Ever since he signed health care legislation over a month ago, President Obama has been wavering among a host of issues ranging from climate change legislation to wall street reform to nuclear proliferation. Unfortunately, he hasn’t decided to choose or two of these priorities and go with them as aggressively as he did with health care reform. What’s worse, he’s failing to live up to one of his core principles he repeatedly mentioned throughout his campaign for health care reform, and that is that his choice to act wouldn’t be influenced by “politics or the polls,” but instead by what “is the right thing to do.” With the upcoming Congressional elections, it seems that President Obama is being influenced more by the polls than “the right thing to do” as he has chosen not to fight aggressively for anything. A great example is his rather short period of campaigning for wall street reform, which lasted a couple of weeks to be left to Congress again.

If President Obama wants to succeed on climate change and clean energy legislation, he will have to push it as hard as he pushed health care reform. So far, President Obama hasn’t dedicated any town hall meetings or domestic visits to climate change and clean energy legislation. He’s only spoken about it during a few times during his weekly addresses and when he announced lifting the ban on offshore drilling in many areas. A quick search through the White House website for health care yields 616 entries as of today, while for energy and the environment there are 64 (that’s roughly 10%). Clearly, if President Obama wants to succeed on climate change and clean energy legislation, he’ll have to campaign more aggressively for it to tip the political balance towards getting the necessary votes in the Senate to pass the strongest bill possible.

Furthermore, he will have to come up with the kind of language that will resonate with people across the country. When he campaigned for health care reform, he spoke of insurance industry abuses, unreasonable premium hikes, and a ballooning federal deficit, all of which were key messages that resonated with people across the country. However, when President Obama speaks of climate change and clean energy, he talks about innovation, leadership, and job creation, failing to emphasize the loss of jobs to other countries, the impacts of floods, droughts, and rising temperatures that are not uncommon across the country, and the damage that fossil fuels incur on the environment, health, and the pockets of U.S. citizens. It is  important to emphasize how climate change and clean energy legislation will spur new industries and create new jobs, but it is also important to emphasize how action will benefit citizens directly, just as he did with health care.

This is perhaps the best time to get it right. The BP oil spill and the coal mine disasters have exemplified our need to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels altogether, while our continued loss of clean energy manufacturing jobs to other countries will continue to make it harder to fight the high unemployment rate. We all witnessed how President Obama mustered public support to pressure Congress to act on health care. There is no doubt it can happen again for climate change and clean energy legislation, but it will require President Obama to “do the right thing,” step up to the plate, and campaign aggressively for legislation before campaigning for the Congressional elections erases all chances to get anything done this year. This one is just as up to the Senate as it is to President Obama.

A shortened version of this post was published at Today’s Campus.

The sustainability movement on college and university campuses has grown immensely this decade. In just a few years, sustainability has gone from a debate in a few campuses to a reality in virtually most colleges and universities. Behind this movement of colleges and universities trying to become sustainable is the energy of students who have organized to push sustainability forward in regards to funding, awareness, policy, and practice.

Students have organized themselves to pressure schools to do more on areas like energy and climate change, waste, food and water, and transportation. But at the same time, another group of non-activist students has been emerging to push sustainability from a different angle. This group is made up of students who don’t necessarily want to become active organizers on campus, but instead want to help colleges and universities research and develop new technologies, practices, and designs that can lower society’s ecological footprint.

There is a strong need to create opportunities for students to develop technologies, practices, and designs that can make campuses more sustainable. While many institutions have been integrating sustainability into curricula, few are actually creating research opportunities that directly engage students in creating or improving the solutions that can help us become more sustainable faster. To add to the lack of student research opportunities, there isn’t a vibrant organized community of students pushing to create these opportunities, probably because such students are simply interested in helping develop solutions but not ready to organize to make such opportunities available.

Recently, new opportunities have become available through national initiatives and federal funding. For example, the President’s Climate Commitment has stimulated fascinating campus work to develop campus solutions to reach climate neutrality, and in many schools students have been able to participate in such work. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has also made funding available for research and development at major universities in key areas like energy and transportation. Finally, the Higher Education Sustainability Act passed last year makes $50 million available for campus projects that directly create student research opportunities.

