Area fire and ambulance crews arrive near the scene in Middletown, Conn., Sunday, Feb. 7, 2010. Multiple people have died in an explosion at a power plant in Connecticut and an unknown number of people are injured. (AP Photo/Richard Messina, Hartford Courant)

This morning, at 11:30 am, Middletown’s Kleen Energy Power Plant suffered a major explosion,  believed to be when a gas line caught fire during testing. Friends who work at the plant said that there were 50 – 100 construction workers, engineers, and plant managers who were inside. As of 12 pm, Middletown firefighters had only found 9 individuals. Since then, five* have been reported dead, with casualties and injuries expected to be many more. Firefighters from around the state came into the plant, with Hartford and Boston’s search-and-rescue teams both coming to Middletown to help clear the wreckage and free workers still stuck inside.

Workers at the plant were working long shifts, trying to finish the plant on a tight schedule. Matthew Lesser, Middletown’s representative to state government, said, “As I understand it, they were testing a gas line when the explosion took place but we’re not sure. Our first priority is making sure that everyone there is safe.”

I live about 5 miles away from this power plant, and felt my house shake from the explosion. The nearby Connecticut Valley Hospital had windows blown out from the explosion, and while most nearby homes had little damage done, nearby towns like mine are making house calls to reassure our communities that we are still safe. In Durham’s town store, the sidewalks and our skating pond, people shared the news they were receiving from our volunteer firefighters, from friends who were supposed to have gone into work, and from friends living nearby the plant.

Fossil fuels are not safe. They are not safe for our planet, they are not safe for our communities, and they are not safe for the workers inside of their power plants. This is not the first power plant explosion, this will not be the last. It is time for America to commit to a clean and safe energy economy – where our friends and neighbors can work in green jobs that give good wages and safe working environments. My heart and prayers are with the workers at the Kleen Energy Plant and with their families — and with the future of our nation to not face such a tragedy again.

It’s also been wonderful to read about what the movement here in the US has been mulling over the past two years, while I’ve been on the other side of the planet, working in India with the Indian Youth Climate Network and the early stages of so many other international youth movements on climate change. I have been so lucky to learn so much from my peers globally and to have been forced to rethink all assumptions, particularly about how change happens. In many ways, our theories of change differ dramatically worldwide, as do the tactics that feel most natural to create change. If we want to continue to build a global movement, we must continue building our respect for these diverse approaches and diverse tactics.

I think a respect of true diversity of tactics will allow our movements – wherever we are – to be so much stronger. Just as we recognize there is no technological “silver bullet”, I think we must accept that there is no silver bullet tactic, no one single approach to change that can transform the world.

Copenhagen shook many into the realization that change will not come from the top-down, nor always from effective grassroots demands for a better future. Change comes from local policy makers demonstrating political will, from innovative technology creators and distributors, from individuals living as examples, from positive examples and powerful campaigns. Our generation must not only recognize these diverse approaches but truly respect them.

Learning Globally: A Diversity of Tactics for Change
I have been fortunate to witness the growth of our global movement and the beauty of this work worldwide. In my work with the Indian Youth Climate Network, I’ve been forced to challenge my own conceptions of where change comes from – utilizing technology, music, art, direct action, corporate engagement, children’s education and political lobbying – by doing them all in a day’s work. The IYCN team includes musicians, engineers, artists, academics, activists and young professionals, working together in such different ways towards a common vision.

Need for difference approaches:

I learned the hard way that not every government operates the same way. While I was working with city legislators to implement green building codes in Hyderabad, a fast-growing city in central India, a friend was working in Newark, New Jersey, sharing notes. We both faced the same challenges of convincing politicians of the benefits of such a system, but I found a much greater need to work with businesses. Indian politicians listened even more closely to business leaders; if major businesses were ready to follow new laws, politicians considered it.

