It’s Getting Hot In Here

My post last week introduced an exciting process for us to build an electoral campaign from the ground up – I’m back to report that it’s working, that we are starting to see the results, and to share with you some next steps!

The basic idea is that (1) in communities across the country we are having discussions on what we hope to achieve moving forward — for many of us this would build off our Define Our Decade events and discussions — (2) then we are having statewide discussions to develop collective goals, objectives and talk coordination, and finally (3) we’ll pull it all together on a conference call (RSVP!) for each state to share their ideas, discuss how to weave our efforts together, and make plans to work with and support one another.

Based on a few reportbacks I’ve heard, people are really narrowing in on how we can use the election to build power and support behind our issues. Whether it’s offshore oil drilling in Florida, or clean energy opportunities in the coalfields of West Virginia, people are identifying the most important issues to work on that will inspire lots of people to engage. And the discussion isn’t just about turning people out to vote, there’s talk of bird-dogging candidates, running spoof corporations for office to expose the influence of dirty money on politics, and other creative tactics!

A few state network discussions have already happened, but there are a bunch more planned (and it’s not too late to plan your own)! Check out the listing below, and http://www.energyactioncoalition.org/BuildOurElectoralCampaign for updates.

• April 8 – West Virginia Youth Action League
• April 8-11 – Florida Student Lobby Day and Leadership Planning Summit
• April 12  - Midwest Electoral Call
• April 16 – Maryland Student Climate Coalition Lobby Day and Visioning Bonanza
• April 16-18 – Electoral Discusstion at Power Shift New York Regional Summit
• April 19 – SEN Southeast Regional (NC, SC, FL, GA, TN, AL, MS, LA) Electoral Call
• April 21 – Virginia Climate Action Network State-wide Call

Continue reading ‘Planning to Rock the Vote, One Community, One State at a Time’

350.org founder Bill McKibben spoke on Democracy Now! this morning. Bill talks about his new book, climate justice, the upcoming World Peoples’ Climate Summit in Bolivia, the inadequacies of the upcoming climate legislation in the US, and the global climate movement that you all are helping build.

Click here to watch the video (the embed code doesn’t work for wordpress, sorry!):

Or read on for the complete interview

Continue reading ‘Bill McKibben on Democracy Now!’

It’s not every day you get a chance to confront some of the most downright bad people in the world. We talk about these evil-doers all the time, largely in euphemisms: we call them fossil fuel lobbyists and big polluters. We reference them passively by capitalizing the words “Dirty Coal”. While Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship (who has been described as nothing less than an Evil Bastard) has faced a quite a lot of public scrutiny recently, we generally don’t know or think much about the names and faces of those who make daily decisions to put their companies’ profits over people and the planet.

But every once in a while, an opportunity arises to confront the bad guys, face to face.

Yesterday, Congressman Ed Markey held a hearing in his Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming titled “The Role of Coal in a New Energy Age.” Three coal company executives and the president of a coal mining association testified. Grateful to Chairman Markey for dragging these crooks out into the open, our crew of activists decided we couldn’t let this one pass us by.

There’s something really tantalizing about an opportunity to confront so much evil and so much power. But how to stick it to these guys (yes, all guys in this case) in just a brief public moment of protest? How to capture all the complexity – the blowing up of mountains, polluting of streams, melting glaciers, droughts, conflicts over resources and refugees? How to honor the lives of 29 miners lost in a devastating West Virginia mine disaster just over a week ago? Continue reading ‘Face to Face with the Dirty Coal CEOs’

Media coverage of coal mining has been everywhere lately. From last weeks tragedy in West Virginia to today’s protest of young people disrupting the testimony of Coal Company CEO’s on Capitol Hill. All of this reminds me of my most recent trip through the West Virginia coal fields and the two images that left an unshakable impression on me: the devastating moon-like crater that was once a living mountain and a billboard I saw on my way there advertising “Clean, Carbon Neutral Coal”. I almost drove off the road straining my neck for a double take. Really?! “clean and carbon neutral”?! By definition coal is carbon.

As corporate green-wash schemes continue to co-opt the word “clean”, will we retreat from the term or rightfully reclaim it?

Historically the power to define is inextricably linked with the power to control. For centuries oppressed people have struggled to reclaim agency over their own lives through redefining their identity in society. This is also true of our national energy debate and the battle over control for what is “clean” and what is “dirty”. In an attempt to draw this distinction I define “clean energy” as energy sources that are infinite and do not have a negative impact on human health and communities.

There are many examples of divergent definitions, from the classic so-called “clean coal” to the nuclear industries branding of their dirty fuel cycle as “Clean Air Energy”. Lets face it, the dirty energy industry is very good at what they do. They have a lot of money and their big PR firms know that the fundamental designation of “clean” in the minds of average Americans is visceral image.

Continue reading ‘Reclaiming “Clean”’

A visual interpretation of the Washington DC summer project being managed by The DC Project

One question: Who’s responsible?

Let’s be real here. We’ve all read the headlines. We know all about the corporations, politicians, lobbyists, government. The list of culpable parties for the economical, environmental and societal crises our country faces is long and distinguished. The solutions to them many seem to think, are hopeless. While these problems are large, complex and years in the making, the one question we need to ask is, “Who’s truly responsible?” We are.

This summer pioneers of sustainable systematic change will commence in developing community empowered solutions. Collectively sharing resources and knowledge, individuals and communities will construct a national synergy that will be contagious and unprecedented. Across the country, communities, organizations and individuals will make a commitment for the betterment of each other while also allowing for a personal transformation of the individual.