In spite of these new opportunities, more needs to be done to fully capture the potential held in students. Recent legislation is a first good step, but more will be required to ensure that more students can participate in the development of solutions to critical global challenges. By experimenting on campus, improving existing technologies, and creating new designs for products and processes, students can greatly add to the wealth of researchers available in colleges and university campuses. This is especially important because the challenges we face seem to be becoming more alarming over time, requiring us to act more quickly to catch up.

In a time like this, where the world faces critical ecological and social challenges like climate change and dwindling water supplies, it is important to support student research opportunities not just to solve these challenges, but to create the capacity society will need in the future to prevent future ones. Student organizing may be at its peak because of the institutionalization of sustainability, but that doesn’t mean students should not be part of implementing the plans we have committed to on college and university campuses. Students should be key players in the creation of solutions and tomorrow’s leading clean tech industries.

1) La perdida de gran parte del sector turistico y las zonas urbanas por la subida del nivel del mar;

2) La perdida de recursos hidricos y agricolas por las sequias, la evaporacion, y tormentas tropicales mas intensas; y

3) El incremento de las enfermedades infecciosas.

La campaña 350Dominicana busca que el Presidente Leonel Fernandez proponga a la region una Cumbre Regional Sobre el Cambio Climatico que discuta las consecuencias de no actuar suficientemente contra el cambio climatico a nivel mundial. La Cumbre buscaria formar un consenso regional con principios y estrategias politicas que presionaran al resto del mundo a comprometerse a acciones justas y que puedan prevenir efectos catastroficos del cambio climatico.

Vea el video de introduccion: http://350dominicana.org/2009/06/07/350-dominicana-%C2%A1unete-ya/

Firme la peticion: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/compromiso-regional-definido-para-cumbre-sobre-cambio-climtico-en-copenhague-suena-la-alarma-firma

Suscribete al Boletin: http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cmFxTUwwWUVMSS1DRjJIZEhIelZYSGc6MA..

350Dominicana ejecutara una campaña de prensa para buscar la atencion del Presidente Leonel Fernandez. Las estrategias se concentraran en el uso de herramientas de Internet y la prensa para buscar el respaldo de la poblacion Dominicana, lideres nacionales, y organizaciones de la sociedad civil. Especificamente, la campaña dependera de la ciudadania para crear:

1) Videos creativos que llamen al Presidente a tomar accion inmediata;

2) Fotos creativas de grupos o individuos en lugares iconicos del pais que seran afectados por el cambio climatico o con visuales para presionar al Presidente Leonel Fernandez; y

3) Una presencia dinamica en la prensa nacional que llegue a toda la poblacion y atraiga el apoyo de lideres nacionales, empresas, y organizaciones no gubernamentales.

Pero les pedimos que no esperen mas. Republica Dominicana ya esta siendo afectada gravemente por el cambio climatico, y el futuro puede ser peor si la comunidad internacional no hace lo necesario para evitar niveles catastroficos del cambio climatico. Visite nuestra pagina web ahora y comienze a tomar acciones para crecer la campaña y influenciar al Presidente Leonel Fernandez.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/350-Dominicana/89487003556

Hi5: http://hi5.com/friend/group/4267524–350%2BDominicana–front-html

MySpace: http://groups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=groups.groupProfile&groupID=107874171&Mytoken=D8217E41-8AB7-4FF6-8E8D70F309B06F8D94646152

Twitter: http://twitter.com/350dominicana

¡Unete Hoy!

Sosteniblemente,

El Equipo de 350Dominicana
350Dominicana@gmail.com
http://350dominicana.org

P.D. Estamos buscando socios en otros paises de America Latina y el Caribe para crear iniciativas nacionales similares lideradas por jovenes. Por favor dejenos saber si desean colaborar a 350Dominicana@gmail.com.

While America’s youth are working hard towards having 1 million youth pledge to Power Vote, Google has announced its own PowerVote pledge with its Clean Energy 2030 Proposal. The Internet giant has continued to lead beyond its main business by pledging to make Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal, joining General Electric in figuring out how to get America’s national grid to be “smart,” and even becoming a leader by example with a large solar power installation at their headquarters. Now, Google has announced a proposal that could wean America off of most fossil fuels by 2030, a plan in line with what T. Boone Pickens has called for with his Pickens Plan and the call by Al Gore to make all electricity consumed in America renewable by 2018.

