On the eve of the Copenhagen climate negotiations, as our movement shifts into high gear to get a global deal (and a fair, ambitious, and binding one at that!), I wanted to chronicle and reflect on some of the grassroots action that has been going on (lots of it in just the past week!).
There have been a ton of great posts reflecting on the White House Youth Clean Energy Forum. One thing that came out of each was how our local leadership both made the meeting possible, and made the meeting successful. Without the thousands of young people calling on Obama for his leadership, and calling very specifically for a meeting with youth leaders, the meeting never would have happened. Once in the room, the 150 young leaders from diverse backgrounds had a ton of experience and insight to offer, and were able to demonstrate that there truly is grassroots leadership across the country. We had campus leaders from dozens of states, community organizers on the frontlines of stopping mountaintop removal mining, field organizers setting up innovative programs to fuel green jobs training with home weatherization, and clean energy entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.
And while we had this impressive cross-section of voices in DC, the action was still happening across the country (and abroad!):
- Young people working with the Maryland Student Climate Coalition and Chesapeake Climate Action Network led a No Coal Rally in Baltimore to oppose proposed transmission lines from West Virginia into their state. What would be carried on those transmissions lines? You guessed it, coal power. Check out this great video they produced and keep a special eye out for youth voices Zainab and Zoe.
- Students from across Connecticut hit up the office of Senator Lieberman this past Friday to deliver two very important messages: as a chief architect of climate legislation, he must ensure that the authority of the EPA is not gutted and that his state maintains clean and healthy air, and that our targets and timelines must be in-line with what science demands and lead us to 350 ppm. Check out their boldness in this video:
- At University of Missouri, students wasted no time in protesting anti-climate statements by their President Gary Forsee, immediately taking to the streets calling for clean energy and their President to not issue statements not reflective of the students or university. Chants of “Forsee has no foresight” could be heard around campus!
- And this is only the beginning: Kentucky Students held a coordinated day of action to move their campuses beyond coal, the Leadership Campaign continues to build in Massachussets, young people in the NW aren’t letting up against natural gas – this is the story of our movement: ever expanding, relentless, and everywhere.
And as I alluded to earlier, the action is also happening on the global-stage.
Hundreds of young people are assembled in Copenhagen at the Conference of Youth (and thousands more are expected for the demonstrations), solidifying strategy and plans for what will be sure to be an action-packed couple of weeks.
But people aren’t waiting to get started; students with Greenpeace Solar Generation got to Copenhagen early and paid a visit to the U.S. Embassy to deliver a Wake Up Call. They delivered First Secretary of the Regional Enviornmental Office, Erik Hall, a scrap book that chronicled movement highlights from the past year – like Power Vote, Power Shift 2009, and all the local work on campuses. The representative assured them that he would take their work and message to President Obama. This is an incredible example of youth bringing our local issues and accomplishments to decision-makers in Copenhagen, something that we need to do a lot more of over the next couple of weeks.
Which is why I’m excited that the youth in Copenhagen are so well networked and connected with the movement back home, and that together they are creating the plans to elevate each others voices. Energy Action Coalition, its partners, and the youth delegations in Copenhagen are developing a Rapid Response Network so that breaking updates can hit the grassroots at the speed necessary to influence outcomes in Copenhagen, and finding creative ways to bring local leaders voices to Copenhagen. Our local issues and work provide the underpinning of why we need a strong global deal, and by bringing all of our voices into the negotiations we can demonstrate the grassroots support and pressure for something truly bold and strong.
Over 200 grassroots leads have already joined the Rapid Response Network, and more are signing up by the hour. Sign-up now and you’ll receive the breaking updates and calls to action directly from youth in Copenhagen who are setting up a Skype-powered phonebank to get the word out.
And don’t let down on your local or domestic work either! It’s incredibly exciting to see such a big rally to Save Coal River Mountain taking place in Charleston, WV tomorrow, and hear that over 40 vigils for survival are planned outside of Senators offices.
Let’s stand tall and proud, and be strong and loud these coming weeks; even if we don’t get everything we need out of Copenhagen, we know that we are apart of a movement ready to do whatever it takes to take back our future.
awesome post, thanks for spreading the word and keeping us motivated!
great post whit,
a couple of quick thoughts:
the rapid response network is essential – not only for whatever impact the actions may have, but for giving folks not in copenhagen some connection to and sense of what these negotiation processes involve in practical terms. when i first heard of it, i was reminded of this old drawing i saw in some U.S. labor journal from over a century ago – it’s of picture of a man with stovepipe arms pulling open the bars on a prison window or something. you can just barely see hands from the inside, also pulling the bars apart. anyway, the caption read “we are outside because they are inside”.
please sign up for the rapid response network if you haven’t yet. as much as possible during this busy time, we should be connecting with folks in our towns and communities through actions in solidarity with what folks on the ground in copenhagen are doing.
but we should also learn from where the local-regional-national-international connections are clearest, but not being made. i would be remiss here if i did not mention tomorrow’s protest to save coal river mountain.
i myself wanted to go, despite it being finals, and despite climate activism having already taken up so much of my time. i put some effort into organizing a bus of folks from nyc down there. i failed to do that. in some ways i am glad, especially given the symbolism of that date and the worst it may bring out in some, but three weeks ago the following sort of “lies like truth” could easily be discerned:
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Friends of America
Date: Sat, Dec 5, 2009 at 8:03 AM
Subject: URGENT: Rally for Coal – Monday in Charleston
Dear Friends:
Radical anti-coal extremists are at it again.
They’re attacking our jobs, our values, and our way of life.
This time they’re bringing in outsider Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Just what we need: another New England liberal telling us how to live.
So, let’s stand together and let our voices be heard.
Join real, hard-working West Virginians just like yourself at a pro-coal rally on Monday, December 7th at 2 p.m. at the Department of Environmental Protection office in Charleston.
Pro-Coal Rally
Monday, December 7
2 p.m.
Department of Environmental Protection Office
601 57th Street, SE
Charleston, WV
————–
What makes these tactics effective is (1) that the stranglehold Coal has on the Democratic Party and on local politics in Charleston can’t be matched just at the local level. To effective break the bars of that power structure, you need EPA authority to regulate carbon under the Clean Air Act enforced, and so you have to be targeting the EPA office in Washington D.C. On December 7th of 2009, after eight years of abusive invocations of “a day that will live in infamy” – a day itself that was hastened by FDR’s oil embargo of the Japanese in 1940 – it is conceivable that a much stronger statement could have been made for the start of the COP-15 talks. One that would have feedback loops into the negotiations themselves.
It will be interesting to note over the coming weeks from where – and I do mean which places, movements in the United States have not yet reached the sophistication or effectiveness of those in the developing world such as Via Campesina, or the MST – such “positive feedback loops” worthy of the name are being generated.