As communications facilitator for Summer of Solutions, I’m featuring every program to paint a picture of the diversity of solutions young people are building across the country. This post will feature the amazing work happening in Burlington, VT and the dynamic leaders there.

The Summer of Solutions is a summer program designed to empower youth to create self sustaining community based solutions to environment and social injustice, climate change and economic insolvency. We work to build an inclusive, local community that connects across the country that will propel us into holistic, renewable energy economy.

There are seven projects happening this summer in Burlington. Some are continuations/expansions of last summer’s programs, and others are completely new.

The Programs: There are seven basic contiguous programs set to run this summer. Here’s a sampling of four programs:

1. Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative

Last summer, participants worked with the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative to bring pellet-stove heating systems to low-income households. They received a grant for $20,000 to buy and install pellet stoves. Over the year, Tom and Beth Tailor have been keeping in touch with/checking up on recipients of the stoves. There are currently 15 different stoves in 2 counties in the state (Addison and Washington).

This summer, they are applying for another grant to expand this project. The program participants will continue the process of bringing pellet stoves to low-income households, and will be ahead of the learning curve, picking up the project after a year of research.

2. Bio-Fuel Feasibility study for Chittenden County

The program leaders received $25,000 in federal money, and $5,000 in local funding. This study will be researching the feasibility of starting a pellet manufacturing co-op in Chittenden County. Tom said that while it’s great to give pellet stoves to low-income people, a whole systems change also means a way to provide jobs. In particular, the manufacturing plant would be aimed at producing grass-based pellets, as a more sustainable pellet than wood.

3.  Passive Community Refrigerator/Freezer

Construction of a passive refrigerator freezer  construction for community use using W(n)IMBY {Why not  In My Back Yard}. The passive community freezer will freeze 2000 two liter soda bottles next winter and use them to keep the freezer cold year round.  It will be made in part out of recycled and natural materials. Construction of eatible landscape, including localavore rabbit warren, and sustainable gardens.

4. Vermont Engineering Summer Camp at UVM

Another aspect of the program involves educating high school students about green engineering. Last summer, Summer of Solutions program participants taught for a week at the Vermont Engineering Summer Program. According to Beth and Tom, this was one of the most fun aspects of the summer, and they are looking to partner as trainers again.

Last year, SoS participants and high school students built a small-scale, working windmill. This summer, a new strand of the engineering camp will focus on the engineering aspects of de-commissioning a nuclear plant.

The other three projects include starting a rabbit colony for meat and yarn, a permaculture garden, and a community garden.

To apply as a participant to Summer of Solutions – Burlington, go here:http://grandaspirations.org/apply/burlington.html

For more information, contact Tom and Beth Tailor at: tbtailor [@] hotmail[.]com

The Student Green Energy Fund campaign has really taken off this year, after failing in the Higher Education and appropriations committee last year students have organized a strategic grassroots, media and lobbying plan. With both a Florida Senate Sponsor (Senator Constantine (R)) and a Florida House Sponsor (Representative Schecnk (R)) Florida students are hopeful.

A little less than a month ago Florida Students had their first victory on what will be a very long legislative process. The Student Green Energy Fund went through its first senate committee hearing (Higher Education). With Senator Oelrich (D) a UF alum chairing the committee and our Senate Sponsor, Senator Constantine (R) sitting on the committee, students were fairly confident the bill would pass with no problem. However, also on the committee is Senator Lynn (R) who is the chair of the Senate Higher Education and Appropriations Committee, Senator Lynn is responsible for the bills defeat last year.

With a large amount of confidence it would pass through this particular committee students took this opportunity to target Senator Lynn. Three weeks before the hearing committee two students from UCF lobbied Senator Lynn. Two weeks before the hearing, UF students met with senate Oelrich’s office to confirm his support. A week away from the hearing students from all eight campuses started pushing for media support and gathered on their weekly call to set specific grassroots tactical goals targeting Senator Lynn specifically. These tactics included very specific messaging, phone calls, hand written letters, emails, and of course tons of photo petitions.

The Wednesday night before the meeting twelve students from six universities (UF, FSU, USF, NCF, UCF, FAMU) gathered in Tallahassee (some driving as far as five hours) to strategically write their individual public comments for the hearing.