Google’s proposal calls for a 100% reduction in coal and oil consumption in America by installing 300 GW of onshore wind energy, 80GW of offshore wind energy, 170GW of solar photovoltaic, 80GW of concentrated solar power, 15GW of conventional geothermal, and 65GW of enhanced geothermal. It also calls for an increase in sales of plug-in and hybrid vehicles to 90% of all sales by 2030 (reaching 42% of the U.S. vehicle fleet in 2030), increasing conventional vehicle fuel efficiency to 45mgp by 2030, an acceleration of the vehicle fleet turnover from 19 to 13 years (increasing sales by 31%), and building some 32,000 kilometers of new transmission lines.

The bill: $4.4 trillion. If we begin in 2010, this means an annual investment of $220 billion by the private sector and the government, with the majority of it coming from the private sector. It will also mean savings of $1 trillion by 2030 due to the lower price of renewables compared to oil, as well as other factors. These savings exclude the potential of energy efficiency, which is not aggressively considered in Google’s plan. According to estimates, America can cut its energy use by up to 30% by simply having smarter building codes, using more efficient appliances, and increasing fuel efficiency.

Google’s plan also calls for government action. Specifically, it wants a National Renewable Portfolio Standard, a price on carbon dioxide, fixed long-term tax credits and incentives (such as a feed-in tariff), funding for R&D and a smarter national grid that can cope with intermittence, a National Energy Efficiency Standard for appliances, buildings, vehicles, national decoupling of utility profits from sales, and investment in infrastructure for the massive deployment of plug-ins. The plan also acknowledges that to accomplish these goals, we will need a well-trained workforce to take on the new Green Jobs that will be created with increased manufacturing capacity, installations, and renovations.

According to the plan, this is clearly achievable given the increasing private interest in renewable energy and the economic benefits such a goal would bring. One of the benefits is a dramatic drop in carbon dioxide emissions: 95%. The only sources of emissions would be agriculture, some land-use, and natural gas used in vehicles, as Pickens proposes. What’s better, this plan would be a strong response to the current financial crisis and would ensure that Washington, D.C. (or taxpayers) doesn’t have to bail out Wall Street again. It will also reverse the trend of job losses and create millions of new, Green Jobs, lifting people out of poverty and putting the middle class once again on a track of improving quality of life.

While Google’s plan frames exactly what we need to do and affirms that the private sector will play the biggest role with its significant investments over the next 20 years, it fails to call for other necessary strategies to reducing fossil fuel use. Specifically, it does not mention the immense role public transportation can play, especially in urban areas, where most cars can be found today. It seems to skim over the fact that urban sprawl is one of the big promoters of inefficiency and fossil fuel use. It also seems to leave out the debate over biofuels, whether sustainable or not, perhaps assuming that they will play no role in the future. Finally, it doesn’t leave a role for tidal and ocean energy, as well as solar thermal energy for homes, which are currently gaining increased interest in the United States.

Regardless of these shortcomings, Clean Energy 2030 is bold, visionary, and necessary. With this plan, Google has also PowerVoted for clean energy, green jobs, and a more sustainable and just future.

It seems like the United States, to be followed by the rest of the world, is about to create a new oligopoly. Today, there are many existing oligopolies for commodities that are very difficult to produce because of technological and ownership issues. These include such industries as the automakers, the media, oil, beer, tobacco, etc. An oligopoly is a market form where a few companies are largely in control. Some are inevitable because the cost of market entry is too high and therefore only a few can survive. Others, like some monopolies, can be government-granted to ensure a certain standard that is of high interest to the public. In general, we hate having monopolies, duopolies, and oligopolies when we don’t really need them. This is because these are generally less efficient in terms of distributing resources than truly competitive markets, like those of grocery stores in cities. Yet this may be changing soon as the world, led by the United States, embraces the creation of a new, non-competitive market: The Carbon Oligopoly.

It seems like the entire world is not pretty sure that global warming is about to cook us alive this century if we don’t bring greenhouse gas emissions down seriously (to zero). Current events, like the tornadoes sweeping through the United States, the pine beetle range extending further through North America, signs of a very thin Arctic ice, and the cyclone that hit Myanmar recently, confirm to us that we’re in for a really big show. However, the world is not yet convinced, of course, that we actually need to bring the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (now 385 parts per million) down to 350 ppm, but it seems likely that new efforts (350.org and We Can Do It, for example) are poised to convince the world that we’ll have to take CO2 out of the atmosphere as soon as possible (and certainly much earlier than mid-century). So, everybody is waiting for 2009, when a new White House declares that it is ready to engage in an international treaty to try to keep humanity from being fried alive by global warming. But what exactly are they, as of now, likely to agree to do?

