Over the last few months, the Borneo conservation community has been abuzz with word of DeforestACTION, a reality TV meets forest conservation meets orangutan rehabilitation extravaganza, complete with a 3D movie, a 6 part TV series, and world-wide online tie-ins where kids and schools can raise money to save the rainforest.

I know I got excited about it; they were going to take 10 people under the age of 35 and bring them to West Kalimantan to monitor an existing national park, to help with rehabilitating orangutans, and replanting a rainforest. Among others, the project is being run by Dr. Willie Smits, who has decades of experience working with orangutans and recently gave a very well acclaimed TED talk outlining how he succeeded in regrowing a diverse rainforest in East Kalimantan. The technological tools at play are amazing; supposedly, you will be able to go online and actually find your piece of land that you bought, and even measure how much the trees are growing!

This is an area I spent a lot of time in as a child, an area sorely in need to rehabilitation and reforestation. It’s also an area where indigenous Dayak communities live, and practice traditional agriculture (which involves small-scale swidden agriculture, which is totally sustainable when practiced on a traditional scale). Of course the DeforestACTION team, folks that have been involved in on-the-ground conservation for decades, wouldn’t fall into the same traps as the national governments and big greens (think WWF and Conservation International), right? Right?

The answer isn’t so clear. In looking at their online materials and watching their information sessions, it seems like there are a number of ways where it looks scarily like DeforestACTION is not taking into account the needs of the local communities. Now, I am hoping they are just skimping on this information on their website (local land rights issues are less sexy than orangutan babies). So, I wrote them. Here (in summary) are some of the questions I asked:

1. The land for DeforestACTION is on long term lease from the government. Who owns it during the project time, and has anything been planned for after the project is over?
2. Are there any local communities that are in conflict over the land with the government? Has the DeforestACTION staff actually talked to people in the villages about this (instead of just the government officials?)
3. The Willie Smit’s plan for reforestation includes giving local communities access to sugar palm so they can make cash income. However, this isn’t how local people have ever traditionally made a living, and ties them into the (super unstable) world market. Has DeforestACTION considered what they will do if community members don’t want to change their livelihoods?

DeforestACTION has yet to get back to me. I’ll post again when they do.

DeforestACTION, with it’s money, it’s online presence, and it’s big names has the potential to really lead the way in terms of plotting a new course for tropical forests. Nothing makes me happier than to see regular folks getting excited about saving the rainforest. At the same time, they need to be leaders on all fronts, and that includes human and indigenous rights. Come on DeforestACTION, show us that you know that conservation without the communities just won’t work, and lead the way in a really long-term sustainable future!

After Representative Eherlich spoke, members from Environmental League Massachusetts and the Sierra Club outlined the health risks posed by coal power plants. The Sierra Club also offered reference to their recent publication on how renewable energy sources can replace the base load power for the grid which is presently generated by fossil fuels and nuclear power. Four members from Students for a Just and Stable Future then spoke on behalf of their drafted legislation, house docket #2625, which is entitled “An Act to Phase Out Coal Burning and Use”. Unlike other bills in front of the committee that ask for this to be done by the year 2020, Students for a Just and Stable Future believe that the issue demands more urgency and should be accomplished by 2015. The students who spoke addressed the many externalities pushed onto local communities and the environment throughout the coal commodity chain covering everything from the devastation due to mountain top removal to the effects emissions are having in the form of acid rain and global climate change.

This all comes in the wake of last week’s announcement that Dominion Resources will not be challenging ISO New England’s decision and will be closing the Salem Harbor Power Station just north of Boston before June 1, 2014. This announcement is a great victory for community organizations and their partners who have been calling for a closure of the plant.

The continued effort by Students for a Just and Stable Future, and students across the country, shows how important to role of the youth movement is in getting our country off of dirty fossil fuels. Campuses must continue to work with their local communities in order to ensure a healthy safe future for the people and the environment.

At the hearing industry representatives from New England Power Generators Association spoke out against the bill explaining that the free market was well suited to determine which fuel sources are best, and that government intervention will only cause harm.  They later denied to comment on the environmental injustices or social injustices brought on by the continued operation of the power plants.

What Should Be Our Next Steps?
On campuses across the country students are realizing that something needs to be done. We can play a pivotal role in the organizing and networking of different communities. Humanity needs someone to stand up and stop the destruction of society. Right now we are destroying nature. It is nature that we are very dependent on as a means of our survival. With its’ collapse we are only asking for the same. The world is changing at a very fast pace as the ice at our poles melt, the ocean is becoming unbalanced, our forests are disappearing, while communities are being forced to face bioaccumilation of chemicals that they never asked for. It is time to start taking a stand like never seen before.  Malcolm X said “We declare our right, on this earth… to be human being, to be respected as human being, to  be given the rights of a human being, in this society on this earth, in this day and we need to intend to do this by any means necessary. This is exactly what needs to be done. The youth environmental justice movement is constantly being referenced as the revolution of our generation as was Malcolm X’s civil rights movement to his generation. This however is not the civil rights movement. Like the civil rights movement we have organized and a created a vast grassroots network. Like the civil rights movement we also have realized that those in power, our elected officials, are failing us. What we have not started to use is a tool that was used to great success in their struggle, the judicial system. This goes further then taking the lead corporations of the polluter industrial complex to court over regulation infringements but actually putting ourselves into the system. We need to use it as a theater to tell our public narrative and start to frame how these issues are discussed.

