It’s Getting Hot In Here

[The author is currently part of The Summer of Solutions, but views are personal]

Over the past few days, we have seen a lot of contention on Its Getting Hot in Here over the critiques posed by the Breakthrough Generation fellows. On the one hand, recent posts call for open and collaborative discourse so we can more carefully evaluate our strategies and tactics, sentiments with which I generally agree. Conversely, responding comments took offense to the frequent posting of Breakthrough fellows, the perceived attack on certain tactics like “Direct Action”, and the privilege of a group whose alleged central organizing strategy is to think, talk and message (check the comments on the above linked posts to review these critiques). I have close friends on both sides of the argument, and I agree with much of the Breakthrough philosophy as much as I feel that many of its recent tactics are not in alignment with their frame. Far from seeking objectivity, I’m simply pointing out that as we start operating under an interest group mentality we lose the ability to appreciate the truth in the other person’s voice, obscuring participants’ internal conflict - as powerfully expressed by a recent Breakthrough Generation post. A friend here in Minnesota introduced me to a new term yesterday after we read all of the critical back-and-forth: “flame war” - something that happens on blogs and other internet sites when everybody’s well-reasoned arguments turn into fiery antagonism.

Friends - and the pun is intended: its time for a break through. Continue reading ‘On Movement Transformation’

Looking for an amazing experience working with other youth leaders of the climate movement this summer? Check out the Summer of Solutions:

We’ll be using the principles of Open Space organizing to empower participants to engage in creative action on their own terms, yet as vital members of the team. As student climate organizers at Macalester College, the organizers have been building grassroots community partnerships and strategic initiatives around green manufacturing, entrepreneurial community energy efficiency, community-based clean energy development, and much more for the past two years. Using this base and our collective skills and insights, we will work together to advance these initiatives and create more while building a base of young leaders ready to lead their communities all across the country towards a sustainable future. We will realize the Climate Positive Vision by using “a mind-set that engages eagerly in the opportunities inherent in solving the climate crisis” to generate the solutions that will get us there. In the process, we’ll meet lots of amazing people, discuss so many amazing things, build skills that will last a life-time, and have lots of fun!

The Summer of Solutions will be June 1 - Aug 1 in St. Paul, MN. If you’re interested in helping build innovative solutions to climate change, fill out the simple application by one of the priority deadlines: April 1, 15, or 29 - PLEASE apply ASAP! After you apply, we’ll help you figure out how to get paid through various programs/ fundraising that we’ll help you with. The application and much more info can be found at
http://grandaspirations.org/summerofsol/summerofsolutions.html.

Questions (AND Applications) can be sent to summerofsolutions@gmail.com. We hope you can join us!

If this won’t fit your schedule, but you’re looking for other amazing options, check out the Summer Opportunities Page.

The climate movement has been going about its business fighting coal plants, promoting wind energy, and working for comprehensive carbon reduction policies. Suddenly, there’s a new development.

Yesterday, a New York Times article highlighted the challenges of development and the pollution it has caused in China. We imagine that the unprecedented growth China is going through is desperately valued by its citizens, and feel brutal when we argue that the industrialization fueling this growth is unacceptable. The opportunity is valued, quite desperately, but at the same it does not reach everyone, and the pollution is killing hundreds of thousands annually.

I attended a program called the Global Leaders Institute in New York City in July. The program was sponsored by Goldman Sachs and the Institute for International Education, and brought 75 students from around the world together for a week of trainings, speakers, discussions and actions around the broad frame of global leadership. I had a wonderful opportunity to talk with a number of students from China. One student shared the widespread poverty, illiteracy, and degradation of ecological services in western rural areas as good jobs were displaced to giant coastal cities. Another mentioned how sustainable community development was nearly impossible because local social organization was almost unknown and strongly suppressed if ever in conflict with the interests of the nation. And finally, I came to the discussion with one girl who, voice almost breaking, told of the incredible toll in lives and livelihoods that industrialization was taking on the country - with deaths from asthma and water pollution, sweatshop conditions splintering families and devouring days, and the pursuit of progress shoving aside whole neighborhoods, local economies, and community spaces for skyscrapers and factories and ever more coal-burning power plants.

We have argued that China will not stop the mad course of industrialization, but we should ask who will not stop. Is it the growth percentage-obsessed public officials who define the progress of the country or the hopes and dreams of the people who simply want lives that are actually better. Whose development is it anyway?

