It’s Getting Hot In Here

(Written by the Sierra Student Coalition Publishing Group)

For those of us in school, the semester is coming to a close and our student organizations are wrapping up projects for the year. We face the next academic season with the full knowledge that we are entering an era of new politics and new opportunities, and that many decisions await our communities, our campuses and our nation. As we expand the scope of our movement and the impact of our work, we are beginning to recognize the diversity of our own stories: the victories that we have won and the setbacks we have encountered, the hopes and fears for our future, and the strain and joy of pushing a country forward.

The Sierra Student Coalition Publishing Group invites the youth movement to share your personal stories throughout the coming year – starting now. Fill out our brief questionnaire with your group or as an individual as you reflect on your semester along with the challenges and the victories that it presented. We want to publish and distribute your stories to inform and expand nationwide dialogues among youth on what we have done and how we have done it. This is your opportunity to help other groups learn from your successes and challenges without having to re-invent the wheel, so to speak.

Continue reading ‘Share Your Story with the Movement!’

From Lora DiFranco, Ecolympics coordinator at Oberlin College:

Oberlin College’s first Ecolympics came to an end Saturday as we announced South Hall as the winning dorm during the closing ceremonies. Run almost entirely by students, this month we hosted dorm energy competitions, waste audits, and eco-volunteer days where students earned points for their dorm. South has won a pizza party for their dorm by winning the competition.

Oberlin has had a Dorm Energy Competition every year for the past four years. Dorms usually decrease their energy use around 20%, saving the college hundreds of dollars and thousands of pounds of carbon emissions. This year, taking a hint from Duke’s Eco-Olympics, we thought, “Why not host other events that can have the same effect as the Dorm Energy Competition?” Most Oberlin students are very aware of the environmental issue facing our world today, but sometimes people need a straight-up incentive to change their behavior.

As the coordinator for Ecolympics and a senior who is graduating in a month (!!!!), I’m definitely relieved that the events are over. However, the over-analytical part of me is ready to start then next phase: the review.
Continue reading ‘Oberlin Ecolympics Wrap Up’

Chill Out is shaping up to be even better than last year! With over 215 sites in 5 countries, Chill Out will reach thousands of students and faculty members! It’s not to late to host Chill Out on your campus - visit www.campuschillout.org to find all the information you’ll need to watch this interactive broadcast featuring student videos, an interactive panel of experts, and awards for the schools that are finding solutions to global warming!

Here’s a sneak peek at one of the student videos you will see on the broadcast tomrrow!

Don’t miss Chill Out this year! Sign up to host the National Wildlife Federations groundbreaking webcast today!

We’re less than a week away from the second annual Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warming webcast! This FREE webcast will feature colleges from around the country that are leading the fight against global warming. Ask our panelists questions, learn more about what you can do to confront global warming on your campus, and watch student videos, like this one from Cy-Fair college in Texas:

Chill Out is next Wednesday, April 16 at 7pm Eastern. Sign up today to host this FREE webcast on your campus!

The bustling halls of the United Nations climate negotiations still ringing in my ears, it’s been an incredible few months since I and other youth delegates from SustainUS returned from Bali. So many friends and neighbors emailed or stopped by to say “Thanks for sending your email updates from Bali!” and “Welcome home!” I still feel the excitement of working with the best & brightest of the youth climate movement around the world.

Upon returning from Bali as a US youth delegate, I was filled with hope that humanity will create a global consciousness by rising to meet the climate emergency. In the last few months, worsening scientific predictions have only strengthened my belief that we are the leaders we seek. It’s up to us. We have the power to make the climate emergency, and the immense economic opportunities we will realize from solving it, our top priority. A bold, broad movement is needed on a scale larger than the mobilization for World War II. This mobilization will only be accomplished by unleashing a renewed civic engagement.

Continue reading ‘Post-Bali Dispatch: “Lighting Up” a movement in Upstate New York!’

Word on the street has it that The Governator is bringing together a Captain Planet-team of state governors to begin taking solid steps to fight climate change. That’s a great opportunity for Yalies and other locals to get together to stage their own climate change demonstrations and talks. (GET PHOTOS, GET VIDEOS, and POST AWAY!) I’ll highlight more as the details unfold. Check out Yale Daily News highlights from Thomas Kaplan:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is scheduled to visit Yale next month to deliver an address on climate change, University officials confirmed last week.

Continue reading ‘Governors Unite: Landmark Global Warming Conference to take place at Yale’

Following an ongoing story, we’ve got another notch in our belts and another victory against coal. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, the only campus in the country with an active proposal for a coal-fired power plant, has canceled its plans. University President Glenn Poshard said a study suggests the plant would be too expensive.

The Student Environmental Center at SIU played a role in this victory. A monthly column by an SEC member recently highlighted the problems with “clean coal”, while the SEC’s Eco-Dawgs green fee campaign has been making great advances towards sustainability on campus.

Last week while organizing a Fossil Fool’s Day action, students at the University of Oregon in Eugene learned that Barack Obama would be visiting the UO within a few days. We switched gears and jumped on the opportunity to send our messages against dirty energy directly to the candidate.

On Friday a few students waited in day-long lines with over 9,000 people to reach the entrance of McArthur Court. Carrying hidden banners, including one worn as a skirt, the student activists handed out loads of materials to the crowd, educating them on ‘false solutions’, such as clean coal, carbon trading and ethanol

Once inside they positioned themselves high in the arena, across from Obama’s podium. Ten minutes into his speech the students dropped two banners over the railing. Reading, “There’s no such thing as clean coal”, the banner was directly in Barack’s, and thousands of others’ vision. The banner stayed up for over ten minutes, until security asked the students to take it down.

Youth in Eugene, and throughout the Northwest, are continuing to build a strong No Coal movement. With Bank of America actions (already in Eugene, Portland and Olympia) and a new proposed coal-fired power plant to fight in Washington, the tides of resistance are rising.

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.

Last weekend marked my favorite weekend of the year. No, it’s not because of the holidays (although I do love chocolate bunnies!). Last weekend was the first two rounds of the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament. This year the tournament is especially amazing for many reasons. First, UNC-Chapel Hill holds the overall number one seed and dominated its first two games, winning each by over thirty points (smells like a title team to me!). West Virginia upset Duke and the Sweet Sixteen is full of double-digit-seeded underdogs like Davidson and Villanova.
But what is most exciting about March Madness this year is that the brackets have gone green! Of the 65 teams that made it into the tourney, 24 have signed the American Colleges and University’s President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). The connection to basketball and fighting climate change doesn’t end there. Schools that have signed on to the ACUPCC have made up 50% of the Final Four over the last ten years, won ten of the last fifteen tournaments, and written one of the greatest Cinderella stories in Final Four history (George Mason, 2005).

Of the sixteen teams left, seven play for signatory schools. You can track their progress at www.greenbrackets.com.