After three months of internal lobbying and as we were close to regulations being passed, the head of the Hyderabad Urban Development Authority left his post; he serves the government and Indian civil servants are moved at the will of the state. Had we only been lobbying, I would have (and did, momentarily) lost complete hope. Our work was wasted! However, as we had been working with businesses to convince them of the same needs, we were still able to make a positive impact. We couldn’t and didn’t lose hope – more green buildings were coming up, whether the government changed or not.
Combining Approaches:

There are so many incredible examples of youth organizing for long-term political change who are building their solutions in their own communities. Shwetha is running a powerful lobbying campaign in Bangalore to get rid of plastic bags, but she and her colleagues are making their own cloth bags to sell at their events while others distribute newspaper bags as plastic alternatives to stores in their neighborhoods.

Clinton has transformed the way waste is managed in Goa, a state in southern India, first by changing his own house’s waste stream, then his neighborhood’s, later convincing his town’s government that waste management would save money and resources. The district capital city government hired him to redesign their waste stream, directing more than 90 percent of waste out of landfills.

A team of young ornithologists in Vietnam are educating young people about biodiversity and petitioning the government to protect more land, but are also raising funds through sale of their photographs of birds to buy their own forest land.

In India, I have seen a recognition and an acceptance of this diversity of approaches. Engineers who are organizers, organizers who are entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs who are lobbying their cities and states to put in better policies to support clean energy and green businesses. Yet, in the recent White House youth meeting, there was only one young entrepreneur representing our generation’s commitment to renewable energy and clean tech. Can this change?

Building Confidence, Maintaining Optimism

In many countries, where governments are just so slow to change or people are so disempowered that they feel (or know) that they cannot change their leaders through words, it doesn’t mean we have to give up  tactics many of us are used to — lobbying, organizing our community members to ask leaders for change, demonstrating in front of Capitol buildings. In combining our own direct actions that have immediate impact in our communities with larger scale campaigns, we can not only demonstrate to our leaders what the future looks like, but build that future while they wake up!

International Collaborations: Respecting Diversity of Tactics

In Poznan, during the UN climate negotiations in 2008, I was lucky to witness one of the most beautiful moments of our global movement, hundreds of youth from around the world joined to talk about how we could create one – most powerful – action to end COP 14. While dozens of individuals, primarily from the global north, from Australia, US, UK and Canada, had come up with a powerful idea to non-violently die-in during the final plenary of the UN, many of the youth from Asia were reluctant, not only to be involved, but to have the action happen at all.

With a beautiful eloquence and strength, Midori explained that in Japan, youth were working hard with their governments and were building the respect they needed for governments to listen to them. They believed a disruptive (even if non-violent) action would set them back in their work, whether or not they participated, because it would degrade their perspective of youth. In respecting Midori’s work, and that of the youth she spoke for, the youth present designed another kind of action to share our message the following day, the global movement showed enormous recognition for our diversity of tactics.

The incredible organizers of 350.org’s global day of action on October 24, gave a common platform to youth worldwide, but in giving us the flexibility to organize what was most relevant to our local conditions, allowed for a beautiful diversity to emerge. In doing so, this encouraged all organizers to celebrate their own strengths. We saw engineers designing and showcasing their solar cookers; foresters publicly planting hundreds of trees; artists creating incredible masterpieces; organizers bringing together thousands for marches and aerial art; and lobbyists reaching local and national politicians with global messages. By giving a flexible platform that respected the diversity of tactics need to make change in different countries, 350 was able to engage more global youth than ever before.

In Copenhagen, at the failed UN climate negotiations, more youth than ever before were working within their official government delegations, drafting negotiating text and attending closed door meetings. Particularly those working with African nations and small island states were able to share what exactly their nations needed in order to protect their survival – mostly, they needed youth to amplify their voices. In a recent interview, a representative of Tuvalu said that activist support, including a youth-led demonstration, “was very helpful, I think, in highlighting the fact that our concerns couldn’t just be swept under the carpet.” While even this didn’t create a fair, ambitious or binding deal in Copenhagen, it showed what we could do when working in new ways, in collaboration.