By organizing a mass resistance movement on every stage of the coal commodity chain, we may be able to achieve the system change that many envision. Communities may not be able to stand up to industry funding however they do have more numbers then industry does. Not only should the infrastructure that supports this system be targeted but also an effort to discredit the public relations industry that helps to support it. This is an effort that crosses environmental and social justice lines. Literally everyone is being effected in some form as well as contributing to the issue. It is time that people reclaim power from the polluter industrial complex back to where it rightfully belongs.

Let us not forget that in December 2008, at the time he waltzed into the federal auction, Tim was void of any formal training. He acted spontaneously, from a very vulnerable and inexperienced position. In fact, the first thing he did after being questioned by a federal agent was to call a friend for help. By neglecting to embrace his ordinariness, we are silencing his deep desire; that of every day people taking bold, non-violent action.

Equally as disconcerting is overhearing people say: “Tim, you’re truly extraordinary — good luck in there.” Have we accepted the plausible scenario of a 2, 5, or perhaps even an 8-year-prison sentence imposed for peacefully raising a bidder paddle? Can we sit idly by as our judicial system clearly sends out the message that activists either take plea bargains or mentally prepare themselves to sit behind bars for x amount of time for acts of peaceful civil disobedience? Unacceptable, that these should be our options.

One of the traditions this nation holds dear to its heart is that of civil disobedience – individuals challenging the status quo to better our society. I’ve heard your anger at the unfair nature of Tim’s recent trial – your outrage as he was denied a comprehensive defense, your disappointment as jury members were kept from hearing the whole story and hence stripped of their power to be their community’s conscience. And your deep pain when the guilty verdict was announced.

As our brother, one of our leaders, prepares himself for the potentially most intense experience of his life, we have to ask ourselves: how will each of us respond to this injustice? We are not asking for presidential pardons or the grace of the courts, as we have nothing to ask forgiveness for. We simply cannot, will not, compromise on fundamental human rights and a livable future.

As willing and ready as Tim may be to pay this price, I wonder how our movement can afford to have one of ours behind bars when the climate science undeniably gives us very little time to act. How will we respond as an empowered and unified movement? How will we galvanize our efforts to generate a national network of support for Tim, for each other, and for all future waves of activists?

We have two things to ask of you, Climate Justice Movement – activists old and new. On June 23^rd, find a federal courthouse near you and make a statement. Demonstrate peacefully and speak to the absurdity of imprisoning bright, capable young people. To my knowledge, no climate activist has served more than 6 months for taking part in a peaceful action. Hence, my stance is anything more than 24 weeks is inadmissible. And my second ask is that you take a stand – beyond Tim’s particular case. Be creative, spontaneous and vulnerable. Embrace your ordinariness and inexperience. And act. You have an entire movement standing behind you.

If you have ever driven on most of the northern highways in northern Alberta you will be presented with a picture of a tame prairie terrain, with sprawling fields and farms holding cows and the occasional conventional oil pump jack. A few kilometers on any of the gravel access roads however and you will see a much more bleaker picture of out of control industrialization and poisoning of the land. This is unless of course you witness the tar sands machines of death on Highway 63 near Fort McMurray and Fort McKay, or the massive underground mining operations in the Peace River and Cold Lake regions disrupting and contaminating underground water. What most modern thinkers fail to understand is thousands years of history from the ancestors of Cree, Dene, Blackfoot, Nakoda and Metis people. Living nations of people who simply cannot afford the luxury of packing up and moving as settlers when there is no longer work. These lands are home to these nations and are not sacrifice zones. And like a deadly contagious all-consuming disease, what has been done to Alberta by the oil industry cannot be allowed to spread to other parts of the world killing indigenous ways of life and jeopardizing the future for all.

Enbridge, and the expansion of the Alberta Tar Sands Gigaproject, is attempting to retrace the steps taken by the Hudson’s Bay Company with classic colonial strategy. The Hudson’s Bay Company was the first corporation on Turtle Island, here in North America. The Hudson’s Bay Company fur trading forts also became the first settler governments for the British Empire. In Alberta, the first settlement and colonial government in Alberta was in Fort Chipewyan, which would today is seen as the international poster community for a Cree, Dene and Metis community directly impacted by 40 years of out of control open pit tar sands mining. The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline is renewing a pipeline proposal and expansions originally proposed nearly 10 years ago and is supported by the Stephen Harper Conservative Canadian Government.

Just one week after the largest oil pipeline spill in Alberta in 30 years in unceded Lubicon Cree Territory, a spill that took six days for the Alberta government to respond in a half-assed, indifferent manner, starting with faxing a one-page “fact sheet” update about the disaster, a large contingent from the Yinka Dene Alliance from the northwest interior of B.C. were arriving in Calgary to confront Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project and tanker traffic.

On May 11th, 2011, on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy in Calgary, Alberta, a historic solidarity statement of opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal was signed by leaders of the Blood Tribe, Alexander First Nation, Lubicon Lake Nation, Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation, Sai’kuz First Nation, Nadleh Whuten, Takla Lake First Nation and the Nakazdli First Nation.