It’s on us.

When we take a look back ten years from now and analyze the mind-set of leaders building the holistic, clean energy economy, we will see these motivated individuals did not ask compliance out of others, or demand “right” decisions from political leaders. Instead, they were shifting their energy toward personal development. It’s here we realize that we are responsible. That what we do as individuals (and then together collectively) is the answer in bringing about real, positive change. Each of us has the capability to embrace that which has come before us. This presents an unique opportunity to use that knowledge to think freely and outside the box for real remedies to what ails us. Using the experiences that have shaped each of us, we have the responsibility in finding solutions to our present and future problems. Continue reading ‘Building the I and the We’

Guest post by Adi Nochur

Ever since I was a kid music and activism have both been driving forces in my life.  The sounds of the Beatles and Nirvana in my elementary school classrooms inspired me to start playing guitar, and my uncle’s tireless campaigning around environmental justice issues in India, such as dams in the Narmada River valley and the Bhopal gas disaster, ultimately moved me to become part of the youth climate movement here in the U.S. For a long time I dreamt of merging these two passions to create a driving force for change.  I thought about starting a singer/songwriter type project, singing ballads about struggles for justice and freedom.  I even had a name for the project: “Narmada Bhopal,” in tribute to the battles my uncle fought in India, and that many continue to fight to this day.  But even though I had the concept figured out, I wasn’t sure how to get it off the ground.

Then during the summer of 2004, I figured it out.  While on a retreat with a group of youth climate activists in New York City, I caught an evening of slam poetry and spoken word at the Nuyorican Poets Café on the Lower East Side.  I had never heard anything like it before, and I was amazed.  Here were people on stage without any instruments, speaking directly from the heart, twisting the English language inside out on itself (with some forays into Spanish for good measure) to tell their stories!  I thought to myself, “Hey, maybe I can do that!”

And so I did, and Narmada Bhopal was born, and the poems below became part of that project.

Continue reading ‘Create Our Climate: A Tale of Two Slam Poems (with video)’

This week’s hilarious *and dangerous* Greenwash of the Week webisode takes on The Copenhagen Accord, a political greenwash of epic proportions.

This week’s episode comes on the heels of a leaked document about the Obama administration’s spin strategy around the climate negotiations.

Continue reading ‘Greenwash of the Week: The Copenhagen Accord’

Change! Change! Change!
I love change, change is good.
But i hate this change because it’s climate change.
Do you know what climate change means to us?
Oh no! I don’t think so.
So let me break it down, let me work it out.
300,000 already dead is a mystery,
500,000 dead by 2030, oh what a misery.
I’m a spoken word artiste, am no freak!
And today i proclaim, this day i complain.
Because some people are just going insane! WHY?
Because they cut down the tress and they  plant no seeds,
And you use all the herbs for your needs.
I’m not bothered about the delays,
I don’t care about the days.
Copenhagen, Jeez! Am amazed!
But am still in the game,
To change the globe, that’s my fame,
Climate Change Freak, that’s my name!

It’s Getting Hot In Here: Create Our Climate is a month-long series to feature the creative work of the youth climate movement.  Through poetry, prose, visual and performance art, we aim to use these different media to communicate the passion, struggle and imperative of our work tackling climate and energy issues.  Please join youth leaders for posts on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout April.

On Saturday, approximately twenty youth from Oregon’s climate and energy justice movement embarked on a 20-mile bicycle ride through the farmland of Yamhill County, to protest high-carbon liquefied natural gas (LNG) development and meet with landowners whose property and farming businesses are threatened by LNG pipelines. 

Building on the success of a similar LNG bike-protest that took place in Oregon’s Washington County one year ago, this year’s “Bike-the-Pipe” event took us along the approximate route of the Oregon LNG and Palomar Pipelines in Yamhill County.  If energy giants get their way these two LNG pipelines will cut right through some of Oregon’s most valuable farm and forestland, jeopardizing the businesses of countless landowners en route to delivering a carbon-intensive fuel to the California gas market.  Continue reading ‘Students Join Landowners to Protest Liquefied Natural Gas in Yamhill County’

Post from CYCC member Amara Possian who is currently at the UNFCCC intersessional climate meetings in Bonn, Germany.

From members of the secretariat to members of the youth constituency, it has been widely acknowledged that the presence of civil society enriches the legitimacy and process of the UN climate negotiations.

While the Mexican delegation has said that any number of participants are welcome at COP16 Cancun, throughout today, the issue of limiting the role of civil society at future UNFCCC negotiations has been raised several times and it looks like the unprecedented clashes between civil society and the authorities in Copenhagen may have repercussions on the presence and the role of non-governmental observers at future COPs. Late this afternoon, May Boeve, from 350.org, and Fred Heutte, from theSierra Club, raised the issue with Yvo de Boer during his public meeting with civil society and asked for his support in ensuring the continued participation of non-governmental organizations.

While De Boer avoided pledging his support for the continued involvement of civil society in the UNFCCC process, he apologized and tried to explain what went wrong in Copenhagen. He admitted to failing to properly consider the implications of having 120 heads of state (along with the 1500 armed security personnel they brought along) in the Bella Centre at the end of COP15 and called his decision to limit participation to only 300 observers at the end of the conference a way of “safeguarding observer participation”.

Continue reading ‘Copenhagen’s Legacy or Dealing with Logistics? Restrictions on Civil Society Participation’