On the very last day of COP15, amidst the failures of governments to act and the lock-out of civil society, there were fewer than 15 youth inside those final plenaries, with hundreds outside. But because of our personal connections, SMSing and tweet-ing updates from inside allowed those “wonky policy people” inside to connect with the “crazy activists” outside organizing demonstrations were able to create accurate responses. We needed to respect that inside and outside, our strategies depend on each other.

Moving Forward, Together:

In the post-Copenhagen world, I see so many young people questioning what is next, questioning the fundamental assumptions that have characterized our movement. In the United States, as Andrew explored in his recent post, we have often assumed that there is one “equation” for change — a certain number of actions on a given day, a certain number of petitions, or a certain number of partners on the inside. I am grateful for the explorations, as it may force us to question what our assumptions are about theories of change. How can we recognize that diverse tactics and diverse theories of change more accurately represent the transformation we need?

We may disagree with each other. We may believe we have a solution that is faster or more effective than another route of change. But we must respect that to build our future, we need our diversity to make change. It is only together that we can make the transformation our generation deserves.

It’s possible that I left Copenhagen with more hope than I entered, actually. I saw diverse tactics in use that can help build our movement through the tough road ahead. I saw more young people more committed than ever to building change in their own communities rather than waiting for governments to act. And, I saw youth able to learn from each other about what works in various communities. Cultures and countries may have different theories of change, but there is so much we can share about what can work that we may never have thought of! As our movement grows globally, our power will grow locally.

Ben Powless -   Zoë Caron -   Juan Hoffmaister -   Matthew Carroll -   Liz McDowell -   Caroline Howe

Note: Matt’s incredible description of the beginning of this session are fabulous. You can check out our live notes, or our summary as it follows here.

11:53 Debating the “Noting” of Copenhagen Accord

Currently, the parties are debating whether or not to “note” the Copenhagen Accord. This means that the document we’ve been debating for 10 hours will be seen as a document that any delegation could sign onto. So, we’re proposing countries sign on if they agree with it. It couldn’t be agreed to because of the process by which it was created. I’m confused. And sad. There’s not much to write, because we’re lost on what part of our future is disappearing right now.

10:25 Meeting Begins Again

After more than two hours, the session began again, chaired by those who are slightly less exhausted. The plenary hall has no windows, so its hard to tell if any time has passed at all.

7:47 Imperfect, but a Beginning?

Gabon used the message, “Every human endeavor and creation is imperfect, but we also have to continue to fashion the stone, to sculpt because tomorrow will be better than today.” The consensus is generally emerging that this document (a non legally-binding framework) may be a way for things to move to the next phase of negotiations. It is imperfect, but

7:38 Saudi Arabia calls this the worst plenary ever seen

He emphasizes the timing, the facilitation, the criticisms from one nation to another – and this is only for a NON legally-binding document.

7:35 Lesotho Lightens the Air With a Merry Christmas

7:30 Alarm Clocks Start Ringing

Some LDCs are leaving, or leaving for breakfast, while  the members of civil society are sleeping all across the floor and in their chairs! The President looks exhausted, and confused about how exactly he can move forward. This may be negotiation by exhaustion.

7:28 Sudan & Lesotho Speak as the LDCs Slowly Leave

It’s getting later and later in the day (though the sun hasn’t yet risen in Copenhagen!), and more delegates are getting desperate to get on their planes.

7:18 Venezuela Calls out on the Trillions Spent on War

There is money. We’re not begging for money, were looking to save their own lives. 1.5 degrees, 350 ppm — we’re not looking for 30 billion. There are many major issues that are not resolved in any of the working groups, and couldn’t have been resolved in one document. Keep your checkbooks in your pockets, and in your government – work to address the ideas of principles. You can’t purchase principles.

After two weeks of work, and after beginning a meeting at 3 am while the developed nations held press events to talk about the “COP15 Deal”, we are only with this document for 4 hours. We hope that the Presidency can demonstrate its dignity. Dignity and principles don’t have a pricetag.

7:03 Is Short- or Long-Term Finance Blackmail?