The day after the Enbridge AGM a rally was held in Prince Rupert, B.C. on May 12th, outside a meeting sponsored by Enbridge for the Northern BC Municipalities Convention. With a historic turn-out of over 500 Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents of the island of Lach Kaien, known in the mainstream society as Prince Rupert, publicly and loudly demonstrating their opposition to the Enbridge Gateway Pipeline proposal as well as any tar sands tanker traffic that would support the industry of dirty crude oil and liquid condensate.

Lach Kaien, or Prince Rupert, is known to the Tsimshian as the “Cradle of Tsimshian Civilization,” according to a hereditary chief of the Gits’iis tribe, Sm’ooygit Nisyaganaat. The Prince Rupert Harbor contains the most dense archaelogical sites north of Mexico City and is the second deepest harbor in the world. Lach Kaien is surrounded by Tsimshian communities traditionally comprised of 11 Tsimshian villages, as well as neighboring nations from the Haida, Haisla, Heiltsuk, Gitksan, Nisga’a, Tahltan, and Tlingit. To this day the indigenous population of the town of Prince Rupert is still between 40-50%, with all industries heavily dependent upon the commerce, labor and resources of Indigenous coastal nations.

A few coastal communities however have not yet made a clear position on whether or not to support the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and tanker project and any western tar sands crude oil expansion. These include among the largest of coastal communities of Lach hlgu K’alaams (Lax Kw’Alaams) or Port Simpson, and Gitkxaahla (Kitkatla), where the still active traditional laws and feasting systems of hereditary chiefs is still strong and holds much influence over the non-surrendered tribal territories in the region of Prince Rupert, Hecate Strait, and the Skeena and Nass Rivers.

These are nations still waiting to awaken to take their place and decide for themselves what is allowed into the lands and waters of nations that have lived and thrived on this edge of the world for thousands of years. To uphold the traditional laws and protocols of respect and responsibilities known as Ayaawk and Gugwiltx Yaans and not be steered by any settler government, environmental group, or any funding body with non-Indigenous agendas. Especially is true that Indigenous grassroots leaders are still fighting the oppression of the Indian Act system and the federal Canadian employees of many Band Councils maintaining the silencing of traditional hereditary leadership systems through which the sole jurisdiction of all territories flows through.

Indigenous lands and waters are to be spoken for and by Indigenous minds and communities. Enbridge Northern Gateway, and all tar sands pipelines and expansions such as the Kinder Morgan TMX Northern Leg Extension, the Pembina Pipeline, the PNG KSL Pipeline, the Kitimat and Prince Rupert Liquid Natural Gas Terminals, and the Prince Rupert “New World” Container Ports are just a few of the many modern obstacles in the path of standing up the original structures and ways of life with which to free Indigenous nations on this edge of the world.

Links to the rally and demonstration held in Lach Kaien and declarations of war against Enbridge -

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/enbridge-pipeline-faces-prospect-civil-disobedience-500-strong-crowd-rallies-outside-1514236.htm

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/greenpage/121784899.html

http://www.muskegnews.com/protest-enbridge0512

http://wcel.org/media-centre/media-releases/coastal-first-nations-tanker-ban-creates-new-legal-risks-and-uncertainty

http://savethefraser.ca/

Statement of Solidarity of Indigenous Nations opposed to Enbridge Northern Gateway -

May 10th, 2011 – Calgary, Alberta, territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy

WE THE UNDERSIGNED INDIGENOUS NATIONS STATE IN SOLIDARITY:
Our Nations are bound together by the water which is our lifeblood. We have protected our lands and waters since time immemorial, each according to our laws and traditions. The waters of Indigenous peoples throughout the lands known as western Canada are being threatened by fossil fuel exploitation and transportation.

We exercise our rights to sustain our cultural and economic well-being. The laws of each of our peoples are deeply embedded in our cultures and practices. These laws have never been extinguished and our authority continues in our lands. Our peoples continue to live by them today.

We have come together on May 10, 2011 in the city of Calgary, Alberta, in the traditional territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy, to declare to the governments of Alberta, British Columbia, as well as Enbridge Inc., all of its subsidiary bodies, and the domestic and international financial institutions supporting Enbridge, THE FOLLOWING:

The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and tankers project will expose Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities from the Pacific Coast across to Alberta to the risk of pipeline and supertanker oil spills, just as we have seen recently with Enbridge’s massive spill in Michigan, the recent devastating spill in Lubicon Cree territory, the recent TransCanada pipeline spill in North Dakota, as well as the effects of the Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon disaster. Tar sands bitumen has been demonstrated to corrode pipelines more rapidly than conventional oil, increasing the likelihood of catastrophic spills. Given the seismic volatility of the region, the recent earthquake in Japan also underlies our grave concerns about the risk of oil spills.

The urgency of global climate change, and the fact that Indigenous peoples are among those most impacted by climate change, also compels us to act.

We have witnessed the Coastal First Nations Declaration banning crude oil tankers on the Pacific North Coast, and the Save the Fraser Declaration banning crude oil transportation through the Fraser River watershed. Each of these Declarations is based in Indigenous law and is an expression of Indigenous decision-making authority.

Enbridge states that it intends to proceed with its Northern Gateway pipeline and tankers, with or without First Nations consent. A decision by Canada to approve this project, without the free, prior and informed consent of affected Nations, will be a violation of our Treaties, our rights, and our laws, and will be in breach of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other international accords.

THEREFORE we stand in solidarity with the Coastal First Nations, and the Nations who have signed the Save the Fraser Declaration, and are united in stating that Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and tanker project, as well as other fossil fuel development projects including Keystone XL, must not proceed without obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of all affected First Nations.

