It’s Getting Hot In Here

LA’s Youth Climate Heroes are the Real Stars!

By John Bernhardt – cross posted from the ACE Blog

On November 21st, 23 high school students from the LA area gathered at the Environmental Charter High School to spend their Saturday afternoon learning how to really Raise their Voices.

These dedicated, passionate climate heroes worked with ACE’s LA staff and myself to develop their own personal story and unique voice in the climate movement. The training, which lasted 4 hours, equipped these leaders will the ability to go out and inspire others why they too should get involved in the fight to combat global climate change.

In addition to learning this key leadership skill, students and staff also got to explore the ECHS campus which is full of sustainable elements such as rainwater harvesting and campus-wide composting.

If you missed this one, don’t worry! There will be more training sessions in LA, as well as in all regions where ACE is operating come spring.

Check here to find the next training in a city near you.

A friend of mine attending the Youth Clean Energy Forum tomorrow asked me to suggest some talking points (for the administration and fellow youth leaders) and pre-readings. Here’s what I wrote (cross-posted from LeadEnergy):

I. Any successful global climate treaty has to go beyond the traditional framework of binding emissions targets. Kyoto failed.  China, India, and the rest of the developing world have made it unequivocal that they will not adopt meaningful targets.  The right model is shared government investments in technology development and economic development — as per the creation of the EU and the Marshall Plan — not bindings emissions targets, which allow politicians to commit to distant targets they ultimately have little or no responsibility for achieving.  The International Energy Agency says $10 trillion in global clean energy investment is necessary over the next two decades.  The UN recently called for $500-600 billion annually in developing countries alone, including adaptation efforts.  One alternative that could accommodate a technology and investment-centered strategy is a “carbon cap equivalency” framework, explained here by Julian Wong et al.  Another has been dubbed the “Direct Kaya Approach,” a targeted, sectoral-based strategy to directly reduce the carbon intensity of economies.  Another is a “national schedules” approach.  Regardless, what is demanded now is massive and immediate investment to develop and deploy low-carbon energy technology across the world, without which the next global climate treaty will surely fail.

II. The Senate climate bill must be significantly strengthened, particularly its investments in clean technology development and deployment, and the Obama administration and broader climate movement (including Energy Action Coalition) should support these efforts.  These issues must be addressed: (1) The bill’s greenhouse gas emissions cap is effectively non-binding for the first decade or more, due to the authorization of massive levels of offsets, and it is unlikely to drive significant near-term changes in the U.S. energy economy. (2) The bill invests far less in clean energy technologies and industries than either the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) or the direct investments being made by competing nations, including China, South Korea and Japan. (3) The carbon price signal established by the cap and trade program is expected to be modest and insufficient to pull emerging clean energy technologies into the market or spur significant investment in clean energy innovation. (4) The renewable electricity standard established by the bill will not ensure any increase in U.S. renewable energy deployment beyond already conservative business-as-usual projections. For a full summary of Breakthrough Institute’s 20-part analysis of ACES, which the Senate bill is based on, see here.

Continue reading ‘Talking Points for Youth Clean Energy Forum’

We’ll spend over $70 Billion in Afghanistan next year, nearly $20 billion more than last year. Isn’t it time we were putting up solar panels instead of dropping bombs?

Source: New York Times.

Reporting for Project Survival Media in Romania.
By Andrada Farcău with images by Mihai Giurgiu.

©Mihai Giurgiu

Romania was a land of diversity. We used to have four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Now we are having two seasons. So, what can be the reason of changing? It could be a natural transformation, just a temporary phenomena or the global warming. All Romanian people are affected by this change: their lands are not that good as before, their fruit production has problems and people have to fight more against the floods. The Romanian scientists say that we can’t prove yet if one of the causes is global warming or not and if the human race is responsible of it.

Continue reading ‘The Snow Left Us and Moved to Other Places’

The third sit-in at a Conservative MP’s constituency office took place today in Jim Flaherty’s Whitby, Ontario office. These sit-ins are organized by groups of concerned people for climate justice, and will not end until the Conservative government takes strong action on climate change, commits to bold emission reduction targets, and ensures the safety and survival of those hardest hit by the climate crisis. These sit-ins are a wake-up call to the Conservative government of Canada: The Canadian Government must commit to climate justice now!

Seven stage sit-in in Finance Minister Flaherty's office in Whitby, Ontario (Photo credit: Ben Iseman)

“Flaherty, as the Minister of Finance, knows where the money is going. He needs to make sure that he is financing climate justice, not dirty and destructive industries like the tar sands. The Alberta oil industry is literally tarring Canada’s name, preventing the country from reaching any international climate deal, and affecting the health and livelihoods of nearby communities,” says Kimia Ghomeshi who was outside supporting the sit-in.

Continue reading ‘People For Climate Justice Stages Peaceful Sit-in In Finance Minister’s Office’

I have a column out today in the UMD newspaper The Diamondback about the upcoming Copenhagen negotiations, along with a call for the US to do more. It’s difficult to write about Copenhagen in only 550 words given the complexities, along with the reality that the readers don’t know a lot about the issue. A few of the takeaway points I wanted to hit on were

1. The planet is warming.

2. China is not an excuse for inaction.

3. We need to do more than we’re doing, and show leadership. Continue reading ‘Copenhagen and Climate: Going all-in’

During PowerShift 2009, I was lucky enough to be able to speak these words to Representative Markey’s Select Committee on Global Warming:

“The $100,000 Clean Energy Revolving Fund I helped build at Macalester College invests in efficiency projects on campus and puts the savings back into the fund. In its first year, we got a 40% annual return on investment. That’s a bunch of college sophomores with no financial training doing four times better than the stock market – when it’s not collapsing! What would it be like if we harnessed these opportunities, which a green economy provides all across the country?”

In this third post in the series (you can also check out Part 1 and Part 2), I’m going to cut to the chase:

If we want to get real, fundamental, and adequate action taken on climate change, it’s not enough to make it clear that we (even tens of millions of youth in that we), think it’s a good idea.

We have to make it clear that it’s 1. possible, and 2. a good thing all around.

This sounds like a no-brainer, but making that case convincingly can be hard.

A lot of the solutions that are most readily apparent – solar panels on roof-tops, hybrid cars, less consumption – are either way out of the reach of most people (and thus sound elitist), or are framed as a sacrifice. The mentality that a green economy is costly frequently creeps into our own thinking. It’s easy to advocate for spending more money on wind energy electricity or on a super-cool green building because it’s the right thing to do. Scaling up, I’m quite sure a lot of the debates you’ll hear at Copenhagen will revolve around how much wealth various countries should give up for the greater good of a sustainable planet and the well-being of future generations (us and those to come).

Sure it’s right, but is it smart?

I’m not arguing that smart is more important than right, or that we should ever advocate for things that are smart and not right. I’m simply suggesting that if we can’t demonstrate in actual real life that our vision is right AND smart, we’re going to lose.

I hope the insight of how to do so may be helpful as hundreds of youth climate leaders converge on Copenhagen and the struggle for a green economy continues on a thousand campuses and communities.

Read on for what the examples of the Clean Energy Revolving Fund and the Macalester EcoHouse – tales from my own experience that reflect the great work thousands of people across the globe are doing – have to say about being right and smart. Continue reading ‘The Green Economy: It’s Right AND Smart’