Cuba said, “I wish that no nations had offered money, because it seems to me like blackmail. We know that the money won’t come whether there is a document or not.” Norway responded a few speakers later by saying, “Norway is one of the only countries that is meeting its ODA commitment of .5 % of GDP. How can I go back to my people in Norway and call it a bribe of developing nations and encourage them to pay more?”

6:50 The Circus Begins

It was one of the craziest moments of COP15 when the President of COP asked “I am not familiar with the processes here.”

6:15 France Supports 1.5 Degrees C

Brice Lalonde said that France would sign this declaration, saying, “We defended the inclusion of 1.5 degrees Celsius because the islands of Maldives should be heard here.” He went on to emphasize that the “Friends of the Chair” group that drafted this paper was done in good faith to break the deadlock and the imminent failure.

5:45 Sudan Condemns the Document

The representative from Sudan, condemned the document created as “one of the most disturbing developments in the history of the UNFCCC, threatening lives of millions of people in developing countries.” He continued on to say the statement that then launched continued debate: “L-9 is murderous. It condemns africa to turn into a furnace; 2 degrees results in 3.5 degrees in Africa. L-9 asks Africa to sign a suicide pact – an incineration pact – in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries.”

“L-9 is devoid of any sense of responsibility, morality, and is a solution based on the same values that tunneled 6 million people in Europe into furnaces. No one, no Obama, can force Africa to destroy itself, future generations, and current generations. 2 degrees is certain death, and that is shown by the IPCC report.”

This reference to the Holocaust were further discussed by the majority of participants who called out on this as the incredibly offensive.

Here in India, we started on the Road to 350 a long time ago. It’s been one year since I quit my job and decided to drive across India in solar powered and electric cars with 350 literally written all over them (that’s our Revalution to the right!), to show the world that there is a Road to 350, a path paved with solutions that is beautiful, powerful, and inspiring. We worked to demonstrate that there is no silver bullet, there is no single solution — that there are 350 and counting! The Road to 350 drives straight through October 24, straight through COP15, and straight onto the future that we are creating every day we wake up and commit to being the change. As it gets closer to October 24, I’m more and more inspired by those actions planned that are showing what the Road to 350 looks like – what our world of solutions will be!

One of my all time favorite 350 actions is the image taken in Granada, Spain, where Rene turned solar cookers into a gleaming visual representation of 350 as part of his Sahara project bringing solar ovens to the region of North Africa. It reminded me of the incredible solar cookers all across India that we saw, and of course of the day that Anna cooked Maggi noodles on the roof of Manzil; our time in Vasant Kunj solar festival when women cooked pakora for all of us; or eating solar cooked food at Deepak Gadhia’s tribal girls school in Gujarat. We saw so many solutions that I hope these organizations will highlight similarly on October 24. It doesn’t have to be a 350 made of solar cookers, but a 350 made of pakoras cooked by the sun!! I am grateful to Rene for showing just how many people will benefit from these incredible machines, saving our forests and our air!

Tantoh Nforbah and his community group, Save Your Future Association, in northwestern Cameroon planted flowers with the message “CO2 350 PPM” to promote carbon reductions, community development and sustainable agriculture in the region, while 350 Dominicana gathered to help with a local reforestation project and take a 350 action photo. All around the world, and all across Delhi, people are planning to plant or distribute 350 trees in their neighborhoods, their schools, or their cities.

In the City of Mandurah in Western Australia, they will be celebrating October 24th through a ‘350 Bulb Swap’ – where they will be swapping 350 incandescent bulbs for energy efficient CFL bulbs. The event will be held at the Sustainable Mandurah Home, a modern hands-on display home where, after they have swapped their bulbs, visitors can learn how to make their home more cost effective (through energy efficiency measures) and environmentally sensitive.

There are so many more! There’s some more of my favorites after the break, and tons more at 350.org

In the Czech Republic, these students collected garbage from a park, created a 350 out of the bottles they found and created floating art. They not only cleaned up a neighborhood but converted garbage into a usable, beautiuful by-product. It’s so exciting to see these solutions in action!

In Delhi, we’ll be working with waste pickers to organize a similar kind of action, collecting garbage from five of Delhi’s major historical sites, and turning it into 350 art in front of Delhi’s (and India’s) most prominent landmarks. We’ll also be painting garbage cans and dustbins, calling for action on an urban level.