AND FURTHER if such consent is not obtained, no construction of such projects shall proceed.

SIGNED in the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy, at the city of Calgary, May 10 2011

Sai’kuz First Nation

Nadleh Whut’en

Takla Lake First Nation

Nakazdli First Nation

Blood Tribe

Alexander First Nation

Roseau River Anishinabe First Nation

Lubicon Lake Nation

Full transcript is Below the Fold.

All right, listen up. Very few people can ever say that they are in
the single most important place they could possibly be doing the
single most important thing they could possibly be doing. That’s you,
here, now.

You are the movement that we need if we are going to win in the few
years that we have. You have the skills now. You are making the
connections. And there is no one else. It is you.

That is a great honor and that is a terrible burden. There is no one else.

The science is the easy part in this, grim, but easy. 2010 was the
warmest year on record. And it was warm. We were on the phone one day
with our 350 crew in Pakistan and one of them said, “It’s hot out here
today,” and I was surprised to hear him say it  because it’s usely hot
in Pakistan during the summer. He said, no it’s really hot . We just
set the new, all time Asia temperature record, 129 degrees. That kind
of heat melts the arctic. That kind of heat causes drought so deep
across Russia  that the Kremlin stops all grain exports. That kind of
heat  causes the flooding that still has 4 million people across
Pakistan homeless tonight.

It’s tough, it’s grim, but the good news at least is that it’s clear,
the science. We have a number: 350 parts per million. 350, the most
important number on earth. As the NASA team put it in January 2008,
“any value in the atmosphere greater than 350 parts per million  is
not compatible with the planet on which civilization developed and
which life on earth is adapted.”  Getting back to 350 pars per million
will be very very tough, the toughest thing human beings have ever
done, but there is no use complaining about it, it’s just physics and
chemistry. That’s what we have to do.

But if the scientific method has worked splendidly to outline our
dilemma, that’s how badly the political method has worked to solve it.
Think about our own country, historically the biggest source of carbon
emissions. Last summer, the Senate refused to even take a vote on the
tepid, moderate, tame climate bill that was before it. Last week, the
House voted 248 to 174 to pass a resolution saying global warming
wasn’t real. It was one of the most embarrassing votes that Congress
has ever taken. They believe that because they can amend the tax laws
they can amend the laws of nature too, but they can’t. I’m awful glad
a few of you went up to the visitors gallery to talk some sense to
them last week.

Even the White House. Two weeks ago, the interior secretary, who spoke
here two years ago, Ken Salazar, signed a piece of paper opening up
250 million tonnes of coal under federal land in Wyoming to mining.
That’s like opening 300 new coal fired power plants and running them
for a year. That’s a disgrace.

But you know what. We understand the physics and chemistry of
political power. In this case, it’s not carbon dioxide that rules the
day: it’s money.

Many of you are in the District of Columbia for the first time and it
looks clean and it looks sparkling. No, this city is as polluted as
Beijing. But instead of coal smoke it’s polluted by money. Money warps
our political life, it obscures our vision, but just like with physics
in chemistry there is no use whining. We know now what we need to do
and the first thing we need to do is build a movement.

We will never have as much money as the oil companies so we need a
different currency to work in, we need bodies, we need creativity, we
need spirit.

350.org has been like a beta-test for that movement. It began with
youth here at Power Shift four years ago. It’s now spread around the
planet. In the last two years, there have been 15,000 demonstrations
in 189 nations. CNN called it the most widespread political activity
in the planet’s history. But it needs to get bigger still. On the
first Earth Day in 1970 there 20 million Americans in the street, one
in ten Americans. That’s the kind of size we need.

And so, on September 24 we need your help. September 24 is the next
big day of action. We’re calling it Moving Planet and in those 189
nations, people will be in motion. Much of it will be on bicycles,
because the bicycles is one of the few tools that rich and poor both
use. Who here knows how to ride a bike? All right, September 24, I
cannot wait to see the pictures. We are not going to wait for the
politicians to move, we’re going to create the future that we need
ourselves.

But that movement doesn’t just need to be bigger, it needs to sharper
too, more aggressive.

You know what, at Copenhagen we got 117 nations to sign on to that 350
target. That was good, but they were the wrong 117 nations. They were
the poorest and most vulnerable nations. The most addicted nations,
led by our own, weren’t yet willing to bit the bullet, so that’s where
we’ve got to go to work.

That work, to deal with that money pollution, that work starts Monday
at ten o’clock in Lafayette Square, across from the White House and
next to a place called the US Chamber of Commerce.

The Koch Brothers are high peaks of corruption, but the US Chamber of
Commerce is the Everest of dirty money. It boasts on its web page that
it is the biggest lobby in Washington. In fact, it spends more money
lobbying than the next five lobbies combined. It spent more money on
politics last year than the Republican National Committee and the
Democratic National Committee combined and 94% of that went to climate
deniers.

We cannot stop their money, but we can strip them of their
credibility. They claim to represent all American business, but they
don’t. 55% of their funding came from 16 companies. They don’t have to
say who those companies are, but it’s easy to tell when you watch what
they do. They spend their time lobbying to make sure the planet heats
up as fast it possibly can.