The bill was introduced and not to students surprise, Senator Lynn had something to say, she claimed to be supportive of the the Student Green Energy Fund. She mentioned the lobby meeting and thanked students for their overwhelming turnout and support. She then went on to say she was not supportive of additional unrelated amendments Senator Constantine had added to the bill. She said because of this she did not plan on voting for the bill. Senator Constantine was quick to speak up and said his top priority for this particular bill was the Student Green Energy Fund and immediately had his staffers draft up amendments that removed the additional language on the spot (now that’s a good politician). With the bill now being a very “clean bill” that only deals with the Student Green Energy Fund, Sentor Lynn voted Yes!

This was just one victory within the Student Green Energy Fund campaign, florida students have a long road ahead of them. With the Florida Legislator officially started students are continuing pressuring decision makers, recently Tyler Offerman from FGCU got Representative Kreegel (R) to also co-sponsor the bill and students are starting to organize a large lobby day at the capital on April 8^thand 9^th. Students in Florida will be tying the student Green Energy Fund lobby day into Energy Action Coalitions Define our Decade campaign!

Check out some media hits the clean energy leaders worked hard to get!

FSU News: Green gains ground at FSU

WCTV6: Students Lobby for Green Energy Fund Legislation

The Voyager: This new fee is worth supporting

The Voyager: Green Fund gets second try

The Alligator: UF students express support for renewable energy fee

The Campus Sun: Students to Push for Green Energy

As communications director for Summer of Solutions, I’m featuring every program to paint a picture of the diversity of solutions young people are building across the country.

The Summer of Solutions is a summer program designed to empower youth to create self sustaining community based solutions to environment and social injustice, climate change and economic insolvency. We work to build an inclusive, local community that connects across the country that will propel us into holistic, renewable energy economy.

This post features the powerful work happening in Corvallis, OR, as related to me by Nathan Jones.

Oregon’s Summer of Solutions program is three years in the making. In the summer of 2008, Nathan and others led a summer program called the Northwest Institute for Community Enrichment. Throughout the summer, the NICE kept in touch with Summer of Solutions – Twin Cities, and at the end of the summer they decided to team up for summer 2009 to run their programs simultaneously on a national scale.

Since then, the NICE has turned into an organization that runs year-round, and the programs have been growing and expanding.

The Projects: This summer, the Summer of Solutions – Corvallis team will be continuing a listening project that has already started. While the team currently working on the listening project finishes it up, new program participants will begin a replica of the listening project in another neighborhood.

Teams of solutionaries will enter specific neighborhoods in Corvallis and conduct a listening project surrounding how solutions for energy efficiency. After the listening has been conducted, the people working on the listening project will provide specific follow-up and support to this neighborhood, at the same time that a new listening project is begun in a different neighborhood in Corvallis.

After this initial follow-up stage is completed, solutionaries will bring interested community leaders together in a forum. Nathan said he’s not quite sure what will come out of these forums, but that’s part of the point. Community members will form groups around their interests that will create community-based solutions for Corvallis.

NICE Projects: The NICE is positioned to run Grand Aspirations programs year-round. Programs that he and his fellow Oregon-ites are moving forward with are designed to be year-long programs that Summer of Solutions participants can plug into.

One really exciting project in particular is the development of a permanent site for the Northwest regional Summer of Solutions. The idea is to get an old abandoned house, school, church, any sort of building, and then fix it up. The building would serve as a model for sustainable living, as well as a space to host people for conferences and gatherings.

The physical space for the NICE building will more likely be in Portland than in Corvallis, but some participants who are interested in this particular project would be able to plug in in various ways.

To apply:

As a Coordinator: Go here

As a Participant: Go here

For more information, contact Nathan Jones at nathan [@] thenice [.] org

I’m here at the 5th Annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington, joining residents from the coalfields of Appalachia in meetings with our Congressmen, gathering support for the Clean Water Protection Act (HR 1310) and the Appalachia Restoration Act (S 696).  This may be the 5th year, but the momentum is tangible.  We have 166 co-sponsors for the CWPA, bi-partisan support in both Houses and committee chairmen who are receptive to moving this forward. To build even more momentum, today is a National Call-In Day to urge your Congresspeople to support these bills.  Their offices are hearing from us in person and need to hear from even more constituents.

Please, take the two minutes to call your Rep.  Below are some of the most powerful points I’ve heard from local residents to communicate with members of Congress.

• Coal jobs are declining.  Mountaintop removal displaces deep mining jobs by replacing people with giant machines.
• Mountaintop Removal drives away jobs.  What business wants to start up in a place with undrinkable water, coal dust and blasting debris falling from the air and buildings that develop cracks in their foundations from the blasting?  As you can see above, mountaintop removal and poverty are highly correlated.  Coal is not the answer for economic revitalization.