All around the world, organizers are planning cycle rallies to celebrate alternative transportation and to demonstrate the power of two wheels to move around the world! Just as in that amazing 350.org video, cyclists rode to the pyramids to celebrate in this incredible image. In Bordeaux, to the right, they’ve created a 350 of cycles and a giant heart to show just how much love and compassion the movement has! They’ve been celebrating monthly with carbon neutral potlucks, with a giant one planned for October 24th.

October 24th is an incredibly opportunity to celebrate the actions we are already taking to make this planet a more incredible and sustainable place. All around, on October 24, we’ll be organizing events to spread the message about climate change and the need for climate action, demanding that global leaders invest in our future by contributing to a fair, ambitious and binding deal in Copenhagen — one that will create a green economy for our future, while protecting the survival of all people and all nations. It’s one more step on the Road to 350 – let’s make it a giant leap!

I always thought it was a little overly dramatic when people used to say, with that gleam of fire in their eyes and intense certainty in their voices, “The next world war will be fought over water.” I didn’t notice their resigned sadness after saying that and seeing the response of the audience, of my response.

Water wars, we imagined, were decades away. Climate refugees fleeing drought and devastation would be seen in generations, not in ours. People would recognize when resources were becoming so scarce and develop cooperative strategies for conservation long before it came to the point of fighting over them. Right?

The sad climate “joke” five years ago was that we’d need to bring melting icebergs to sub-Saharan Africa to support life. But in Kenya today, aid workers are already flying water in from other countries. Today, thousands of men and women are already dying from lack of the most basic human need — water.

Today, when I repeat the phrase – “Wars will be fought over water” – with the same confidence and intensity, the same fire, and the same resigned sadness, I know that fights over water are not generations – or even years – away. We may not have another world war, but I have no question that we will see more devastation and violence, if we need to see any more than the lives being lost every day in Kenya.

There is no water to drink, let alone have water to wash hands to prevent the spread of diarrheal diseases. There is no water to drink, let alone have water to farm. Lakes have been retreating for years as water is used for farming, for geothermal energy, and for survival, and the lakes’ disappearances are threatening not only water animals like flamingos and hippos, but all of the biodiversity for which Kenya is famous.

At the same time, in India, thousands of farmers commit suicide annually due to desperation caused by cycles of debt, but also cycles of increasing drought and irregular rain. Farmers who would rather die than face the shame and sadness of watching their families die of starvation, have killed not only themselves but their families as well. This year has been one of India’s worst monsoons in recent history, with too little rains coming too late, and often all at once.

On the brink of death, is there a question of anything but desperation?

Read more on what we can expect – and what we can do.

In India and Kenya, failing to provide for your family is shameful, but killing others would mean the death of your family as well. This is the explanation I’ve found for why many are killing themselves, but when driven to such sadness, death by dehyrdation, I have no question that in other cultures or in similar situations, many would be driven to kill others, to use the last of their strength to attempt to provide water for their families.

Many are blaming corruption in Kenya for not responding more quickly to the needs of the Kenyan people, for selling off reserves of grain that *had* been saved for times of intense drought. Others blame developed countries for not sending more aid money. Seeing failures on all sides, few are asking the hard question — how will we respond when it is not hundreds of thousands but hundreds of millions that are suffering in the same situation?

When I used to think of climate refugees, I thought of residents of low-lying coasts or small island nations as floods increase and sea levels rise. It is time to think of the millions who will move due to water in the other extreme – those who will not have water to survive AND those who will be caught in the crossfire of water-based conflict.

My family and friends, who have seen me passionate about many things, have never seen me this angry or this deeply sad. I still have hope for the Maldives and other islands, but I’m losing my hope for survival of our world’s desert peoples. Things are becoming so bad so quickly that I’m not sure that there is time. And, I don’t know *what* the solution is. Of course, more water brought by more aid money and more food equitably distributed by the government would help in Kenya. Can this happen fast enough to save lives now?

