It’s Getting Hot In Here

From Joel Batterman, Senior at Reed College in Portland, OR

Students at Reed College in Portland, Oregon have been working to green their campus for years. In the past decade, they’ve established an Environmental Studies major, composting program, organic farm, and sustainability grant fund. The Student Senate has called on the College to hire a Sustainability Coordinator and develop a carbon reduction plan. Yet despite students’ repeated entreaties, Reed President Colin Diver continues to resist such action on the grounds of defending the College’s “political neutrality.”

Their patience wearing thin, concerned Reed students crashed a question and answer session with the President at the College’s Parents Weekend. Using humor to leaven a deadly serious thesis, they sent a clear message that Reed has a moral responsibility to clean up its act, all to the tune of “American Pie,” as seen in the video above.

As registration tops 400 with 4 days left and zooms towards our anticipated goal of 500 participants, Powershift West organizers have released a promo video for the conference to lure in anyone left unregistered.

For those out there who doubted that the lil ol’ barely-populated Northwest could deliver an outstanding Powershift conference, better think again.  We’re building a movement and have folks streaming across 13 Western states (and a couple Eastern ones too) to converge this weekend and you can still register!

Check out our video and our line up of keynote speakers, panelists, and killer workshops.

Keynotes:

Bernadette Del Chiaro, Clean Energy Advocate for Environment California

Riki Ott, Alaskan Community Activist, former professional fisherma’m, and story teller

Jefferson Smith, Founder of the Oregon “Bus Project” and OR State Representative

Dan Carol, Political Strategist and Co-founder of the Apollo Alliance

Alisha Fowler, Educator with the Alliance for Climate Education based in Bay Area, CA

Nathan Jones, Co-founder of the Cascade Climate Network, Sierra Student Coalition long-time leader, founder of the Northwest Institute for Community Energy, and much much more…

Jeremy Blanchard, one of three core organizers who are making Powershift happen and an all around fabulous guy.

Panels: http://west.powershift09.org/conference/panels

Workshops: http://west.powershift09.org/Workshops

It’s not too late to come, we’ve got space for YOU on a floor someplace.  Register today and join us in Eugene, OR this weekend!

On April 17th, 2009, the Obama EPA announced that it was proposing to find carbon dioxide (and five other heat trapping gases) a danger to human health.  While this might seem self-evident to us, this is big news for the federal government because this is the first step in the process of EPA regulation.  In 2007 we celebrated the Mass vs. EPA decision when the Supreme Court ruled that global warming pollution poses a danger to human health and must therefore be regulated under the Clean Air Act.  Under the Bush Administration we saw no action taken on this ruling.  But now, Obama has instructed Administrator Jackson and the EPA to move forward with the process of regulating carbon dioxide and other global warming causing pollutants.  Regulation is likely not the single silver bullet and must be used in combination with other policies such as investment.  Many consider this ruling a pressuring tactic to aid floundering climate legislation in Congress.  This ruling could also provide the foundation for a negotiating position at December’s UN Copenhagen climate talks.

From April 17th — June 23rd, the EPA is encouraging public comment.  They held two hearings for this purpose in Arlington, VA and Seattle WA on May 18th and 21st respectively.  I had the privilege of attending the Seattle hearing and rally, organized by a coalition of groups including the Sierra Student Coalition and Cascade Climate Network.   EPA reported that response to both hearings was “overwhelming.”

More than 2,000 people turned out in Seattle to support the EPA’s decision at the noon rally on the 21st.  Hundreds of children and students joined members of the faith, business, and environmental communities.  David Nokovic, freshman at Portland State University, spoke at the rally on behalf of the youth in attendance.   “We pledge to end this climate crisis within our lifetimes, because failing to do so is unconscionable,” said Nokovic.  “We pledge to hold ourselves and our elected officials accountable, and we pledge to work with all who will join us.”

All through the day, nearly 200 people testified and over 90% of that testimony was in favor of global warming pollutant regulation.  Over 25 youth gave compelling testimony to the panel of EPA representatives who heard 10 hours of testimony that day.  I myself, was on a panel with two industry lobbyists from the Washington Farm Bureau and two other youth… Continue reading ‘Youth Call for Just Regulation at Seattle EPA Hearing; more comments needed’

Global warming: Is it an inconvenient truth or an opportunity to transition towards a more sustainable, just, and prosperous future?

Many of us agree that it is both, but the positive message of future opportunities is often drowned out by messaging that is fear driven – melting glaciers, species extinction, water wars, displaced island/coastal peoples, etc. Our environmental groups have been towing the line on this message for decades, and where has it gotten us policy-wise?

The time is ripe for a new message, a positive vision of the future. We need the “I Have A Dream” speech for global warming. And Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, agrees. Our message is trickling up!

After much rigmarole and compromise, Congress passed the energy bill and President Bush signed it this morning. Pelosi gave a statement yesterday afternoon on this victory,

“With one stroke of the pen, America can be on a path to cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 25 percent of what we need to do to save the planet. With one stroke of the pen, we set America on a path to produce $22 billion in annual savings to our consumers. With one stroke of the pen, we take America down a path to create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs and train 3 million workers for new green jobs.”

Indeed, this is the same woman who spoke to us at Power Shift as we chanted “GREEN JOBS, NOT JAILS” and “WE WANT MORE!” If she had tossed in a reference to limiting energy generated by coal, the above statement would directly reflect the 1 Sky platform which we all used to lobby our legislators last November: 1) Green Jobs, 2) Cut global warming pollution, 3) No new coal. Later in the statement she refers to her motivations as a grandmother to be working on this issue and establishing a new direction for America. Continue reading ‘Our New Messaging on Global Warming – It’s Trickling Up!’