They sent a legal brief to the EPA last year, saying that they should
take no action on climate change, because if the planet warmed, humans
could alter their behavior and their physiology to deal with the
problem. I don’t even really know what that means, alter your
physiology. Grow gills? I don’t know. But I can tell you this. I am
too old to change my physiology and you all are too good looking. But
I will adapt my behavior. Every day now I will roll out of bed and go
to work fighting them. Hell, I will go to bed at night and try to
dream up new ways to fight.

We’re going to adapt our behavior all right. We’re going to adapt our
behavior now to fight on every front. I’m sorry if that sounds
aggressive, but there we are.

Twenty-two years ago, I wrote the first book about climate change and
I’ve gotten to watch it all, and I know that simply persuasion will
not do. We need to fight. Now, we need to fight non-violently and with
civil disobedience. You will hear from my friend Tim DeChristopher in
a moment and more to come, but if you’re going to go that route, one
thing you need to make sure that you manage to get across in your
witness is that you are not the radicals in this fight.

The radicals are the people are the people who are fundamentally
altering the composition of the atmosphere. That is the most radical
thing people have ever done.

We need to fight with art and with music, too. Not just the side with
our brain that likes bar graphs and pie graphs, but with all our heart
and all our soul. Tomorrow or tonight, you need to go down behind Hall
B downstairs and help them build the art work for Monday morning.

We need to fight with unity. We need to have a coherent voice. That’s
why, last week we joined with our friends at 1Sky to build this
bigger, stronger 350.org. We need to speak with one loud voice,
because we are fighting for your future.

So far, we’ve raised the temperature of the planet one degree and
that’s done all that I’ve described, it’s melted the arctic, it’s
changed the oceans. The climatologists tell us that unless we act with
great speed and courage that one degree will be five degrees before
this century is out. And if we do that, then the world that we leave
behind will be a ruined world.

We fight not just for ourselves, we fight for the beauty of this
place. For cool trout streams and deep spruce woods. For chilly fog
rising off the Pacific and deep snow blanketing the mountains. We
fight for all the creation that shares this planet with us. We don’t
know half the species on Earth we’re wiping out.

And of course, we fight alongside our brothers and sisters around the
world. You’ve seen the pictures as I talk: these are our comrades.
Most of these people, as you see, come from places that have not
caused this problem, and yet they’re willing to be in deep solidarity
with us. That’s truly admirable and it puts a real moral burden on us.
Never let anyone tell you, that environmentalism is something that
rich, white people do. Most of the people that we work with around the
world are poor and black and brown and Asian and young, because that’s
what most of the world is made up of, and they care about the future
as anyone else.

We have to fight, finally, without any guarantee that we are going to
win. We have waited late to get started and our adversaries are strong
and we do not know how this is going to come out. If you were a
betting person, you might bet we were going to lose because so far
that’s what happened, but that’s not a bet you’re allowed to make. The
only thing that a morally awake person to do when the worst thing
that’s ever happened is happening is try to change those odds.

I have spent most of my last few years in rooms around the world with
great people, many of whom will be refugees before this century is
out, some of whom may be dead from climate change before this century
is out. No guarantee that we will win, but from them a complete
guarantee that we will fight with everything we have. It is always an
honor for me to be in those rooms. It is the greatest honor for me to
be with you tonight.

No guarantee that we will win, but we will fight side by side, as long
as we’ve got. Thank you all so much.

On the basic level, it’s very simple; it’s a call for youth leaders all across the country who are ready to dig down into the grassroots and work with people in their communities to create solutions. We’re looking for leaders who want to plan a summer program next summer that will start, grow, and expand green ventures at the community level that meet the needs of our neighbors (food, housing, transit, energy, jobs), show the world what is possible, and start to out-compete the dirty energy systems that run our world.

You’re in? Just find a friend who agrees and APPLY HERE. Priority deadline midnight 10/24 – just give us a heads up if it will take a bit longer.

Need more background? Check out this video by my co-worker Matt Kazinka, read the background info in the application, or check us out at www.summerofsolutions.org

But really, this is about a lot more than running a cool program next summer. This is  a call about changing the game for our economy, our communities, and our climate.

As solutionaries, we’re calling for our peers, a rising generation that is the largest and most diverse in United States history, to step up to the challenge ahead of us:

Our generation is the hardest hit by the ongoing recession – we are most likely to be unemployed, especially those of us from minority and low-income communities.

Our generation faces the global peak in fossil energy, a dangerous and uncertain climate future, a polarized yet globalized society, and the hard economic times that such moments bring.

Our generation is working in partnership with others to reignite and redefine the traditions of collaboration and innovation that have sustained humanity for thousands of years. We are more likely to see across traditional divides, more interconnected, and more socially-conscious. Through how we choose to create new opportunities and work together across differences, we hold the future in our hands.

For the past few years, the climate movement has followed a predictable narrative about how change will be made. This story got lead out of gasoline and sulfur out of (some) smokestacks, so it does have a track record. Here’s how the story goes: A lot of people get really pissed (in a righteous kind of way) about these big problems. They tell the people in charge that something needs to be done. They get loud enough, and serious enough, and sooner or later the people in charge get the feeling that they’d better solve the problem or they’re going to be in much bigger trouble. So they solve the problem. This is a pretty simple story, but it has been funded to the tune of over a billion dollars over the past few years in the form of electoral and policy advocacy campaigns to get the country to pass bold and comprehensive legislation controlling climate change.

