to our President and Senators that we are here, we’re watching, and we are ready for action. And let’s ask our friends and families to do the same. It’s going to take big numbers to fight back against the thousands of letters and calls generated by the dirty energy industry (not to mention their well-paid lobbyists).
Send a message to the President and your Senators, and forward this email to everyone you know.
But we know that sending email isn’t enough. In order to drown out the voice of the dirty energy industry, we’re going to need to mobilize in unprecedented numbers. Tom Friedman isn’t kidding when he suggests we should have a million people marching in the streets.
Ready to take a bigger step? Sign up to be a leader in your community, and to help get millions of feet in the streets for climate solutions.
We’ve gone big before, but now we need to go bigger. And the only way we will get there is if people like you do more. Ready to take a bigger step? Sign up today to get active in your community, to get in the faces of our elected officials, and to recruit the huge movement it will take to win.
In it to win it,
The Energy Action Team
why are we wasting our time writing and reading blogs about this quack and not actually organizing a mobilization against the corporate, patriarchal, racist regime that is destroying everything that gives us life, while not giving a damn because their pockets are still lined and their mansions are still full of shit no one actually needs.
why is there still a “movement” that thinks that running around the feet of american politicians is going to do a damn thing to save the planet?
In our republic it is the number of votes that makes things happen. There is more in the news on health care than carbon because seniors vote and health care is higher on their priority list (not to say seniors don’t care about the environment, it’s just that health care is a more immediate concern for most of them). Friedman is correct in that the anti-carbon movement needs LARGE numbers to have an effect. Remember, 80% of the world’s energy comes from fossil fuels.
Tom Friedman loves comparing our movement to youth movements of the past, and explaining why we don´t measure up. Now I´d like to take a moment to compare Friedman to the great ADULT leaders of the past who inspired the masses to take action against oppression, rather as Friedman seems to feel he is doing by calling on young people to mobilize. It seems to me that MLK and Ganhi did more than write profound editorials in which they encouraged other people to go out and get things done. Yes, in contrast to Friedman, these movement leaders of the past actually went out and took risks themselves, got arrested themselves, and did the grunt work of organizing a mass movement THEMSELVES. I guess it´s more convenient for Friedman to stay in his ivory tower and complain about young people today than to actually go out and set an example himself. Go figure.
PS – I´m writing this from an Internet cafe in Iquitos, Peru, where I´m trying to figure out how to help forward the movement to end oil exploitation in this part of the world. Want to come hike through the jungle with me, Tom? You might learn something.
I think Mr. Friedman’s point is more than simply “young people ain’t what they used to be…” (a perpetual complaint?). Whether young or old, there is not a large enough section of the US public that is greatly concerned with the carbon issue to mount a significant demonstration (i.e., millions marching to paraphrase Friedman). It is not a flaw of youth, but an inability to capture the moral imagination of the public.