The answer is, given today’s discussions and the lack of support behind other ideas, a Carbon Oligopoly. Yes, you know that I refer to cap-and-trade (a.k.a. “carbon trading”) when I say “oligopoly.” And you know that I’ll be told that it is an inaccurate description of the system. But I’m going to ask you this: can you tell me how cap-and-trade is a competitive market? Can you show me how anybody can join the cap-and-trade “market”? Are you planning to join it? You know, I was planning to figure out how to produce $0.50 per installed watt solar PV systems (in my dreams) so that I could benefit from the carbon “market,” but… cap-and-trade, unfortunately, won’t let me. “Why not?” you may ask.

Cap-and-trade programs are designed so that specific industries, most of which already are oligopolized, have to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Allowances to emit are given free or at a cost, and those that can reduce emissions most cheaply get to sell (or trade) some of their allowances to companies that cannot reduce their greenhouse gas emissions cheaply. In this way, emissions are clearly reduced as the cap gets lower and the lowest-hanging fruits are taken so that it is “economically efficient.” In addition, cap-and-trade programs allow cheaper emissions reductions outside of the program to be purchased by companies within the program to a certain limit (30% in the Lieberman-Warner bill, for example).

Clearly, this may seem then that market entry isn’t impossible, as people outside the program can sell their emission reductions inside the program. But what do we call that in general? “Carbon offsets,” upon which many of us frown upon. Regardless of our concerns, we can probably figure out how to make them real through strict regulations (hasn’t happened under the EU emissions trading scheme because of corruption, loopholes, and exaggeration, but let’s assume it’s possible even though it’s not really). But the fact is that our target requires a massive amount of carbon dioxide (and other GHGs) many times the current amount of reductions being made, and so the opportunities for easy market entry become much more limited, in fact competitive. This is on top of the fact that due to popular support for emissions to be made by the companies selected, only a very small percentage of emission reductions will be allowed to come from outside the cap-and-trade program (in the EU, this is less than 10%, and may be reduced more as it becomes increasingly popular to drive domestic industries to create new jobs and specializations).

In this way, the big companies today largely responsible for greenhouse gas emissions will be able to cash in on carbon, which will now have a value. We can decide to auction allowances, but in the end carbon will have value that will be paid for by consumers and will go to the pockets of big companies. In all likelihood, any new businesses that will make real carbon offsets will be bought out by the large companies to make it easier on themselves to meet their targets. In the end, the new carbon “market” will be an oligopoly controlled by today’s big carbon players, who will likely put their money in lobby efforts in Washington to make sure they remain in control of their well-designed oligopoly. Equity will be placed on the line as policymakers fight over how the auction revenues will be used to subsidize impacted low-income people, renewable energy technologies, nuclear energy, biofuels, and “clean coal” (now being supported strongly by our presidential hopefuls). And, as we all know, the paperwork and bureaucracy behind the system will cost a lot, involve little public say, and be dominated by the oligopolists.

It seems that, in this year’s Presidential campaign, candidates are mentioning over and over the fact that the truth must be told to the people of the United States. If truth were to be told, then candidates would mention that cap-and-trade wouldn’t be different from a carbon tax in terms of raising costs to consumers. According to cap-and-trade supporters, “carbon tax” is political suicide. In a time of higher energy prices like today, people are not happy to have energy prices go up, but the fact is that either strategy will push prices up, and probably by very close magnitudes. Both systems, if allowances are auctioned, would also generate revenues that can alleviate low-income people, although cap-and-trade would have artificially varying prices. The oligopolists are doing whatever they can, forming partnerships and calling on government to do something now, to ensure that they can reap the benefits of pricing carbon while “ensuring their political survival.” In my opinion, an energy price hike is an energy price hike whichever way it comes, and consumers will clearly notice it anyways and blame it on those in charge.

