It’s Getting Hot In Here

(From Timothy DHT:)

So the Senate blocked the Energy bill.

That’s the Update. Here’s the Action.

We have to prevent the Senate energy bill from being weakened during negotiations this weekend. If it is and the Senate passes it, it will force reconciliation with the House bill, which will cause weakening of the final package. There is a very outside chance that we can muster enough seats in the Senate to override the veto, but even if they don’t, a final vote will give everyone a clear picture of where their Senators stand - which is crucial as we move into ‘08 re-elections.

I was recently alerted that the Capitol Hill switchboard will open all weekend to receive your calls - and those from thousands of youth climate leaders nationwide. I am asking you to call your Senators today, this weekend and next week, thank them for their vote, encourage them to move their colleagues in favor, and tell them NOT TO WEAKEN THE ENERGY BILL.

More than that, I’m asking you to get as many students at your schools as is humanely possible to do the same. Now is the time. We have to organize like crazy. Here are the numbers

You can use this sample script: Continue reading ‘Keeping Up the Power Shift: Take Action on the Senate Energy Bill This Weekend!’

by Claire Schuch

Thirty people from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota attended Power Shift. 1,770 Mac students did not. Not to mention faculty and staff. Thirty people from the Mac community came back energized, inspired, and well-connected. But what about everyone else? I bet it was the same story for your campus…

This February, 2008 engage the entire campus in the National Campus Energy Challenge, a month long energy conservation competition organized by students around the country. This is your opportunity to engage everyone in reducing your campus carbon consumption. The NCEC is modeled after Campus Energy Wars, a statewide competition last February among 16 Minnesota colleges and universities. Through Campus Wars, we solidified an awesome coalition (TEAM Minnesota), generated local and statewide media attention, passed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment at several colleges, helped pass aggressive state policy… and significantly reduced our energy usage.

When I tell others about my experience at Powershift, I often get the reaction “I didn’t know you were an ‘environmentalist’”, along with a somewhat distant look. This is slightly irritating as I do not understand why someone would create a barrier like that. I care about human rights, public health, global peace and equitable development, and so do the people I met at Powershift. I believe it’s important that everyone realizes it’s not just up to the ‘environmentalists’ to work towards a clean energy future, that collaboration between individuals, communities, industries and politicians is required because the impacts of global climate change don’t limit themselves either.

Continue reading ‘Join The National Campus Energy Challenge!’

At the Power Shift lobby day yesterday, Minnesotan Senator Amy Klobuchar enthusiastically met with over 70 Minnesota college students from about ten colleges. There were so many of us, the lobby meeting was moved into the main atrium of the Hart Senate building. We could barely fit half of our group into her office. Sen. Klobuchar is a co-sponsor of the Boxer-Sanders bill and is champion of climate change solutions in the Senate.

Her counterpart, Sen. Norm Coleman, was not so excited to meet with us. When we saw that we were not scheduled to visit Sen. Coleman’s office on lobby day, we decided to bring our vision of clean energy directly to him anyway. Fifty students waited outside his office, until the Senator arrived- and then they surprised him by cramming into his office (all fifty!) and demanded that he take our future seriously.

From the start, Sen. Coleman dismissed our ideas and demands. He rejected wind and solar power on the basis that there is no infrastructure and that it would hurt poor people by raising energy bills. He said that “green jobs” are unreliable and ambiguous, and that we really can’t afford to move away from coal, because we would be forcing thousands who work in the coal mines, coal plants, and industries that rely on coal into unemployment. He also condescendingly told us that although he was young and idealistic like us once, he had since grown up and come to live in the “real world.”

Experiences with Senators like Sen. Coleman are incredibly frustrating. We need urgent and comprehensive federal legislation that moves us toward climate neutrality and the creation of skills-based green jobs that can’t be outsourced, and away from coal. Although it is true that we are young and idealistic, we are also practical.

Continue reading ‘Minnesotan Students Challenge Sen. Coleman on Climate Change’

This weekend, I was one of several Minnesotan college students who retreated to a somewhat secluded castle in Northern Minnesota built by Arctic explorer and climate change activist Will Steger. Students from Macalester, St. Olaf, Hamline, the University of Minnesota, St. Scholastica, and St. Thomas gathered at the second summit of TEAM Minnesota- the Transcampus Energy Action Movement, that is. Good food, incredible meeting place (a castle on the Boundary waters?! Does it get better?), and dedicated people all make for the very best sort of coalition summit you can ask for.

TEAM got right to work planning statewide and national initiatives and exploring exciting new communications systems to keep us not only in touch, but maintaining the momentum and energy of coalition summits. In the past, TEAM has helped to pass aggressive renewable energy and efficiency legislation (Minnesota has the highest Renewable Electricity Standard in the country!), launch statewide energy conservation initiatives, and oh yeah, carpool to Power Shift.

Building off of momentum from last February’s Campus Wars, this year we’re launching the National Campus Energy Challenge for February 2008 and teaming up with Energy Action to make it huge!

The NCEC will be a national competition between campuses to save the most energy in three categories: electricity, heat, and combined.

Continue reading ‘Minnesota Students TEAM Up!’