• People cannot live without clean water.  When your water is brown, or black or red, don’t drink it. Don’t shower in it (the mist gets into your lungs).  Appalachia once has some of the cleanest, sweetest water in the country, because the mountains and their forests act as giant water filters.  When coal companies shove mountaintops into streams, not only does this pollute the streams, but it destroys the natural filtration.
• Support is needed from outside the region.  The almost non-existent enforcement of environmental protections, intimidation from coal companies and elected officials who were bought and paid for by coal money have worked to silence this issue.  Appalachia deserves to enjoy its rich natural resources, not destroy them forever.  Mountaintop removal has already destroyed an area the size of Delaware.  How many more states are we willing to sacrifice?

Please call your Rep.  We can change this.

Youth are spreading the word about Boardman to their peers and members of the surrounding community about Boardman Coal through a flurry of events, letter to the editor-writing parties, rallies, marches, and probably other things I haven’t heard about yet!  From Southern Oregon University in the just north of the California border, to Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, the youth voice is ringing loud and clear: we want clean energy, not coal in the Northwest.

During the first week in March, students and Lane Community College in Eugene enjoyed “Coal Free Education Week” in the campus cafeteria, and learned from youth OSPIRG organizers about the effects of burning coal at Boardman on the Northwest’s health and environment.  Just weeks before, Lane C.C. and Reed College in Portland passed student government resolutions calling for Boardman’s closure by 2014, and the replacement of coal use with clean, renewable power.

 On February 24th, students at Clark College wrote letters to the Clark County Columbian urging state action to curb pollution from coal plants in the absence of federal leadership (one of which ran in the Columbian the following week!).  The last weekend in February, Linfield College students marched for a clean energy future, added their names to a petition to close Boardman by 2014, and built new skills in organizing and activism at Power Shift Linfield.  On March 6th, the youth-organized Washington County Sustainability Summit at Pacific University brought together both students and community members for a day-long dialogue about breaking our area’s ties to dirty fuel sources like coal.

Through an announcement that it would consider shutting down Boardman by the year 2020, it seems the plant’s owner, Portland General Electric (PGE), hoped to diffuse criticism for keeping our region saddled to coal-fired electricity.  Yet for those of us suffering from the plant’s pollution in Oregon and southern Washington, ten more years of burning coal at Boardman is more than we can afford.  Under the proposed 2020 shutdown plan, Boardman would not only have time to add another thirty million tons of carbon to the atmosphere – PGE would also request a waiver for pollution controls that it otherwise must install at Boardman by 2014. 

It’s time to shut down Oregon’s largest single of carbon emissions, second largest source of mercury pollution, and a major contributor to smog and acid rain in the Columbia River Gorge – not by 2020, but by 2014 at the latest.  It’s time for PGE to listen to the youth of today who will have to deal with the effects of Boardman’s pollution for decades to come.  It’s time to get serious about the Northwest’s clean energy future, and decommission Oregon’s only coal plant.

written by Tessa Barker, UO Climate Justice League Show Me Democracy Campaign Coordinator

Students at the University of Oregon want a strong climate bill now! Support on campus for passing climate legislation that would cap carbon and help to create a clean energy economy has been growing throughout the school year.  In November, we organized the regional Powershift West conference, drawing over 500 young leaders to the University of Oregon campus; in December, a delegation of UO students went to the International Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen.  And now, despite the lack of true results from COP-15, student leaders are more determined than ever to pass a strong climate bill in the US before it’s too late, and we are ready to show our community what democracy really is.

On February 18^th, students from the UO’s newly founded Climate Justice League and I rode our bikes to the courthouse for the first of many lobby days as part of the national Show Me Democracy Campaign.  At the heart of this campaign to develop broad-based support for a strong climate bill is community outreach.  From day one, students in our group have been working to build coalitions with members of the wider community, ranging from business leaders, to farmers, to faith-based groups.  The goal is for representatives from each of these groups to eventually join us in lobbying our senators.

Students working on the local level of this campaign in Eugene, Oregon had been meeting and organizing for weeks leading up to our first lobby day. We held lobbying trainings, and discussed our policy principles: cutting carbon emissions, building a clean energy economy, and demonstrating global leadership on climate change issues.  We even held mock lobby meetings, in which some of the student trainers pretended to be senators who were opposed to climate legislation, and who challenged us on almost every point we made.