Moving the world towards sustainability will require that we start doing things that are actually necessary rather than doing things that don’t do the job effectively in the name of special interests. The reality is that a carbon tax, now being supported by a majority of economists, will be much more equitable and cost-effective than cap-and-trade. The reason why there can’t be a “carbon market” is because carbon dioxide is an externality, not a normal good that consumers want to consume. It’s something society wants to value because we know that global warming, a consequence of CO2 and other gases, will cook us if we don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A real market would createitself with little government intervention. Most externalities are best addressed through direct taxes that bring them into market directly, not complicated systems subject to lobbying, loopholes, and cheating. Germany, like many other countries with a feed-in tariff, know that directly incorporating externalities into markets is equitable and cost-effective (its renewable electricity production went from 2% to over 12% in less than 10 years, with over 40% of all generation being locally owned). As Congress enters discussions about Lieberman-Warner and continues being well behind the actual science on global warming, we ought to be seriously thinking about what these proposals will do in a world where equity, truth, and change are popular topics.

After a long break from blogging, I’m glad to have the time to get back! First of all, from my title you will have probably noticed that I’m partially against cellulosic and plug-in hybrids as the solution to the world food crisis that biofuels and oil are helping to fuel. Sure, cellulosic can ensure we don’t use corn for ethanol and we don’t change wheat, barley, and other crops to corn fields for ethanol production. Sure, we can use plug-in hybrids and, if we’re lucky to scale renewables enough, power them with clean electricity and wean ourselves off of coal and oil. But have you stopped to think about what that means? I bet Mr. Henry Ford would have told you that you don’t have to think about it, that you should just go ahead and support the “real” solutions… Right!

In the last two weeks, biofuels have been attacked more than ever before from many angles. The world food crisis has become so severe that anybody who supports any biofuel that either uses food crops or takes land that would have otherwise gone to food production is criticized sharply. The arguments against biofuels, especially corn ethanol, are clear.

·         First, ethanol produced from corn takes a chunk away from the corn that would otherwise go to direct human purposes, excluding livestock (of course, nobody ever questioned before the fact that directing corn and soybeans to cows makes the supply available for exports lower, and therefore keeps prices relatively higher; in other words, food prices before the current crisis could have been much lower if it wasn’t because of the luxury of eating high quantities of meat; maybe a big tax on meat can lower other food prices, which politician will be smart enough to propose this?).

·         Second, as the demand for corn and soybeans surges, land that was used for other purposes is converted to corn and soy fields, therefore increasing the cost of the other crops (wheat, barley, etc.) because they’re less available.

·         Lastly, using ethanol has no impact on how much oil we use because the energy balance is 0 or negative. On top of all this, we are losing benefits from cheaper ethanol that could be imported from Brazil if our goal was really to get rid of oil at the lowest possible cost.

So, we know all these things. We also know that the increasing price of oil, now nearly $125 per barrel, is also pushing food prices up, and that decreasing water supplies and crazier weather is also pitching in into the food price hikes we’re seeing. What we also know is that every policymaker and the public at large is thinking that the way out of this is making ethanol from something that doesn’t take up food or converting our cars to plug-in hybrids to have them run on electricity. So lots of money is going into cellulosic research and lots of venture capitalists are fully funding new ventures that hope to bring to market “environmentally-friendly” plug-in electric vehicles. At the same time, GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, and other car companies are stepping up their development of these same technologies to bring such cars to market soon. What’s the problem with this?

From all the press going on about these things, you might be led to think it’s the right thing to do. Sure, if we can replace our carbon-producing cars with carbon-free cars we’d be on our way to a climate neutral world! But folks who talk about these issues in this way don’t understand key principles of sustainability or sustainable development. They don’t understand that the old way of thinking will not work for the 21st century, and that a whole-system approach is really what will get us out of this big mess. Thinking about carbon from cars alone leaves a lot out. What are we trying to achieve? What needs are we trying to meet? Cars are not simply responsible for the carbon they emit. They’re responsible for the carbon of sprawl, the carbon of congestion, the carbon of treating people’s health problems related to sprawl and dirty air, and the list goes on!

In thinking about transportation, we need to think about how we can first reduce the need for the car. This is what the big automakers in Detroit will not want to hear, but it’s the truth. Why should we give up over 50% of our city’s space to cars when we can have the same needs met without them and with a lot more space for different needs and a whole lot less carbon? Urban sprawl and the negative effects it brings are being largely left out of the picture when we talk about ethanol and other ways of powering cars.

