It’s Getting Hot In Here

Tropical Cyclone Nargis slammed into Burma this weekend, leaving as many as 60,000 missing or dead and millions displaced. A massive sea surge, shown here, engulfed the low-lands and stretched tens of kilometers inland as far as the capitol, Rangoon, in the red box.

For more information on the path and effects of the storm, click here.

From the scientific community, is this a sign of climate change? No singular weather event can be called climate change, but whether there is a measurable increase in the frequency of such storms as this, Katrina and Gonu on the Arabian peninsula last year is still an object of contention. See the National Post for arguments on both sides, but I think we’re all pretty clear that there’s more of this coming.

Lastly, a recent report noted that climate change will affect tropical species as much as arctic ones. The loss of wetlands and rich coastal ecosystems is yet another worry.

From the Anchorage Daily News, courtesy of Peter Cizmadia. Question: How high do price incentives need to be to impact energy use?

“JUNEAU - First, there was a run on energy-efficient light bulbs. When those ran out, people began asking for lamp oil. But when they started demanding clothespins in this land of mist and rain, it was clear Alaska’s capital city was caught in a serious energy crunch.

“We sold all our clothespins the first day,” said Doug White, general manager at Don Abel Building Supplies. “I don’t think kids even knew what they were for, but they’re learning now.”

Avalanches this month knocked down transmission lines and cut off Juneau’s source of low-cost hydroelectric power. Threatened with a fivefold increase in utility bills, Juneau quickly powered down.”

Continue reading ‘When Push Comes to Shove’

What does: “Climate solutions, Green Jobs, & Green Justice for Massachusetts & Beyond!” Have to do with

“666 Registered!”

They’re both talking about Massachusetts Power Shift.

This weekend, Boston will be filled with some of the most inspiring and dedicated activists in the state. The MAPS coalition is youth driven, but has brought in community leaders, congresspeople, families and activists from many causes. This is the coalition that is leading the fight for climate solutions.

We also have John Kerry, Ed Markey, CNN, green jobs presentations, community planning sessions and lots of live music.

I want to salute the more than 50 people who have met regularly in person and on the phone for months to pull this together. Specifically, Craig Altemose from the SSC for his bold leadership, Vanessa Wright, Alana Miller, Rouwenna Lamm with MASSPIRG for their hard work. And Jay, Elizabeth, Melina, Rachel S., Rachel H, Caroline, Greg, Zo, Jeff, Lizzy, Chris, Saffron, Yoni, Elisa, Andrea, and at the risk of leaving people out, please check the website for the full planning team

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Social Entrepreneurship in the Climate Movement

New and better ways of doing things should be a key element of the climate movement. We’re trying to find better ways to generate energy and conserve energy. We’re also trying to find new and better ways to engage people in creating those solutions. Even if you think we need to use a lot less technology, we still need to figure out how to engage people in the solutions at a society-wide scale.

Social entrepreneurship “combines the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination.” (Dees 2001) An entrepreneur is someone who undertakes something innovative, usually a business, but that could also be a non-profit program. Social entrepreneurship blurs the lines between not-for-profit, for-profit and sometimes government, and it is a frame many of us should adopt.

If we are global warming solutions, then many of us are also social entrepreneurs. Anyone who has started an ambitious, new climate action group is one. The Campus Climate Challenge is a social-entrepruneurial venture. Its important to remember that just starting something doesn’t necessarily qualify. A new, mom-and-pop coffee shop isn’t a new or innovative undertaking, just as holding a day of action isn’t innovative. But innovation takes many forms and there is potential for it in anything.

Continue reading ‘Bold Undertakings’

Cross posted from The Understory, official blog of Rainforest Action Network.

How often do you get to witness a band of activists deploy a direct action and successfully pressure the CEO of a corporation into agreeing to their demands - before the police even arrive on the scene?

On Friday afternoon, student activists with Ohio Student Environmental Coalition and members of Mountain Justice Spring Break occupied the lobby of American Municipal Power and forced an impromptu meeting with CEO Mark Gerken – who was not a happy camper.

AMP is planning to build a 1000 MW pulverized coal power plant in Meigs County, Ohio – one of the most impoverished counties in the state, with some of the highest lung cancer and premature death rates due industrial pollution in the country. There are already 4 coal power plants within 10 miles of Meigs and the coal barons of the Midwest are planning on building five more – the largest and dirtiest being the AMP project.

Determined to put an end to this economic and social injustice, concerned Meigs residents have been working with student and youth activists to organize and empower communities to break out of the socio-economic slavery of king coal. Mountain Justice Spring Break - an event where many students, rather than spending their holidays in Florida or Cancun, have opted instead for more meaningful pursuits in building solidarity, developing consensus, discovering affinity and exploring nonviolent direct action - showcased this collaboration over this last week.

Continue reading ‘Mountain Justice Takes on King Coal in Columbus’

I have worked with Timothy Den-Herder Thomas and others to create a guide for more effective activist groups.   What do those groups look like?  How can we engage more people in creative, ambitious and exciting work to build a climate positive world?  I want to share this with you as the beginning of a discussion.