This story if very addictive, since according to it, if you are failing, it just means that the public pressure has not gotten loud enough, serious enough, or threatening enough and we need to try harder. Failure implies that the same approach should be repeated with even more force.

With all due respect to the great people who  have worked so hard to fulfill this story, I think this story is a lie and is leading us astray. In my view the fact that progressive legislators are now on the political defensive and that bold climate action now seems either further away backs up my point. Frames are notoriously addictive, but – my dear climate movement -PLEASE LET THIS STORY GO!

I see at least two key conditions critical to this story making any sense that are demonstrably not the case:

1. There is an effective, known solution to the problem
2. It is clear to the vast majority of people that the problem is important and solving it is in their best interest

On point 1, a lot of people will say they know how to solve the problem – for example specific policies like increasing CAFE standards or passing Renewable Electricity Standards. It’s pretty clear to me that the vast majority of existing approaches are tinkering at the margins and/or bolstering and strengthening underlying infrastructures that support dirty energy. An example is that Renewable Energy Standards of ~30% will prevent the growth of additional fossil energy infrastructure, but on the current energy grid with monopolized utility control, it pretty much ensures that their development will increase reliance on existing dirty energy back-up filling the other 70% or so. In other words, they entrench a system that prevents us from getting to a majority-clean energy grid. I gave this and a number of other examples in my post earlier this year. There are a number of good strategies for transforming all of these systems, but it’s not really clear how they all fit together. I suspect that will take a while.

On point 2, while we may celebrate that now a modest majority of people understand that climate change is real and a bad thing, we have to face the cold hard facts that the vast majority:

• don’t really understand the problem or the solutions,
• see the issue as separate from, much less important than, and in many cases in conflict with more pressing issues such as the economy, and/or
• generally think that doing something about the problem is going to cost them.

Together, these two features of reality stop the conventional story in its tracks. Paralyzing debate over how to solve the problem sets in, muddied by those who don’t want to see it solved at all, and the issue gets swept to the side in the face of more pressing concerns. Whenever it is seen as in conflict with top priorities like economic recovery (opponents of action love to hype up this frame), supporters of climate action get backlash from the voters. In the movement, I’ve been chilled to see the impact this dead-lock has had on our movement – more and more young activists getting burnt out, disillusioned, and moving on to more “realistic” life goals.

Except that the conventional options for our generation are declining.

Here’s another story.

People face adversity because the current ways of meeting our needs (food, energy, housing, transit, jobs, health, etc.) are breaking down, resources seem to be getting scarcer, and even greater future challenges threaten.  People start working together to create new ways (or re-creating old ones) of meeting their needs that out-compete the old strategies (further weakening them) and create opportunity and resources for those that adopt them. These ideas spread, aided by the collaboration and networking of the innovators and collaborators who catalyze them. The solutions get clearer as successful models emerge, and people begin to understand how to address the root causes of the multi-faceted threats facing them. More and more people (and broader cultural, institutional and economic entities) perceive the solution as both vitally important and immediately in their self-interest (helps meet their needs and protects them from the threats of the old model), and start directing their resources and power towards them. As a new political consensus emerges, old markets collapse, new ones emerge, and the political infrastructure to institutionalize the new systems is implemented.

What I have just described is the game plan of the inter-organizational program, the Summer of Solutions and Grand Aspirations, the new, youth-led organization that supports it. We support local leaders build and run programs that help each participant become ready, willing, and able to:

1. Sustain themselves materially, emotionally, etc. through a green career that they shape.
2. Create a ripple effect in sustainable livelihood benefits (income streams, reduced cost of living, improved quality of life, and attractive careers) in their communities.
3. Teach and mentor others to do the same

That’s why you should join in by launching a program in your community (APPLY HERE). From whatever location and with whatever background, affiliations, and experience you bring, we’re excited to work together. Because it’s by innovating together that we make it happen.

Tumultuous times call for strong communities and relationships to be forged as we break our ties to dirty energy. This October, Southern youth are coming together for a rendezvous of old friends and new partners at the Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference (SSREC). Here in the Southeastern United States, we are constantly playing David and Goliath with dirty energy companies whose profits come at the cost of human health and the environment. The BP catastrophe is only the latest in a long line of attempts to capitalize on fossil fuels that have left people struggling in their wake. Though through struggle we grow and so it appears that the frustrations with dealing with coastal cleanups, lapsed regulatory permits, and proposed coal plants are being channeled into a growing network of Southerners dedicated to quitting our fossil fuel addictions and envisioning a cleaner leaner energy economy.

Please come over to Athens, GA to join this clean energy movement at the Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference (SSREC) on October 1-3, 2010. The conference will feature students sharing their successes and lessons learned as they stopped proposed coal plants, pushed bills through state legislatures, and won campus clean energy campaigns. Speakers will also include: author and naturalist, Janisse Ray; Energy Action Coalition Co-Field Director, Ethan Nuss; and Kari Fulton of the Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative (EJCC). Talented and experienced youth will lead trainings in the grassroots organizing skills we need to move our region forward in the fight for clean energy.

The Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference (SSREC) was started in 2004, and over the past six years it has brought together hundreds of students from across the South to learn organizing skills, network, and return to their campuses motivated and ready to fight dirty energy and promote a clean energy future. Now, the Southern Energy Network, UGA Go Green Alliance, and Georgia Youth for Energy Solutions are excited to host the 6th Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference at the University of Georgia in Athens over the weekend of October 1-3.