Nobody talks about the fact that every year we give up $300 billion in congestion alone in the United States, enough money to make you sick of public transportation being so damn easy (and this, of course, leaves out the multiplier effect $300 billion can have on total economic output). What about deaths by accidents? Over 250,000 per year globally. How much do we value human lives? What about health costs because of obesity, depression, dirty air, and global warming? What about the huge subsidies the government hands out to maintain roads and build new ones. The huge amounts of money banks lend out to allow people to buy cars. Could that money be loaned instead for better purposes, such as solar and wind? The irony here is that you never see someone who buys a car calculating the payback time of the car as you see them calculating it for solar and wind. And then, of course, is all the space we give up in our cities, space that could go instead to green urban parks, greenways, community gardens (things that reduce crime, improve education, and lower health and energy costs), sports complexes, businesses, and everything else you wish you had in your city!

The car culture has been here for too long and it seems like nobody is blaming it for high oil prices and the world food crisis we’re currently suffering from. Nobody wants to blame the car for the cyclone that hit Myanmar, or for the fact that 100 million people around the world are now at risk of going into poverty. At some point, we have to come to grips and ADMIT that the car is a huge part of this entire mess. Cellulosic ethanol, plug-in hybrids, and whatever else you may say is the solution don’t matter. What matters is that we have given up 30+ years in which we could’ve developed efficient, widespread mass transportation systems that could have probably kept our need for the car at a very low level. Instead of investing in mass transportation in all our cities, we have invested in sprawl, global warming, high food prices, and much more! And the sad part is that we still don’t seem to get it.

If the Presidential candidates want to make a good case about getting out of the huge mess we’re in, they’re gonna have to face reality and admit that the car has to go. The car will only be necessary for long distance trips or trips to places outside our urban/suburban areas that we cannot reach through mass public transit. In these cases, it’ll be useful to have plug-in electric vehicles; obviously, they will still have an important use. But we cannot go on in the 21st century thinking that the independent car is the only answer to transportation.

The public has to demand that we invest the $300 billion we needlessly lose each year due to congestion or the $100+ billion we needlessly send to Iraq annually in mass transit. It doesn’t matter whether it is government-managed or privately managed. The point is that we need mass transit to free ourselves out of this mess. So, we need to make it a point that in dealing with global warming, the new President in 2009 will work with Congress to scale up investments in mass public transit, which will lead to smart urban development and much more. If it doesn’t get done soon, we may run out of time. It’s up to us to begin recognizing that the car must come to an end and to begin getting this notion into the press if it will ever get to the halls of Congress for consideration. Just like the car drove us into this mess, if we do nothing the car will drive us into the ground.

The Caribbean islands, for the exception of Cuba and Haiti, are largely dependent on tourism. Coastal development for the purpose of tourism is growing in the region at a high rate despite a recent regional decline in tourism. In the Caribbean, tourism accounts for 15% of the gross domestic product, with higher rates in many islands, and over 2.4 million jobs (about 16%). It has also pushed populations towards the coasts. For example, in the Dominican Republic, over 50% of the population lives near coasts where a 6-m sea-level rise would plunge them into the sea.

Recently, the Dominican government received a report detailing that, under their estimates, sea-level will rise by 6 meters under business-as-usual by 2050, eliminating the tourism industry and sending the country into complete chaos. The same would happen around the Caribbean. The fast development the region is seeing may be completely obliterated by global warming, and the same case goes for much of the rest of the developing world. The outcome would be to put billions of people in situations of poverty, hunger, and violence.

There are good reasons why people in the developing world should have high hopes. One reason is that, aside from what governments are doing (whether it be block negotiations or push for tough measures), industries are rushing towards making a profit out of solving the climate, and that’s a great thing. Companies like Ausra, eSolar, Solel, Nanosolar, Google, Honda, GE, Vestas, Aracruz, and many others are working hard to make renewable energy, transportation, and products cheap, feasible, and appropriate for smart, sustainable development. We are already seeing every major industry making significant investments in the solutions we need. Of course, this doesn’t mean we don’t need governments to step in. We especially need huge subsidies to shut down coal plants globally and replace fossil fuels with renewables.