In the long term, friends ask about technology transfer? More efficient use of water? Drip irrigation and drought resistant crops? Rainwater harvesting? Low-flush toilets sending sewage to wastewater treatment plants like those in Singapore whose effluent you can drink? Desalination plants? In internal Kenya, there is no rain to harvest, no water to use more efficiently, virtually no sewage systems to treat to a point of potability. In the long term, we’ll need all of these things — all over the world.

The water crisis makes me feel so desperate because I’m not sure what I can do here to help. I find myself angry when seeing a few sips of water left in a glass, furious as the quantities of potable water flushed down the drains in New England, livid at the lawns in Los Angeles. There are so many ways Americans (among others) waste water, and so much that could be improved if things change here. But if we save this water, it still won’t save lives in Kenya or  in India.

What’s to do? We must demand from our Northern political leaders stronger action – commitment to aid in drought areas NOW, commitment to climate mitigation and energy policy in US and Europe, and massive contributions to Disaster Risk Reduction and adaptation funds to prevent these catastrophes. We must demand global cooperation in the lead up to Copenhagen and global commitment to 350 ppm by organizing in communities around the world on October 24. And we must remember what is at stake.

Survival.

It was a funny day in Durham earlier this week, when after two years of international climate change lobbying, it all came home! Senator Chris Dodd arrived to celebrate the Durham Fair (one of Connecticut’s largest fall events) and parked his car at my house, a serendipitous lobbying opportunity occurred. Along with my district’s representative to the Connecticut state legislature and Senate, we discussed the role of green jobs and clean energy to rebuild Connecticut’s and America’s economy, while also setting us on target to a bold, equitable, and science-based agreement in Copenhagen that will bring the planet back to 350 ppm.

Senator Dodd was enthusiastic and agreed that he would work to ensure strong energy policy in the United States in the coming months. Meanwhile, Connecticut representatives Matt Lesser and Ed Meyer agreed to continue to push through Connecticut’s solar energy policy and ensure that the energy efficiency stimulus funds actually get distributed to the families that need it most to stay warm this winter and stay green all year long. At the fair, lots of people commented on the sign, and singers from The Guess Who shared their support for 350 as well, after a crowd of 25,000 heard them sing “Share the Land” and explain that we’re all in the same canoe! We are all on this planet, this canoe, together, and it’s time to bring messages around the world and back home.

I have had, in the past week, three moments in which it struck me — Tomorrow IS today. Everything we imagined for the future is happening right now.

1. Nations are Disappearing. Entire Nations. Now. I heard the President of  Kiribati say to the Minister of State of the Maldives that Australia was finally willing to take his refugees; that they had agreed to train his citizens so they could move as recruited migrants and not as refugees. He said, “When my nation is uninhabitable, my citizens will be working sustainably all over the world.” The Minister of the Maldives said he would never see his nation underwater and uninhabitable, that he would never leave.

2. The Climate Changes Are Everywhere. I opened the Times of India on Tuesday morning to a front page story about the energy and water shortages — Delhi had its largest power demand ever on Monday. I went to cut it out (to add to my growing climate news story collection) but couldn’t – the back was a story about wildfires in Northern India. The next page: water shortages; Next: lack of rain; Next: droughts in Andhra; Next: bacteria that will eat coal and produce methane for energy; Next: GDP’s growth with or without a strong monsoon this year; Next: US/India climate policy – why the US is requesting India to reduce emissions if even in 2030, India per capita emissions will be 1/7 of America’s.

3. The Solutions are Ready. Wind turbines are installed in the streets in Amsterdam, and solar panels in the villages of the Himalayas. Samsung released India’s first solar-powered phone, while students in the UK created a seesaw that charges a battery to light African villages. Island nations commit to carbon neutrality while villages improve air quality and environmental quality by using biogas for cooking from food and animal waste. Green buildings and green communities are emerging in Delhi, Dubai and Detroit.

Tomorrow’s problems – and solutions – are hitting us today.