Who is this guide for?  Anyone who wants to work in a larger and more effective group, who wants to work differently and better with people.  Its also for anyone who wants to continue building the movement.

Why here?  IGHIH is an amazing venue for publicizing victories and keeping up-to-date on relevant climate policy.  It has not usually be a place to have discussions.  If we want to learn from each other, then lets change that.

Read the guide, see if it applies to the work you do, and let us all know whether it does or doesn’t.

>>> Open Space beta >>>

This is a joint post by Morgan Goodwin, Juliana Williams and Jesse Jenkins.  Also cross posted on Dailykos.

Two recent studies “in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide… The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further.“

Sure, the science is evolving, but why are these headlines in major publications particularly relevant to the climate movement? Our activism has been aimed at targets based on cautious interpretation of the scientific data and calls for relatively incremental goals like 2% reductions in emissions per year, targeting 80% reductions by 2050 - one of the main “mantras” of our movement since Step it Up. We’ve been busy making that 80×50 goal politically feasible, but is this really the goal we need to work towards? Now the mainstream media is telling us - climate activists who are supposed to be pushing the cutting edge - that our goals aren’t good enough.

“People aren’t reducing emissions at all, let alone debating whether 88 percent or 99 percent is sufficient,” said Gavin A. Schmidt, of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “It’s like you’re starting off on a road trip from New York to California, and before you even start, you’re arguing about where you’re going to park at the end.”

If we get wrapped up in the targets we get caught up in the mess of what’s politically feasible and scientifically relevant. We as the youth movement need to come at this from a different angle. No more targets. We need a vision.

We as a country, we as a people and a society have overcome amazing challenges when we’ve been inspired by a vision. Inspired by JFK’s call to do the seemingly impossible, we put a man on the moon and built an aerospace industry that launched an economic boom. Inspired by MLK’s Dream and passion, we fought to desegregate our hearts and our society.

We now stand at the brink of a challenge that dwarfs those that have come before - climate change - and we are beginning to articulate a compelling vision that matches the scale of that challenge, of that opportunity. We are ready to start building and talking about something inspiring and tantalizing, something truly revolutionary. This sort of vision can be held by everyone in the movement, moving us from fear and despair at the scale of the challenge to hope and optimism at the equally grand scale of opportunity that challenge presents. That sort of vision must be powerful enough to inspire individuals and society to action.

What is our vision?

Since Power Shift, young leaders across the country have been developing an idea that feels both powerful and simple:
We can be Climate Positive.
Continue reading ‘Washington Post and MSNBC: 80 by 50 Not Good Enough’

On Thursday the state senate passed a strong Global Warming Solutions Act and sent it on to the house. The bill calls for 20% reductions by 2020 and 80% by 2050, and emphasizes green jobs training prorams. And Mass Youth Climate Action played a HUGE roll!

Since adopting the passage of this bill as our sole campaign goal in September, MYCA has organized a series of actions to put pressure on our legislators and it payed off.

“I was really worrid on Thursday morning”, said Saffron Zomer who lobbies for MassPIRG, a partner in the MYCA coalition, “They were in the session for hours, and students kept calling me to find out about what was going on. I didn’t know.”

The bill’s supporters prevailed, and the 20% by 2020 provision is intact and awaits the decision of the house. There the fight will be tougher, and we’ll need to increase the pressure of our tactics and the depth of our coalition, but we can do it.

MYCA’s campaign has escalated from a photo-petition and call-in day in the fall semester to a big part of all our Focus the Nation events. Since then, we’ve written valentines and organized a series of press hits and targed call-ins last week. The calls and valentines paid off. Williams college students sent valentines to Senator Brewer, and when I asked a staffer on the phone about the cards, she replied, “Oh of course I remember those cards.”

Campaign tactics are escalating towards a historic state-wide conference, Massachusetts Power Shift, on April 11th-14th. If the conference and lobby day succeed, our ambitious goal is to pass the GWSA by Earth Day. (That’ll be a sweet press conference!)

Continue reading ‘Drumbeats - Massachusetts Campaign and our Power Shift’

If you haven’t called your senator’s office yet about the Sanders amendment for Green jobs into the economic stimulus package, do it now! (see previous post)

Yesterday, Bill Clinton painted the picture that we’re working for. Sure, we can get even better at messaging, but he definitely go the gist of it. (as an Obama supporter, I’m not convinced that Hilary’s plan for green jobs is any better, but I’d love to hear other opinions on that)

“…The only way we can [save our planet and our grandchildren] is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.”

“And guess what? The only places in the world today in rich countries where you have rising wages and declining inequality are places that have generated more jobs than rich countries because they made a commitment we didn’t. They got serious about a clean, efficient, green, independent energy future… If you want that in America, if you want the millions of jobs that will come from it, if you would like to see a new energy trust fund to finance solar energy and wind energy and biomass and responsible bio-fuels and electric hybrid plug-in vehicles that will soon get 100 miles a gallon, if you want every facility in this country to be made maximally energy efficient that will create millions and millions and millions of jobs, vote for her. She’ll give it to you. She’s got the right energy plan.”