By Camila Thorndike and Sarah Judkins

Over a weekend in early April, 25 youth gathered at Camp Collins in the Oregon woods to further plot the course of the Cascade Climate Network (CCN). Born in October 2007, the CCN is a youth network for climate change action that spans the Pacific Northwest. We are guided by the Cascade Climate Declaration, also framed last fall and now endorsed by 10 student governments representing 125,600 students in Washington and Oregon (most recently Reed College on 4/17) (sign the Declaration here!)

Twelve colleges and universities from both Oregon and Washington were represented at the Spring Fling by activists with a broad range of experience. Even with an entire weekend dedicated to each other, free time and open-space discussions went by the wayside as we bunkered down to hammer out the dirty details of making our vision a sustainable reality. As Nathan Jones of Oregon State University declared at the retreat’s opening, “the schedule is going to work for us” – and it had to work it’s tail off!

Created by youth for youth, the Cascade Climate Network is a web of communication and leadership that facilitates the effective collaboration of young activists, students, educational institutions, and organizations of all shapes and sizes across the Pacific Northwest. Six short months after its inception, the Cascade Climate Network proven its worth as an indispensable tool in the fight for climate change action. Working within its inclusive and equitable structure, we speak with a unified voice of greater breadth – and together we are being heard.

We began the weekend with updates from members on actions they had recently taken, which ranged from community-wide rallies against LNG, cross-country bicycling plans, and working with city officials to become a “cool city,” to working on creating revolving funds for sustainability projects on campus, campus wind-turbine plans, and photo petitions to halt further fossil fuel developments. The retreat fulfilled one of its main objectives, which was the “recharging” of the activist’s energy: that source of passion, that, like any battery, can be exhausted in what is often a hostile world. The intensely-packed days overflowed into late night discussions of the sort that inspire, rejuvenate and reaffirm the principles we hold dear and the drive we all posses to make them a reality.

The weekend consisted of numerous trainings on how to build the emerging youth climate movement, as well as the challenging task of defining the Cascade Climate Network and its future. All attendees expressed wholehearted support for the “horizontal” structure of the CCN, which enables individual empowerment within a non-hierarchal web of names and faces. Ours is a living organization, just as dynamic as the youth who comprise it. At the Spring Fling, we ensured the network’s continued dynamism and rewarding equity. All attendees contributed to its longevity with creative ideas that reflected their inspiring intelligence, dedication, and foresight.

One of the highlights of the Spring Fling was an “anti-oppression” training led by CCN-ers Jenny Bedell-Stiles and Monica Vaughan, both alumni of University of Oregon. The session was held in part to stress the importance of justice in the fight against environmental degradation and climate change. It consisted of an eye-opening activity that challenged us to critically consider what privileges and disadvantages have shaped each of us as leaders within the environmental and social movements, including gender, race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and family background. The discussion that ensued was invaluable and moving, and created a space in which we could all become more fully human.
It may be stating the obvious, but more noteworthy than our accomplishments and organizational deliberations is the people who comprise the CCN. They are both those at Spring Fling as well as our friends whose energy and solidarity were constantly invoked and remembered.

“The CCN is an amazing group filed with amazing people,” says JP Kemmick, alumn of Pacific Lutheran University: “they are all working to make this earth a better place.”

We continue to grow as more committed, passionate, and positive youth are welcomed into the “bicycle wheel” or “nucleus” of the network, adding essential “spokes” or “electrons” to the hub/atom that has already done so much.

University of Washington’s Anastasia Schemkes reflected on the Spring Fling, saying “what I loved most is the people that were there. Everyone is super dedicated to getting things done and also really open. I made some great friends!”

Huge thanks go out to Oregon State’s Jesse Boudart; without his gourmet sustenance (!), our efforts for sustainability would have gone unfueled. Big hugs (and mad *sparkle fingers*) to all the hard working CCNers who drafted the weekend’s agenda, including Nathan Jones for creating a kick-ass schedule that worked for us. Also to Lacey Riddle and her selfless Environmental Studies department at the University of Portland, the Sierra Student Coalition and Global Exchange for their financial support, Camp Collins for their generosity and welcome, and Jesse Jenkins, University of Oregon alum, for his essential follow-up and website work.