If you think I’m going to launch into a tirade against the unresponsiveness of a communist government to the needs of the people and laud the advances we’ve won with democracy, you will probably be as surprised as my Chinese friend was by what I say next:

Here in America, we also have working class people facing financial insecurity, social instability, and loss of community because their jobs have moved elsewhere. Here in America, we also have poor communities being surrounded by polluting energy facilities that give them elevated risk of asthma, cancer, and more. We still have millions of citizens being sickened by their food, whether by pesticides, or hormones, or simply the incredible glut of unwanted calories bringing diabetes, heart disease, and stress. Here in America, millions of people feel stuck in jobs they dislike simply for the paycheck, we have millions stuck at the end of a cul-de-sac with little knowledge of their neighbors, and we still have millions so alienated from their governance that they never make their voice heard. Here in America, the economy keeps roaring, turning out ever more consumer goods (and land-fill filler) and wealth for large corporations while yielding less and less of relevance to the average American. A few million homeless people walk the streets of our cities, farmers across the country are losing their land, and inner city high-school children have pretty high chances of going nowhere.

My friend from China was stunned when I told her this, because this is America, the land of dreams and capitalism; the place that has been developed. It’s funny how our internal problems rarely get told overseas. She then said something to the effect of: ‘if that’s what success in development means, I think we need something different.”

It’s time for the new development.

Continue reading ‘The New Development’

In the past couple months, the flurry of discussions around bold, visionary goals for global warming has gotten increasingly intense. We’ve been starting to realize that we have to be more ambitious if we’re going to make it. I think this is a key question for movement introspection that’s only the first stage in re-imagining a new society: what do we need to achieve?

We’ve been saying 80% by 2050 for over a year now. It sounds big, and significant, and is way beyond any of the 7% solutions Kyoto started with. But Kyoto phase 1 is over in 2012, after which we have to figure out the next step. I’ll be nearing retirement by the time 2050 rolls around. We call it a science-based goal, but we’re missing the risk assessment. Does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) really hold the authority here? Before we go much farther, and define the post-Kyoto debate, we better take stock of the situation.

Here’s a central challenge - why are we stopping at trying to prevent only those catastrophes that we are nearly sure of? Wouldn’t it be prudent to avoid the risk of potential events, even if there’s only a 50/50 chance that they’ll happen. Considering that the things of which we’re sure our tame compared to those that are still uncertain, I at least don’t feel very comfortable taking our chance.

Let’s face it, even if we were to stop emitting all carbon tomorrow, we are still going to lose large parts of Bangladesh, a country the size of Wisconsin home to 135 million people, and we are still going to have increasingly freakish storms and increasingly severe droughts (right where I am in MN too - for the second year in a row). Agriculture will face minor declines in some areas (like sub-Saharan Africa where people are already starving), and Venice is already a sitting duck (the Dutch are getting good at floating houses). It feels brutal to be callous, and we should use the knowledge to be ready when we do need to bail out places that get hit, but honestly, we just have to get used to the fact that yes, some of that is coming. These gradual, obvious changes will get us to the point where global warming will just be a massive global headache for the rest of my lifetime. Yeah, it’s pretty annoying, but these types of things are not what we have to be worried about.

What we have to watch out for, are the really crazy changes that shake up everything.

Continue reading ‘Dodging the Tipping Points?’

I read George Monbiot’s book Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning several months ago, since I’ve been told it’s the one book I really should be reading. I found it powerful, and challenging, and as I’ve continued with my climate work, I’ve found it ever more important. He poses a challenge to anyone serious about tackling global warming, and so even if this is sort of a book review, it’s also an ultimatum to my buddies in the youth movement.

Monbiot’s challenges are basically this: Are we moving fast enough to do what it takes? Are we thinking big enough about the types of changes we need to make? And finally, are we framing this transition in a way that will actually empower us to build solutions? I think we can all agree that in the current political framework, the answer must be an emphatic, almost desperate ‘no’. Unfortunately, I think when we ask the same question about the youth movement and other citizen allies across the country, we face the same challenge of inadequacy. Monbiot tends, in my view unnecessarily, on the gloomy side, and has been criticized for not getting all the solutions right, but we cannot afford to ignore his fundamental challenges. You should read this book: Heat will challenge you to be honest about the scope of the problem and the nature of the solution.