Luckily, on the day of the actual lobby meeting, we ran into no such problems.  Here in Oregon, we’re lucky to have senators (Senators Wyden and Merkley) who, for the most part, “see eye to eye” with us on issues of climate change and legislation. For our first meeting, we had a video conference with Senator Wyden’s staff in DC, while the second, with Senator Merkley’s aide was a more traditional lobby meeting.  As a campaign leader, I found it incredibly inspiring to see students who weeks earlier had been completely new to the issue discussing the need for a cap on carbon, and weighing the pros and cons of different energy sources with the senator’s aide.  It was also great to see that the aide had remembered some of us from a previous lobby meeting last fall – and proceeded to follow up with answers to the questions the students had asked months earlier.

Both meetings were quite successful – the senators and their aides valued the work we as students have been doing to gather support for a strong climate bill, and they encouraged us to keep it up.  Students came away from the meetings feeling like they actually had a voice in the political process.  Still, the campaign is far from over. Another lobby day is just around the corner, and as we told our senators, we will continue to keep coming back until a climate bill has been passed.

The Summer of Solutions is a program run by Grand Aspirations designed to train youth activists to create, implement, and strengthen community projects in order to find solutions to climate change, economic recession, and environmental injustice. This blog series is brought to you by the national media working group for Grand Aspirations, and each week we will be featuring a different local program. This week, we’re featuring the Twin Cities, MN!

After two summers of amazing work and programs in the Twin Cities, the TC Summer of Solutions Planning Team is back in business and ready to amplify their already very strong programs!

Programs in the Twin Cities: The TC Summer of Solutions is the first program run, and two of the projects from that very first summer are still maintained.

Cooperative Energy Futures (CEF) is a business that connects home- and business-owners in St. Paul with the resources to weatherize homes and implement very practical energy efficiency strategies to save energy and money. The broad vision of CEF is to reframe the debate about energy and climate change by demonstrating how the average household can play a role in building solutions through community collaboration. First envisioned in early 2008, and is running strong today.

The Alliance to Re-Industrialize for a Sustainable Economy is a coalition of groups working together to transform the St. Paul Ford Plant, which is slotted to close, into a mixed-use site that would act as an example of how green manufacturing can very positively act as an ecosystem-like community. The manufacturing spaces already existing on the site would be converted to manufacturing solar panels or wind equipment. Within the blueprints for the site are high-density, mixed-use housing, green space, business establishments, and transit systems. The site would be a whole community. Last summer, SoS participants took an integral part in developing a fiscal impact statement, and the project was taken to the St. Paul City Planners in the fall.

These are two programs that have been running for a while, but Twin Cities leaders have told me they have much more up their sleeves for this summer!

Much of the program expansion this summer is in the exciting move out of the Macalester Neighborhood. Program leaders the past two summers benefited greatly from the local community around Macalester College, but the projects of the Summer of Solutions – Twin Cities are meant to be scalable into many different neighborhoods, and have reached a point of stability where that is possible.

However, there are a couple of really new, exciting opportunities that set this summer apart from other summers. A local bike co-op is hoping to implement a bike loan program this summer for those coming from low-income backgrounds to save costs on transportation. There are also several exciting opportunities to collaborate with local urban agriculture/community gardening groups, and the program leaders are excited to expand their focus on Community Gardens this summer.

About the Cities: St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN have grown together since the mid-late 1800s into a center point for urban life in the Midwest. Matt explained that the Twin Cities are the most metropolitan area within 300 miles, and are extremely neighborhood focused.

Jason highlighted the cities as a focal point for immigration to the Midwest – until about the 1970s, that immigration had been largely white, but has become very diverse. Three immigrant populations in particular are highly present in the Twin Cities metro area: East African, Hmong, and Mexican populations thrive within the two cities. The Twin Cities are very bikable, have a (decent?) transportation system, and, in true Minnesota fashion, are a very friendly place to live.

The Planners: Full-time planners for this summer are Timothy DenHerder-Thomas, Matt Kazinka, William Raedy, Jason Rodney, and Ruby Levine. For more detailed information about these wonderful people, check out their bios on our website.

We hope to see you here in June! Apply here to participate in the Twin Cities Summer of Solutions!

If you have any further questions, please email Matt at matt.kazinka@grandaspirations.org

For more updates from local programs like this, please check out Solutionaries and the Grand Aspirations website.