We urge anyone working on climate change (or related) issues in our region to visit www.CascadeClimate.org.
Thanks to all who fight the good fight, we’ll see you in the trenches!

Climate change is the unthinkable. It is unimaginably vast and catastrophic, and its causes are frustratingly avoidable. As youth activists, we are used to this – but the very real idea of new coal plants in Washington still took us aback. After all, we are one of the lowest carbon-emitting states in the nation, and we have repeatedly proven ourselves as dedicated international leaders on the climate action front. The geology of our region, including the mighty hydropower production of the Colombia river, has made this possible.

For better or for worse, another local feature has been recruited as a key player in the power game: our cavernous Colombia River Basin basalt beds, just the right sort to house to potentially calcify liquid carbon from a coal gasification power plant. The complications of hydropower in Washington pale in comparison to those of a proposed “clean” (aka slightly-less-deadly) coal plant, which a consortium aims to construct in the coming years at Wallula, a town near Walla Walla on the Colombia river.

Once again, rural southeastern Washington has made headlines in the energy world with promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while providing an abundance of energy for the Northwest.

Wait a minute… clean coal? It’s an idea – and nothing more – that has somehow become a “reality” for people through the constant repetition of half-truths. Perhaps you’ve seen the sexy ads for “America’s Power” on the Democratic primary debates, which follow Hillary and Barack’s promises for a clean, independent energy future . Politicians love to portray America as the “Saudi Arabia of coal.” We don’t think this is something to boast about.

This dirty fossil fuel sickens communities, pollutes our air and water, and is responsible for one-third of our greenhouse gas emissions. However, it provides approximately half of our nation’s electric energy needs, which presents a daunting economic and political conundrum.

Proponents of coal are spinning away the terrible drawbacks of the fuel by presenting it as an environmentally-friendly energy solution, rather than acknowledging it as a non-renewable, polluting culprit of climate change. And they do so to the tune of technology fixes, altruistic intentions, and economic opportunity. These ads and the language currently surrounding coal are alluringly deceptive.

Let’s bring it back home. Students here in Walla Walla are often under the impression that we’re in the “the middle of nowhere,” and in many ways, that’s correct. For youth activists at Whitman College, this has proved a two-edged sword: sometimes we feel isolated in our distance from urban centers of activity; however, we are far enough away from centers of influence that when we lobby, our elected representatives in the capitol make time for us – students? From Walla Walla?

Our far-flung location is again a two-sided coin when it comes to coal. It seems that we are just rural, just distant enough, that there won’t be much of a fuss if big industry wants to roll in and set up camp. But when they did – we were ready to meet them, somewhat surprised that the hottest issue in climate change and US energy independence had just landed at our feet.

Here’s the story:

A consortium of power companies want to build an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plant in Wallula, a town along the Columbia River. The catch, however, was that a bill passed last year in Washington limited the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted per amount of energy produced.

The solution seemed to be sequestering the carbon dioxide emissions (at least 65% of smokestack emissions) in the underlying basalt: a completely unproven technology. Thus, the Wallula area has become a testing ground (battle ground may be a more suitable expression) for carbon sequestration technology and all of the health, safety, and environmental impacts implicated therein.

The problem? The testing would involve injecting 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide over a period of two to four weeks. Once the power plant is up and running, they will inject nearly 6,000 tons EVERY DAY! To those of us with our heads on straight, this CLEARLY presents a problem. In response to this prospect, community members and students in Walla Walla began organizing to fight this proposed coal plant. After all, we don’t want to live, work, and play in a valley downwind of a polluting power plant – who would?

This working group, Coal Concerns, consists of folks of all generations and professions. Each person has their own reason for opposing the plant, from protecting our wine industry to preserving clean air in the valley. We are united by our passion and our strong opposition to coal – not just in our valley or in Washington, but anywhere and everywhere.

In early March, the Port of Walla Walla (the group that was voluntarily providing the land for the operation) decided put the brakes on the plant. The Port cited liability, possible environmental problems, and having too little information to allow the drilling to begin in late March or early April. Now, Batelle (the group doing the sequestration testing) is on the defensive, trying to earn their right to drill and complete the testing. The more they push for testing to continue, the more it becomes apparent that testing and the reality of a coal plant may be one and the same.