Two of the coolest 2009 Echoing Green Fellows, who are working to build gardens in Africa for those with HIV and AIDs, shared the following Martin Luther King, Jr quote:

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood — it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”

I refuse to tell the next generation that I waited for tomorrow. Tomorrow is today.

We chanted during PowerShift’s march on the Capital Coal Plant and even later that night outside of the While House calling for “Food, Not Bombs! Plant a Garden on the White House Lawn!” It sounded good, and I remember seeing the lights go on in an upstairs window as we sang late at night, but maybe that was just a twinkle in the White House’s eye.

Either way, I just learned that Obama did plant a nice big vegetable garden on the White House lawn in March, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s Victory Gardens, and things are coming up golden. They’ve 90 pounds of food,  enough produce for the White House kitchens and local soup kitchens as well.  Good and always with honor have released a detailed map of the White House Garden – let’s hope more people follow suit, eating as locally as physically possible, their own backyards!

Why New Coal gives a new perspective to Coal in India – addressing India’s growing energy needs, problems of energy security and Climate Change Vulnerabilities – by interviewing experts across the nation, while also documenting Vinay and Hoob’s epic journey across the nation.

Speakers in the video include energy experts from across the country including S.P. Sethi (Planning commission), Dunu Roy (Hazard Centre), Vandana Shiva (Navdanya), Chandra Bhusan (CSE) Siddharth Pathak (Green Peace), S.K.Chand (TERI), Shirish Sinha (WWF) Ashok Agarwal (Jharia Bachao Sangharsh Samiti), Girish Sant (Prayas), Dr. Gonchowdhury (WBREDA), Sanjeev Ghotge (WISE), Nitin Desai (United Nations), Ambuj Sagar (IIT), Dr. M P Narayanan (Coal India)

If you like Vinay and Ekta’s trailer for Why New Coal, you’ll love his earlier video below, and the full-length feature film about the Climate Ride 2009.

It’s been six months today since we launched the Climate Solutions Road Tour and began our journey across India, 3500 kilometers in solar electric Indian-made cars, which took us farther than we’d ever imagined — from the NY Times to skype calls with groups of young people in the Philippines, Israel, Sweden, Brazil, Mexico, US, and the UK who are hitting the ground on their bicycles, their electric cars, their trains and their own feet to see what solutions they find — to create, communicate and celebrate change, as we had tried to here.

There have been so many journeys that inspired us – the Road to Detroit and the BioBus, the Australian youth Overland journey to Poznan, Rolling Sunlight and even Guster’s eco band tour – to set off across India in solar supported electric cars, with a solar band and a vision to showcase the solutions we knew were around us. We wanted to build trust and confidence between nations, and never realized the most important was building this in ourselves.

I’m getting restless, again, so its time for another move. But now, where I go, the message moves, too — Yes we can! So we will.

We’re glad to see that the Indian government got the message — people like messages that move!

Here are two more mobile environmental campaigns around India – the one on the right is the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Authority’s big truck. It helped us launch our road tour, but it has now set off on its own, to travel Tamil Nadu and teach students about solar and plastic! “A novel aspect of the campaign would be distribution of postcards carrying messages on source segregation and avoiding plastics to students, who could send them to their relatives and friends, Mr. Amuthasekaran said.” Neat! Now how about social media — Twitters?

On World Environment Day, Shiela Dixit (Chief Minister of Delhi) and the Arch Diocese of Delhi launched a joint campaign against plastic, in a converted Maruti van to spread the message about alternatives to plastic bags. ”The Chief Minister’s voice to be broadcast through a loudspeaker attached to the vehicles will urge customers to give up the use of plastics and buy jute bags.” How about broadcasting music, folks? They are hoping that by the end of 2009, they’ll have 15 vehicles in their jute fleet, selling these bags for 15 to 30 Rupees each.

This project is being supported by the Archdiosese in Delhi, who said at the launch that this campaign would keep our streets safe… from plastic. Next step, from Maruti vans themselves…

We’re off to tell Shiela Dixit about some more bags we’ve got up our sleeves, and to see if her Maruti’s would do a face-off with our Revas.