Another good reason is that people are standing up everywhere. We are seeing people getting together to deploy solutions, taking action to shut down fossil fuel projects, and even elect leaders who will do something about global warming. The fact that climate criminals in Washington are hindering progress should be no reason for us to lose hope. Within a few years, we may be seeing ourselves agreeing that the entire world can be carbon neutral within two decades – and that’s where we need to get ourselves for the sake of uncertainty, urgency, and the billions of people who will have to suffer as a result of something they didn’t do. The good thing is, as I show in this recently released report, that we can do it while booming economies and improving the quality of life of everybody. Let’s do it!

But we don’t have to stop here. We have to make 2008 bigger than 2007. So, to kickoff the year, I created a petition, with the help of peer organizers, for youth around the world to tell world leaders that we want, in 2008, mandates to get rid of coal use by 2020. Dr. James Hansen from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies has made it clear that we can’t continue burning coal if we can’t capture it, and that it must stop within the next decade, or else we risk runaway climate that will literally cook the planet. So, youth have to tell world leaders that we want exactly that. On January 1st, we need to send these leaders a strong message with international media on this Youth Call to End Coal by 2020!

To make this really big, we need 10,000-100,000 youth from around the world to sign the petition and get ready to do media work on January 1st about it in every major global warming polluter. So, what are you waiting for? Sign the petition now and tell your friends to do the same! Go!

The Summit included students from Cornell University, Fredonia College, Ithaca College, New Explorations High School, NYU, Plattsburgh University, St. Lawrence University, University of Rochester, Wells College, and Westchester Community College. It also included members of the Central NY Climate Change Action Group, Sustainable Tompkins, and Energy Independent Caroline.

Our strategic plan includes a push for New York to be a leader on global warming at the upcoming Presidential Debate on Global Warming in New Hampshire, a coordinated Focus The Nation event where we invite legislators and demand them to state their position on global warming and a bill to reduce emissions 80% by 2050 in the state, and a Lobby Day during St. Valentine’s Day (Date Your Elected Officials, Show Love For Warming Action).

Our website will soon be up at www.nyssc.org, but in the meantime people (especially NY students) can visit our google group.

“Words fail me as I try to figure out how to capture in words the profound significance of the student-based Power Shift conference which took place November 2-5 at the University of Maryland and on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Historic—Powerful—Deep—Amazing—Awesome—Astounding—Incredible—Hope at the Highest Level: these are the adjectives and phrases that come to mind.

So what happened?

From November 2nd to the 4th upwards of 6,000 people, overwhelmingly young people from all over the country and with some international representation, met on the campus of the University of Maryland in College Park at the “first-ever national youth climate summit.” Over the course of two and a half days they heard lots of speakers and music at plenary sessions and panels and took part in close to 300 different workshops, on a range of topics.

Some of the topics covered in the workshops and panels included:

-anti-racism and anti-oppression, a central priority for this burgeoning movement of hope for the world

-organizing strategies and tactics on the climate issue on college campuses

-community-based, statewide and national organizing and legislative approaches on the climate issue

-ending the U.S. addiction to coal and oil

-media and messaging

-skills trainings

-spirituality and faith and environmental sustainability

-civil disobedience and direct action in the climate movement

-corporate campaigning

This was a conference of thousands of SERIOUS young people. They were not there just to enjoy one another’s company, although that was definitely going on. They were there primarily to learn, to contribute, to strategize, to return home as smarter and more effective activists for a justice-based, peace-encouraging, world-changing clean energy revolution.

And more.

One of the political high points for me was when, during a major plenary session Saturday night, a “we want more” chant went up from some of those in the crowd of thousands during the speeches of Congresspersons Ed Markey and, following him, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. Markey is the chair of a special House committee on global warming set up by Pelosi earlier this year.

Markey and Pelosi were the two prominent national politicians who spoke at Power Shift. I was told that all of the Presidential candidates were invited and, tellingly, none came.

I was especially pleased by this interruption of Markey’s and then Pelosi’s speeches because I was disappointed by the initially loud and strong welcoming of Pelosi when she was introduced to the crowd. Other speakers Friday night and earlier Saturday night had received a warm response when they spoke against the war in Iraq during their time on the stage. So for Pelosi to be received so positively given her misleadership in Congress on that issue was not what I had thought would happen. I was hoping that the response would be more mixed.

