Last weekend in Washington, D.C., more than 100 Gulf Coast residents called for action from President Obama and Congress to make BP pay for its ongoing disaster, and to clean up and restore the Gulf Coast.  The contingent was part of Power Shift 2011, a youth climate summit and organizing training, nearly 10,000 people strong.  Watch the top five videos from the historic summit, as children, students, workers, advocates, and whistle-blowers challenged big polluters and took a stand for America’s Gulf Coast.

1. Children stand up to BP with a song

“I open my mouth to BP, and I won’t turn back,” sang three girls from Biloxi, Mississippi, in front of the BP lobbying headquarters in Washington, D.C.

On Tax Day (Monday, April 18th), thousands of youth marched on BP’s offices in Washington, and demanded they pay the $9.9 Billion in taxes they are dodging by writing off loses from their own oil disaster.

  The girls are from the group Coastal Women for Change.

2. Hundreds of youth shut down BP station

Tulane University student Stephanie Stefanski explains why hundreds of youth shut down a BP station on Sunday, April 17th, and why she drove 20 hours from Louisiana to Power Shift:

“There’s still oil on our coast. I saw it two weeks ago, I touched it, I smelled it. It’s still causing massive die offs with dolphins, sea turtles, crustaceans and fish. It’s causing public health issues. I’m here to tell everyone this problem is still here one year later… They’re not paying up for their damages.”

Via Wonkroom

3. Cherri Foytlin rallies crowd of thousands outside White House

The mother of six and wife of an oil worker walked all the way to D.C. from New Orleans to raise awareness about the ongoing BP disaster.  She told thousands of fired-up youth in Lafayette Park: “[We] have to have a future where greed is not the name of the day, where humanity comes first.”

4. Clean-up worker Andre Gaines exposes BP health crisis, contractor corruption

“They told us… we don’t need respirators… But I’m living proof.  I have watched people falling over, holding their chest, [they] cannot breathe from this stuff… This stuff is killing people.”  Andre Gaines, 27, was one of six clean-up workers from Mississippi who spoke out about widespread illnesses, corruption, and negligent safety practices associated with the disaster clean-up.

5. Environmental Justice leader Michele Roberts tells 10,000 youth: “Stand for the least of these.”

Michele Roberts of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights talked about legacy pollution issues persisting in Mossville, Louisiana, and in communities of color and poor communities across the country:

“Did you ever think about the many people who are living in harm’s way from legacy pollution?  They tell me 9 out of 10 African American communities alone in America live in polluted lands.  I’m from one of them.”

Related Posts:

• PHOTOS: Gulf Coast Communities demand action from President, Congress, BP
• Today, youth across the U.S. take action to make BP pay
• Clean-up worker, youth leader tell thousands in D.C.: The BP disaster continues

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We just received word that the final House version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) includes the equity provisions we’ve been fighting so hard for!

We now have a small window of opportunity to help pass ACES. The House of Representatives will vote today, and many members are still on the fence. Call now.

The critical equity improvements to the bill simply would not have happened without your support. In the past 48 hours alone, Green For All supporters have made close to 1000 phone calls to their Representatives.

Thank you for speaking up for opportunity and investment in our communities!

Now, the bill provides opportunity for low-income communities and communities of color. Now, there are protections in the bill that ensure that working families don’t bear the cost for big polluters. Now, there is significant funding for green job training programs that build pathways out of poverty. And now, these good jobs will be accessible to low-income and local workers.

Now, we can support the American Clean Energy and Security Act as truly green for all.

Tell your Representative to pass ACES. Call now!
“Vote yes on the American Clean Energy and Security Act.”

NOTE: Congress is being flooded with calls. Please keep trying if you don’t get through the first time.

You all have fought hard to get us this far, help us get across the finish line today.

Yesterday, President Obama called on the House of Representatives to pass ACES, saying “I can’t stress enough the importance of this vote. I know this is going to be a close vote. But my call to those members of Congress who are still on the fence, as well as to the American people, is this… now is the time to finally act.”

Let’s act today. And let’s make history.

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins
Chief Executive Officer
Green For All

Green For All’s take on the stimulus is that it MUST include funding for the Green Jobs Act. For all the talk of Green Jobs, this is the only federally authorized bill that can build “green pathways out of poverty” – if it is funded, that is.

Here’s what Green For All’s Prez Van Jones had to say about it on Tuesday. If you like what you see, please add your voice by sending a letter to Congress.

For many, this holiday season will be tough. But Congress could give a terrific present to thousands who desperately need work – by fully funding the Green Jobs Act. Congress is deciding right now what to include in the economic “stimulus and recovery” package it will pass in the new year. This stimulus has the potential to create good, green jobs for America – but only if Congress includes full funding for the Green Jobs Act. Yesterday, Green For All initiated a letter-writing campaign, asking supporters to urge Congress to fund the Green Jobs Act as part of America’s rescue package

by Nicholas Sabloff

Social and environmental activist Van Jones felt he had important message about the economy, energy prices and global warming to impart in his book “The Green Collar Economy,” which was published this month. What he didn’t have, as a first time author with an almost non-existent marketing budget, was the kind of money and name-recognition that typically helps place a book on the best sellers list and in the national conversation. So he improvised.

Using a Web-based, viral marketing strategy, Jones and Green For All, an environmental organization he recently founded, worked to get the word out about his book far and wide. The result was a place — number 12 to be exact — on the New York Times best sellers list in the book’s first week.

“Everyone is stunned,” Jones told the Huffington Post. “Usually to get to number 12 the first week as a new author you’ve got to spend a million bucks or be on Oprah.”

Through a combination of emails and phone calls to friends, bloggers, and a network of activists, Jones estimates that the viral campaign he and his co-workers launched resulted in emails being sent to millions of people, many of whom surely forwarded it along. The initial commercial success of “Green Collar Economy” proves that Internet buzz combined with online activism can push a book onto the best sellers list.

It also helps to have something original and important to say, which Jones clearly does. His book is an innovative and impassioned account of how transforming America into a greener society would not only address the global warming crisis but also generate enough jobs to help turn the around the economy around and provide work for the Americans who need it most. As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote last year in an admiring profile of Jones:

Mr. Jones has been on a crusade to help underprivileged African-Americans and other disadvantaged communities understand why they would be the biggest beneficiaries of a greener America. It’s about jobs. The more government requires buildings to be more energy efficient, the more work there will be retrofitting buildings all across America with solar panels, insulation and other weatherizing materials. Those are manual-labor jobs that can’t be outsourced.

So how do you achieve success in viral marketing? Green For All contacted around 150 different organizations, large and small, national and local, according to Alli Chagi-Starr, the Grassroots Publicity Coordinator and Business Partners Manager for Green For All. They reached out to everyone from community gardening groups to labor unions to the Hip Hop Caucus. They got the Environmental Defense Fund to recommend the book to its 500,000 members; they got the organization who owns the domain name greencollareconomy.com to promote the book on its website. They contacted big environmental blogs like Treehugger. And they called everyone they knew.

“I’ve never personally called or emailed this many people in my life,” said Chagi-Starr, who had spent the previous year cultivating these relationships. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. People got out their rolodexes and really went to town.”

“Not having this book reach a lot of people was not an option,” Chagi-Starr said. The book’s success, “reaffirms once again the power of the grassroots.”

Read More here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/20/how-environmental-activis_n_136054.html