All of this comes at a time when the U.S. Senate continues to try to figure out how to proceed with climate and energy legislation. In a Sunday op-ed penned by Thomas Friedman titled “How the G.O.P. Goes Green,” one of the leading figures in crafting legislation, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina acknowledged that he is inspired to take up climate and energy legislation because of young people on college campuses. Graham correctly points out that young voters are driven by deeply-held environmental values, and more lawmakers would be wise to wake up to this, but Graham’s solutions of nuclear and offshore oil-drilling are both counter to our values and economic interests. Every dollar spent on the dirty energy economy, is a dollar that could have created more jobs in the clean energy economy we must create. That’s why in the coming month it’s essential that we, as the Millennial Generation, further define what our vision for a clean energy economy really is.

Already dozens of events are being hosted around the country that will help us do just that. Check out the event registration page for the full listing and see a couple of highlights below:

• At Pennsylvania State University they’ll be constructing the “Foundation of Our Future,” a big art installation that students can write about there demands for clean energy on.
• An open-mic at Murray State Univ (KY) for people to share poetry and vision for the decade!
• Define Our Decade Vermont Kick-off!  On the heels of the Vermont Yankee Nuke Plant decision, and two-years before it’s close date, students at Middlebury College are going to launch their initiative to get a statewide commitment for 100% clean energy!
• Events across the Buckeye State to support Power Vote Ohio in Making Green a Primary Color – they want clean energy candidates to define their future!

There’s a ton of great stuff on the event registration page, I really encourage you to check it out, and host an event of your own! This idea has come about through extensive discussions with leaders around the country about the solutions we have to share, so we are really excited to come to fruition. Register your event to become part of what is turning out to be an incredible movement-wide discussion on our future, and to take action to make our vision a reality! We’ll be having another discussion on a National Leaders Call this Wednesday, March 3 at 9 PM ET – I really hope you’ll join us and register an event of your own!

2 years ago I and several friends shut down construction at the site of the Cliffside Coal Plant in North Carolina. It was April 1^st, Fossil Fools Day. After public hearings, petitions, legislative efforts, and protest failed, we knew we had to do something to up the ante in the fight against coal plants in this country. So it was that we found ourselves locked to Duke Energy’s bulldozers on that dark, drizzly morning.

Did we permanently stop the Cliffside construction site? No. However this action, along with the countless other actions like it by groups around the country, have greatly increased the cost, both politically and economically, of building coal plants in this country. While the construction at Cliffside continues, I feel confident that our direct actions, and those of others, is in part responsible for the wave of coal plants that have been canceled in the US (100 and counting).

No doubt utility companies and state governments pursuing new coal plants took note of the fight against Cliffside and decided that the constant controversy and harassment was not worth it (of course the recession and prospects of CO2 being regulated has helped as well). Well its 2010 and Fossil Fools Day is once again rounding the corner. We’ve witnessed the spectacular failure of Copenhagen, the Obama administration time and again capitulating to big business, and corporations doing there best to stall our efforts.

Yet we’ve seen inspiring resistance around the country, from Climate Ground Zero’s relentless direct action campaign against mountaintop removal to citizens shutting down Chevron’s refinery in Richmond, CA. The question is: What are you going to do to raise the stakes on April 1^st?

www.fossilfoolsday.org

End Mountain Top Removal!

* Rally for the Mountains in Atlanta *

1:00 pm Monday, March 1^st

EPA Region 4 Headquarters
Meet outside the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center
61 Forsyth Street, SW
Atlanta, GA 30303

To date, the practice of mountain top removal coal mining has leveled more than 800 square miles of mountains across Appalachia, destroyed over 2,000 miles of freshwater streams, and poisoned and displaced countless communities that call the mountains home.  Each working day, 3,000,000 pounds of explosives are used against the mountains of West Virginia alone.

It is time to end this tragedy.  On March 1^st, join Asheville Rising Tide, Rainforest Action Network and other allies as we demand that the EPA do their job to protect the land, water, and livelihoods of Appalachian coalfields residents.  EPA’s Region 4 office in Atlanta has the power to stop granting new mountain top removal mining permits, and the EPA nationally has the power to ban this devastating practice forever.  They need to hear from us!

Help shine a spotlight on the central role that our regional decision-makers play in perpetuating the practice of mountain top removal.  Come out on March 1^st and show your support for the mountains and communities of Appalachia!

For more information, check out www.ran.org, dirtymoney@ran.org or call 828-280-3462.