This unexpected decision shook up business as usual, and has given concerned citizens the time we need to thoroughly plan for a coal-free future in our valley and all of Washington state. It appears that the Port’s decision sets the sequestration pilot project back a year, so the chances of never having a coal plant have certainly gone up. he sequestration test and coal plant aren’t dead yet, but they are on life support.

Meanwhile, across the state, students from many other universities are joining us for Fossil Fools Day actions to broadcast our no-coal message on a broader scale. Together we have photographed approximately 1000 faces in solidarity against new coal plants. We were especially excited when our college president joined us! [see picture at top of post!] These photos will be joined in a banner-sized montage which direct action groups will use on April 1st at selected “Fossil Fool” sites (such as the Bank of America and other coal plant funders and supporters) as backdrops for media-attracting tomfoolery. We’re pleased that now we can offer messages of thanks to groups like the Port of Walla Walla, and hope that the tide against coal will continue to rush in our direction.

21 Feb 2008 | Outdoors
“Power Shift’ event draws Whitties

By Camila Thorndike

“We are a coalition of the benevolently irrational: good people doing good things for no good reason,” said Jefferson Smith of the Oregon Bus Project.

On Friday, Feb. 8, 12 Whitman students who care about climate change arrived at the University of Oregon campus in Eugene for the Cascade Power Shift: Mobilizing Youth for Climate Justice. The summit brought together more than 200 students from Oregon and Washington from over 20 colleges, universities, and high schools for the largest-ever youth climate summit in the Northwest.

“It was inspiring and motivating to be surrounded by people trying to bring momentum outside of their own campuses and really affect structural change,” said sophomore Natalie Popovich.

Simply put, those three days were some of the most affirming and hopeful of my life. If excitement could power cities, the electricity generated by so many passionate activists in the same room would guarantee a clean-energy future. And it’s possible. The global youth climate movement is the fastest growing youth environmental movement in history, and we’ve only just begun.

The 12 of us who attended the summit are now part of the Cascade Climate Network (CCN), an entirely volunteer-driven and youth-organized new network of climate change activists in the Northwest. The original 20 of the group, formed only four months ago, have since armed hundreds with the tools and training to bring desperately needed awareness and change across the board in order to address this planetary crisis.

The non-stop summit consisted of panels, speakers, and workshops that engaged us in envisioning a better world and building coalitions to achieve our plans. Whitman was well-represented. We divided and conquered the weekend, forming coalitions with students statewide to create Green Jobs for Washington, learn about potential future fuels such as biomethane, and stop new coal plants in their dirty tracks.

These are only a few examples of the many campaigns for climate change action, to halt false solutions to global warming that only enforce the status quo, and to lay the groundwork for a new clean-energy economy that provides rewarding and sustainable work for those who need it most.

Armed. Passionate. Young. Who are we, and why do we care? We’re not militant radicals and we don’t wear garlands, but we ARE out to save the world – with poise and creativity. We have paid attention to the trials and victories of history, and we are organized, determined, and ready to rumble. In its complexity, this catchy message is more than it seems: we are not fighting for one cause, one movement, or one solution.

Climate change is the defining problem of our generation, and it is incredibly complex – it is already displacing people, eradicating species, and changing American lives and our view of the future. This wildcard will turn things upside down, and the differing degrees to which it is doing so defines this issue in terms of not only biology and politics, but also social justice and economics.

That is why the energy and vision of every single person counts, and why this summit gave me HOPE. The momentum culminated on Monday, the first-ever youth global warming Citizen Action day at the Oregon and Washington state capitols. Five of us – Natalie Popovich, Tyler Harvey, Sarah Judkins, Elena Gustafson, and myself – met with three legislators from two Washington districts. We lobbied for two important climate change bills, but accomplished much more: We turned heads and shook things up by showing that the next generation of leaders are working in unison for a better world.

As we all know, the youth political bloc is one of the most underrepresented. For us, this sad fact is a two-sided card because by the sheer novelty of students coming all the way from Walla Walla to see their representatives, we were rewarded with meaningful conversations with busy legislators in the middle of appropriations week – some up to an hour long!

By establishing these political relationships, we have taken the most important steps toward building the “sustainable, just, and prosperous future for all” that the next generation of American leaders envision.

Original post here at the Whitman Pioneer.