If you act quickly and register by midnight tonight, September 16^th, you can get the early registration price. After midnight registration goes up to $35 for students until September 30th.

You can register at http://bit.ly/ssrecregister.

For more info about the conference, or to learn how you can serve as a panelist, trainer, or volunteer, check out the website at www.climateaction.net/ssrec or contact me at ssrec2010.sen@gmail.com

There is no time like the present to change the world.

President Nasheed of the Maldives at the Opening of the Cartagena Group/Dialogue

“There is nothing wrong with being helped to go on living.  And that is what this[climate change] issue is all about,” stated a senior official from the Environmental Protection Authority of Ethiopia.  I am at a ministerial gathering of 28 nations of the Cartagena Group/Dialogue for Progressive Action convening in the beautiful island of Bandos in the Republic of Maldives.  The participants are from Antigua & Barbuda, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Ghana, Indonesia, Malawi, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Samoa, Spain, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Uruguay, UK and the European Commission.  The Cartagena Group/Dialogue is an informal space, open to all countries that want ambitious and comprehensive outcomes in the UNFCCC, and that are committed, domestically to becoming or remaining low carbon.  These are “forward looking” countries, willing to work positively and proactively together within and across regional and UNFCCC groups.  The aim of the Group/Dialogue is to openly discuss the reasoning behind each other’s positions and to explore areas where convergence and enhanced joint action could emerge.  That is precisely what I see happening.

A representative from an industrialized nation stated clearly, “don’t push us, [to be even more ambitious] or you are not going to like it.”  While the words may seem a little jarring, that was not the intent.  The purpose was to make clear that negotiators and country representatives sent to UNFCCC talks can only do so much as they are at the mercy of the political winds of the countries they represent and might suffer backlash from voters.  It reaffirms that if large industrialized (and rapidly emerging) economies are to take strong action, it requires the majority of the citizens of those countries to have the will.  And while we witnessed the lack of political will to pass through climate and energy legislation before the congressional mid-term elections in the United States this week, countries small and large gathered at Cartagena have provided a glimmer of hope, giving a breath of life to the stale atmosphere that lingers within the UNFCCC post Copenhagen.  The truth is that the stiff negotiating environment of the UNFCCC rarely allows for a common space for understanding country positions and barriers to creating a comprehensive agreement.   This is especially true given such forums are reduced to a debate over choice of words in what is essentially a legal contract.  This is the second meeting of the Cartagena Group/Dialogue with regular meetings planned in the future.  The arrival of this group is also important as Copenhagen revealed that even large groupings such as the G-77 are beginning to fracture due to the rise of BASIC.  The latter’s demands conflict with many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developing Countries (LDCs) who are calling for a 350 ppm or 1.5 degree Celsius warming target.  It remains unclear what future groupings could be like within the UNFCCC and there is no formal “Cartagena Group.” The current impasse in the UNFCCC requires new alliances and I suspect with time, a “G-X” will emerge to break the deadlock.  

Ethiopia, a nation that is often recalled for chilling images of the devastation from the droughts and famines of the mid-1980s, has announced its commitment at this event to become carbon neutral by 2025.  The nation, which can be considered a cradle of humanity’s agricultural experimentation and development had only 5% of its original forest cover remaining in tact by the early 20th century has seen that percentage grow to approximately 30% today.  Last year, it planted 7 billion saplings, second only to China.  Joining it in this commitment was the small pacific island of Samoa which pledged to become carbon neutral by 2020.  The Prime Minister of Antigua & Barbuda pledged that the tiny Caribbean island nation would slash its emissions 25% below 1990 levels by 2020.  Costa Rica and the Maldives also reaffirmed their commitments to go carbon neutral by 2021 and 2020 respectively.  And while no industrialized country has yet made such a commitment, Norway is developing its own carbon neutral plan for the year 2030.

The Cartagena Group/Dialogue will continue to discuss ways to deepen and enhance access to carbon markets for all nations, leverage the finance commitments from Copenhagen, and tackle MRV structuring (the measuring, reporting and verification component of mitigation commitments).  All of this is in hopes that Cancun can pave the way for a breakthrough at the Earth Summit in South Africa in 2012.  ”While expectations for Cancun might not be high, we certainly cannot lower ambition.”  The Cartagena Group gathered here in one of the most vulnerable nations to climate change impacts  made that clear.

The administration of Utah’s former Governor Jon M. Huntsman (now U.S. Ambassador to China) commissioned an independent study to figure out how much, if anything, the state could save by switching to alternative, clean forms of energy.  Utah currently gets almost all of its energy through fossil fuel combustion, 82% of which uses coal.

Report says these things are dirty and expensive; report get's an "F" from state

It appears the current administration (Gary Herbert) and his coal-burning buddies don’t like what the report had to say:

“This [coal-based] resource mix…results in significant emissions of air pollutants and consumes a large share of Utah’s increasingly valuable water resources. The authors estimate that fossil generation in Utah today:

–consumes about 73,800 acre feet, or 24 billion gallons, of fresh water per year; results in 202 premature deaths per year;
–contributes to 154 hospital visits per year for respiratory injuries, and 175 asthma-related emergency room visits each year.