Want to read Heat yourself? Purchase it here and support It’s Getting Hot in Here!

Continue reading ‘Monbiot Writes, We All Take the Heat’

Minnesota’s Xcelsior Energy has been proposing a new Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) coal plant on the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota. IGCC, also called “clean coal” has long been touted as a global warming solution, despite the fact that it still relies on the most carbon-polluting fuel source, and has not demonstrated effective sequestration ability. Youth climate leaders nationwide have been working for years to stop coal from becoming the political way forward, since it isn’t really a solution, so here’s some promising news.

Administrative Law Judges ruled that the Mesaba IGCC project is niether an Innovative Energy project, nor a least-cost option for electrical production, and have recommended that the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) be denied. This decision, though not the end of the Mesaba effort, signals a major victory for local citizens groups like Citizens Against the Mesaba Project (CAMP), youth climate leaders, and those opposing the expansion of IGCC nationwide. Interestingly, it also pleases the large power utility (Xcel Energy) which would otherwise be forced to buy high-cost electricity from the facility under state regulation - Xcel agrees that this plant is not the right direction, as it is taking the first steps towards considering a fundamentally different electrical mix. By 2020, Xcel in Minnesota is mandated to produce 30% of it’s electricity from renewable sources, including at least 25% wind energy.

Check out the official ruling and arguments given against the project!

Continue reading ‘Halting Minnesota IGCC could set a precedent’

Yesterday, Al Gore returned to the Capitol, but this time to testify on global warming and present an ambitious 10-point action plan for the nation. I’m glad to say that finally, even in the heart of Washington, the debate over the need to address global warming is over and we have entered the search for solutions.

He brought with him 519,414 messages from citizens asking Congress to take action on global warming, all organized very last minute, as a testament to how much we believe in solutions.

Check out Gore’s opening statement:

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Whatever concerns you may have about his personal climate impact, Gore’s proposals were bold, even visionary. They call for a dramatic and radical change in the way we run our society and present a vision for a new energy future. Today’s Grist article notes the days highlights.

Continue reading ‘Gore speaks to Congress - and hits home’

Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich became the one of the first Midwest governors to formally declare commitment to confronting global climate change, establishing an advisory group with the goal of reaching 1990-level emissions by 2020 and 60% below 1990 levels by 2050.

On Tuesday, February 13th, the Governor announced this statewide goal stating “The international community recognizes that rising temperatures, melting glaciers, and unusual weather patterns are warning signs telling us that climate change is a reality. Now, despite inaction by President Bush, we must deal with it. By committing ourselves to action in Illinois, we can help minimize the effects of climate change and ensure our children and grandchildren inherit a healthy world full of opportunity.”

This announcement further demonstrates the increasing emphasis on global warming solutions and renewable energy by the Midwest - the American heartland is muscling in on the movement for solutions.
Continue reading ‘Illinois Governor pledges to fight global warming’

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On February 1st, Macalester Energy Crusaders kicked off a state-wide competition in Minnesota. Film courtesy of editor Matt Ecklund and film crew Matt, Ben, Emir, and Molly.

Campus Wars continues with pinwheels across campus and an upcoming camp out. Students across the state are collaborating to get their institutions to publicly support the CLEAN Energy 2007 Act, transferring $14 billion in subsidies from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The youth coalition is also supporting the final push for a 25% by 2020 Renewable Electricity Standard.

Tonight at the Week of Action screening of An Inconvenient Truth, Macalester College, a small liberal arts college in St. Paul Minnesota, declared war on the other competitors in Campus Wars. 14 Minnesota schools including Macalester are launching Campus Wars - a campus energy saving competition involving students, faculty, and administrators for the
month of February. The effort was organized by students in the Minnesota Public Interest Group and the Minnesota College Energy Coalition in coordination with the Week of Action. The campuses will compete to reduce total energy consumption in two categories (heating and electricity) measured as a percent reduction from the campuses previous 3-February average. The competition coincides with important energy legislation in the state and national legislature, and the expansion of a wide range of community efforts across Minnesota to confront global warming and build a new energy future.

Starting Thursday, the Energy Crusaders, coordinated by Macalester MPIRG and the Macalester Conservation and Renewable Energy Society, armed with emblazoned capes will mobilize Macalester for a power down.

Below is Macalester’s Declaration of War.

Continue reading ‘Macalester College Declares Campus Wars’