It's Getting Hot In Here

For the past ten months, I’ve coordinated the Greenpeace Organizing Term, a semester of advanced training & leadership development for the next generation of environmental leaders in Washington, DC.  Here, Tabitha Skervin tells her story from the program so far.  NOTE: I did not tell Tabitha to say that I’m “really cool.”  She came up with that one on her own.

The earth is God’s creation and my home, so I firmly believe we have a responsibility to take care of it and all the life that lives in it.

It is on that ground that applied to do the Greenpeace Organizing Term (GOT) for this summer in Washington, DC. The environment is something I’m passionate about, and I want to know how best to convert that passion into practical action with an impact. I want to have the ability to help lead this movement of young activists into a more sustainable and healthy future. Continue reading ‘Building the Movement, Winning Victories for the Planet’

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Contact:  Christine Irvine, 704-813-3361, ChristineM.Irvine@gmail.com

Sarah Murphy, 603-562-8211, allaspiaggia@gmail.com

Photos available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dc_climate_action/

Katrina Survivor, Esquizito Perez, available for interviews.

Youth Climate Activists & Katrina Survivors Pressure Obama to Stop the Next Katrina, Rebuild the Gulf and Stop Global Warming

Climate Advocates Call on the President to Reflect and Take Action on the Fourth Anniversary of Katrina

International climate activists floated two roof tops in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool early Thursday afternoon in anticipation of the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. One of the roofs read, “HELP,” the other, “The Water Is Rising.” The 30 ft. banner behind the roofs declared, “Prevent the Next Katrina, Restore the Gulf, Stop Global Warming.”

Saturday’s anniversary of Katrina’s landfall coincides with the 100-day countdown to the much anticipated Copenhagen climate negotiations.

“Needless to say, many New Orleanians have placed their hopes in Barack Obama. We see the effects of man-made disaster every day. Climate change is the number one long-term threat to life facing New Orleans.” said Esquizito Perez, a New Orleans jazz performer and Katrina survivor working with the climate advocates. “We’re all waiting for President Obama’s leadership,” he said.

Katrina made landfall in southeast Louisiana on August 29^th, 2005. 80 percent of New Orleans was under water and at least 1,836 people lost their lives, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in the history of the United States.

The group of concerned youth called attention to the anniversary of Katrina and the necessity of bold US leadership at the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December to pass a fair, ambitious, and binding global treaty that will prevent environmental disasters of the catastrophic magnitude of Katrina in the future. According to the climate advocates, a fair, ambitious, and binding treaty includes full funding for international adaptation, so that vulnerable areas can adapt to climate threats.

A statement by the Pew Center for Global Climate Change further expresses the link between Katrina and global warming: “It would be scientifically unsound to conclude that Katrina was not intensified by global warming. A reasonable assessment of the science suggests that we will face similar events again and that powerful storms are likely to happen more often than we have been accustomed to in the past.”

Youth action frames the conversation at the UNFCCC in Poznan, Poland

http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2008/12/12/survival-is-non-negotiable/

from Poznan, Poland.  Join us and celebrate this incredible victory!

This past weekend a crew of 11 volunteers joined 80,000 people at our nation’s largest music and arts festival, Bonnaroo. We arrived in Manchester, TN ready to get the word out about Power Vote. We melted in the record-setting heat, dressed to impress for late-night dance parties in stellar Power Vote costumes, and even waited until 4:25 AM to catch Kanye’s crowd-angering performance. Most importantly, we spoke with thousands of people about demanding action from candidates up and down the ballot on climate change and energy injustice, turning out to the polls to vote for climate champions, and holding our elected leaders accountable to the challenge we face. Over 4,000 young people pledged to get involved to make 2008 the climate election.

Backstage, Reagan and I caught up with Jack Johnson and Ben Folds who were psyched to hear about Power Vote!

Check out what they had to say…

Scott reported last week on Mountain Justice Spring Break Virginia where youth came down from OH, WV, and VA and up from as far as GA to stand in solidarity with local communities in the struggle to preserve their land and culture. Danny Chiotos pulled together a great audio piece from the rally at the Department of Environmental Quality you can listen to here.  And check out this video I compiled of photos from the week:

If you weren’t able to make it out to this amazing week, you can still attend Mountain Justice Spring Break Ohio, March 22-30!

As we know, last week was a CRUCIAL time for international climate negotiations. Whit reported last Monday from New York at the UN forum titled, “The Future in our Hands: Addressing the Leadership Challenge of Climate Change” where delegates heard from youth leader, Catherine Guathier, during the opening session. Young people like Catherine and Whit were there, but where was the President of the United States?

The President ignored the invitation to the UN and strategically hosted a meeting of the world’s “Major Emitters” of greenhouse gases Thursday of the same week. This meeting, intended to derail the process of current international negotiations, was in direct response to the meeting at the UN and denied the urgency of setting mandatory targets for reductions in emissions.

Luckily, young people were not only at the UN last Monday challenging Presidents and Prime Ministers of over 150 countries to show true leadership on this issue; Young people were also confronting George Bush at his own meeting Thursday morning at the U.S. State Department.

Early that morning, I woke from my sleep with an excitement I couldn’t shake. I franticly dressed, stuffed $5 for breakfast and my license into my pocket, and burst out the front door. I’d come to D.C. to participate in the first act of non-violent civil disobedience this country has ever seen for federal action on global warming. As I walked to the Metro, I knew that some time later that day, I would be put under arrest and taken to a D.C. jail for an indefinite amount of time. I’d never been arrested before, but it was a step I was ready to take. George Bush was ignoring and furthermore trying to derail the most important discussion we could possibly be having. I couldn’t sit back and allow for it to be successful.

I joined 70 other demonstrators at the National Mall and we walked confidently from there to the State Department, only a block away. Holding signs that read, “BUSH: WRONG WAY ON GLOBAL WARMING,” we crossed C St. and continued up the driveway. Security officers looked baffled by our presence. They rushed nervously trying to situate themselves between the force of our numbers and the delegates that were entering the meeting. They were too late. We began chanting and our voices echoed through the open doors. We stood together in front of the building for almost two hours before we were warned to leave before risking arrest. We remained there and refused to move. Forty-nine of us were arrested. The delegates were hearing us and we were being heard around the world as U.S. citizens who were speaking out against our country’s inaction on global warming. Together, we embodied power.

We have the unique opportunity to use our bodies as vessels for change. If we are genuine and strategic, acts of non-violence and civil disobedience have the power to change our nation. We have been strong and present voices on our campuses and in our communities. Now is the time for action in our nation’s capitol. Now is the time for us to be the shift.