But then the “we want more” chant rose up out of the crowd. Here’s how it was described on the Power Shift website blog by one of those who led it, Juliana Williams:

“Tonight at Power Shift, as Congressman Ed Markey stood before us inciting us to support the proposed Energy Bill, a few of us began chanting ‘We want more, we want more.’ Congressman Markey stopped short to listen. We chanted for a full minute with a fervor, intensity and volume that left me light-headed, hoarse and thoroughly invigorated. As we chanted, for the first time, I felt an almost painful desire for the future we want to see. . .“We don’t just want policy fixes, or simply a change in leadership in the White House, higher fuel economy standards, or 80% emissions reduction by the year 2050. This movement is about more than just politics. This movement is about more than just supporting clean energy sources. This movement is about recognizing the patterns of consumption, patterns of thought, patterns of behavior that have led to the social ills we see today. It’s about rediscovering the value of our resources, the value of our neighbors, the value of life on this planet.”“We want more” came forward as a chant another time that I heard over the course of the weekend. It was on Monday the 5th on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol during a rally of close to 2,000 young people in mid-day in between morning and afternoon mass lobbying by the students in support of the strong legislative demands of the 1 Sky campaign (www.1skycampaign.org). The best lobby day story I heard about was what happened in the Hart Senate Office Building that morning. Spontaneously, hundreds of students started chanting “80 by 50” (80% reductions in carbon emissions by 2050) across an atrium in the center of that building around which Senate offices are lined up. I was with a group of about 25 that chanted anti-war slogans into that atrium space during the first week of the Iraq war in March of 2003, and we were loud, so I’m sure hundreds of students chanting on Monday were heard by everyone in the building.The best visual of the weekend for me was at the end of the Monday rally. Dozens of young people were up on the stage, singing and dancing along with music coming out of the loudspeakers. Hundreds of others were doing the same on the ground as cameras clicked and rolled. I was moved as I watched the joyful energy and read the signs people were holding: Green Jobs—No Coal—1 Sky—30 by 2020—Power Shift—Danger: End of World Ahead—Congress Listen: Act Now—Youth Want Green Energy—God’s Creation, Our Home—Hope Is Green.Our hope for the future absolutely is green: a connection to the green, life-giving force of our Mother Earth. A green, clean energy economy that gets us off the dirty fossil fuels which are destroying the ecosystem and are the reason for the U.S.’s wars of occupation in the Middle East and elsewhere trying to control oil and natural gas. A green, clean energy revolution that creates millions of jobs, lifts people out of poverty, strengthens communities and reduces the power of destructive corporations.And there is movement in Congress toward this future. It is possible that a piece of global warming legislation could come onto the U.S. Senate floor for a debate and vote early next year, although it will not be strong enough and will likely provide even more subsidies for coal, auto and oil companies. There will be a need for significant grassroots mobilization to demand that it either be strengthened and changed or defeated.Most immediately, there’s an energy bill that could be passed by Congress in early December that could—repeat, could—be the beginnings of a turn by the federal government in the right direction on the energy issue. If that’s to happen the climate movement needs to work very hard between now and then to pressure legislators for a good bill. A good bill will include an increased fuel efficiency standard for cars to at least 35 mpg by 2020, a renewable electricity standard requiring utilities to get at least 15% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, a strong green jobs program and absolutely no subsidies for liquid coal, nuclear energy, coal or oil.As we work to get this kind of energy bill passed we should be building toward actions all over the country on December 8^th, the third International Day of Climate Action. This is taking place during the time of the Dec. 3-14 United Nations Climate Conference in Bali, Indonesia. There will be actions on the 8^th in more than 50 countries. Power Shift. As was talked about this past weekend, a phrase with a double meaning. A shift from carbon to clean energy, and a shift from old, corporate-dominated politics as usual to the new, democratic (small “d”), participatory politics experienced by thousands at the University of Maryland. We are on the way, we are moving, we have hope, we can see the future, and we are determined to do what needs to be done to get there. Young people are rising up and giving leadership and all of us of whatever age need to follow and work with them. Si, se puede! Si, se puede!

Ted Glick is on the 65^th day of a Climate Emergency Fast (www.climateemergency.org) and is the coordinator of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council. He’s also active with the Climate Crisis Coalition, which is coordinating U.S.-based organizing toward December 8^th actions (www.climatecrisiscoalition.org).”