We estimate that the health and water impacts from Utah fossil generation have a monetary value of between $1.7 and $2.0 billion dollars per year (2008$), or between $36 and $43 per megawatt-hour (MWh) of fossil generation in Utah, a value similar to the direct costs of conventional electricity generation.”

Naturally, at this point, I would include a link to the PDF of the report. But I don’t want to do that to you. Get this: if you surf over to the PDF on the state’s website, a giant pop-up window (disavowing the findings) appears, the rest of the screen goes dark, and there is no way to click out of it. I’m no computer genius, so I had to “ctrl-alt-delete” and restart my laptop  just to finish this post. Sheesh.

Executive director of the Utah Department of Commerce, Francine Giani, on allegations that they are suppressing the information. ”I hardly think that putting it up on our website is burying it,” she says.

Rocky Mountain Power has an even more glib response: “We disagree with the study’s conclusions.”

Utah is sunny, windy, and geothermal-y. Burning coal for electricity and selling most of it to California is short-sighted and unnecessary. Doing so knowing that it is killing its residents and costing them millions of dollars? That’s plain evil.

International negotiations are truly crazy places. In between the ten page daily agenda which ranges from “Item 3 – a shared vision for long-term cooperative action” to “Conference and film festival: toward a new justice tryptch” (you can actually check that – that was the first and last item on the UN climate talks daily programme for 3 June) there are all sorts of personalities and zany ideas at play. For example, outgoing Executive-Secretary of the talks, Yvo De Boer, sparked controversy this week with a leaked memo calling the Copenhagen talks a ‘muffin’ instead of a ‘cake’ for their complete failure to address the climate crisis.

In a discussion about the role of NGOs in the negotiations yesterday, Yvo, as he’s universally known, recounted that he’d always appreciated the ‘fossil of the day’ award, which NGOs give out to highlight the most backward action in international climate policy each day. He particularly appreciated receiving it once when he was just a delegate for the Netherlands and he had the temerity to suggest that ‘the United States would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol.’

That the US would not ratify Kyoto, the only international agreement on legally binding carbon emission reduction targets, is not such a zany idea – the US has a terrible history of agreeing to international standards on anything from the rights of women to the ‘oh so now’ law of the sea. That the US is now undermining the Kyoto Protocol, even though it is not a member, is not crazy but is very disappointing. What’s truly crazy is that in civilised Bonn, in the heart of the European Union, the EU, formerly the champion of both international law and environmental integrity would vacate the field on both fronts.

The two fronts (environmental integrity and legal integrity) converge in the contest between what type of international instrument should be used to reduce carbon emissions – that is to say, how countries will work together, or not, to fight this global problem. One option is a system where countries collectively set a total target that is science based and fair, then negotiate their specific reductions and under a system that makes e sure everybody lives up to their promises. The second option, rather less effectively, allows countries to merely announce on the international stage what they have already decided to do domestically, even if the total effort is woefully inadequate. . Option 1 is represented by the Kyoto Protocol and Bali Action Plan system and option 2 is the ‘Copenhagen Accord’ system.  The latter isn’t global cooperation; it’s a take it or leave it game of chicken that leaves the planet in peril and millions in danger.

On the environmental integrity front the Copenhagen Accord system has just taken a serious beating. The prestigious, peer-reviewed and respected scientific journal, Nature, published an article on the 22 April 2010, which used the very scientific term ‘paltry’ to describe the emission reduction pledges in the Copenhagen Accord. The article concludes those paltry pledges would give a greater than 50% chance that warming will exceed 3 degrees by 2100. 3 degrees is devastating, catastrophic, climate change. It’s the climate change that most people, plants and animals won’t survive. A greater than 50% chance. Would you get on a plane, with your daughter, your brother, your friend, your pet dog and your favourite plant if there was a greater than 50% chance of crashing? Didn’t think so.

But the EU is thinking about it. In negotiations here in Bonn, the EU refused to say whether it would commit to a second round of Kyoto Protocol emission reduction targets. This is despite the Group of 77, (deceptively a bloc of over 130 of the world’s poorest countries) telling the meeting that:

‘The continuity of the Kyoto Protocol is an essential element for the future of the climate regime…failure sends a negative signal [by rich countries] regarding their ambition and contribution to a strong climate regime’

The EU used to be characterised by its ‘ambition and contribution’ to a strong international climate regime, but here in Bonn they are showing a distinct lack of courage, and as the German’s say, when you lose your courage you lose everything (real German saying). Similarly, Australia, whose Prime Minister was elected just 3 years ago on the promise of ratifying Kyoto because it is such an important treaty, was even more direct than the EU in negotiations in indicating that Australia (for a group of developed countries) didn’t think science-based and legally enforceable targets were very important. That in effect, Australia would be complicit in killing Kyoto.

This division over direction in international climate policy is resting on a knife-edge. Just months ago the outgoing Labour Government in the UK announced it could support a second round of Kyoto. Mexico, the host of December’s UN Climate Conference, where the second round of Kyoto targets is supposed to be agreed made clear that despite imperfections, ‘the Kyoto Protocol is the only legally binding agreement that we have.’ And Norway clearly indicated that it would sign on for a second round. If the EU were to take leadership again perhaps the world could get back on track to a sensible, science based climate policy instead of the crazy-talk coming from countries in Bonn right now.

For more detailed accounts of negotiations see The Third World Network’s daily reports.

You can follow Alex Rafalowicz at Bonn negotiations on twitter @climatedebtorg