It’s Getting Hot In Here

It has officially been over three months since the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill started in the Gulf of Mexico.  In that time President Barack Obama has appointed an oil spill team, met with BP executives, gone to Louisiana, and addressed the nation.  He’s even appointed an Oil Spill Team to handle the crisis.  Granted, none of this has stopped the flow of oil into the Gulf, but it at least gives the impression that Obama is committed to solving this climate crisis and preventing similar events from happening in the future.  That we have a leader committed to environmental justice and corporate accountability for BP.  How I wish that this were the case.

In his address to the nation President Obama stated that he had frozen all off shore oil drilling permits for at least six months in order for new and better regulations to be created and implemented.  It was music to my ears.  Finally someone was realizing that regulation of business is sometimes necessary to protect both people and the planet.  However, recently it has been revealed that the Obama administration has approved plans by both BP and Shell Oil to drill a total of 11 exploratory wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas above Alaska.  Wait, WHAT?  We’re granting more permits to the very same company that has destroyed peoples lives, work, and ecological treasures in the Gulf?  We’re allowing them to potentially ruin the Alaska wilderness?  Really?  Is our government incapable of understanding that a fossil fuel economy is no longer justifiable?  When will our government finally wake up?  After every ecological treasure in the country is destroyed and everyone is jobless?

Luckily for humanity, communities and activists are working on solutions to protect people and the planet. Continue reading ‘Government Failing, Communities Succeeding’

Last week, Brinkley Hutchings reported what she saw as she flew over the Gulf oil spill for her first time. Watch an astonishing aerial video of the slick shot by John Wathen as they flew from Brinkley’s home to the source of the spill and back on May 7th.  She flew over it for a second time Monday. Watch the updated video from May 17th (Below).

I was shocked, once again, as I witnessed the lackadaisical cleanup efforts.  I know that an oil spill cannot be completely cleaned up, but there should at least be an honest and organized effort to do everything we can! I saw highly ineffective plastic booms along the Gulf Coast and a few boats scooping up very miniscule fractions of the spill. Some of the booms have floated ashore, crinkled up on the beach; some sit perpendicular to the shoreline; others are overturned by waves; some pieces of them have broken off and are floating lazily with the waves. The high volume flow of oil, certainly more than 5000 barrels per day, into the Gulf still hasn’t been stopped. What is going on? Why isn’t an effective, organized cleanup being mandated?! This is outrageous.

Several segments of the media are relying on erroneous information from BP and the Coast Guard in reporting the magnitude of the “ongoing cleanup” activities.  Even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has it wrong. NOAA currently indicates on their maps that there are areas of “potential beached oil” in Venice, Louisiana when there is definite beached oil, whose magnitude of which is far greater than what is depicted on the maps. I have seen it with my own eyes.

Continue reading ‘I was shocked, once again, as I witnessed the lackadaisical cleanup efforts of the BP oil spill.’

Today the Yale Project on Climate Change is releasing a report entitled, “The Climate Change Generation?: Survey Analysis of the Perceptions and Beliefs of Young Americans.” Here is an excerpt from the Executive Summary:

Photo Credit: Dakota Fine

American adults under the age of 35 have come of age in the decades since the “discovery” of man-made climate change as a major societal problem. The oldest of this cohort was twelve in 1988, when NASA climate scientist James Hansen testified at a Senate Energy Committee hearing that global temperature rise was underway and that human-produced greenhouse gases were almost certainly responsible. For this reason, the conventional wisdom holds that young Americans, growing up in a world of ever more certain scientific evidence, increasing news attention, alarming entertainment portrayals, and school-based curricula, should be more engaged with and concerned about the issue of climate change than older Americans.

However, contrary to this conventional wisdom, Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 are, for the most part, split on the issue of global warming and, on some indicators, relatively disengaged when compared to older generations. Continue reading ‘Youth Less Concerned About Global Warming than their Elders?’

In 2009, millions of people came together around the world to pressure leaders to sign a legally binding and ambitious deal in Copenhagen. Although the final result in Copenhagen was a failure, 2009 was the year that the climate movement exploded. This energy will carry forward and we will continue to build in numbers until sustainability is achieved. This multimedia piece looks at the growth of this movement throughout 2009.

Take a moment and watch hundreds of those around the world taking action and inspiring others in the fight for climate justice.

All images (unless provided by 350.org) ©Robert van Waarden,
Music – “Open Road Kisses” by Small Affairs

Pittsburgh youth aren’t waiting to kick-off their Define Our Decade efforts.  They launched it this past week with “Rustbelt Renewal: a town hall forum on the promise of a clean energy future.” More than eighty young people and community members engaged with a distinguished panel on the issues of climate legislation and building a clean energy economy.   The four panelists were Congressman Mike Doyle; Patrick McMahon President of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85; Dr. Constantine Samaras of Carnegie Mellon University and RAND Corporation; and Bob Wallace, director of Penn State University’s BioBridge Program.

The panelists touched on the importance of educating the masses, changing mindsets around energy usage, and how creating clean energy jobs could boost the local economy. Congressman Doyle explained how “the US will benefit from a green revolution,” and spoke about Pittsburgh’s importance as a hub for the new clean energy economy saying, “there doesn’t have to be a trade-off between a healthy environment and a good economy,” because clean energy jobs are just “good business sense.” The sentiment shared by all panelist was that even if we’re wrong about anthropogenic climate change, we’ll still have made the best economy in the world.

Continue reading ‘Pittsburgh youth kick-off what Congressman Doyle calls a “swell of grassroots action”’

As a tribute to the inspiring Climate Generation series, I thought I would re-publish this early history of Energy Action, originally written in December 2005.

A History of Energy Action

We each arrived on the scene from different beginnings. Billy Parish, Adi Nochur, and Meg Boyle were taking time in and out of school to pull together a powerful new climate coalition in the Northeast U.S.. Maureen Cane, Arthur Coulston, and Marcia Winslade were establishing their own sustainability network in California after a major clean energy victory at one of the nations’ largest university systems. Lindsay Telfer and Jeca Glor-Bell were spearheading an innovative sustainable campuses initiative in Canada as part of the Sierra Youth Coalition. Nick Algee and Liz Veazey were storming through the American Southeast shouting “Green Power” in the heart of coal country. Tricia Feeney and I were building a national student clean energy campaign with the Student Environmental Action Coalition. We were joined by networks, campaigns, and individuals from all corners of the US and Canada, all committed to bringing about a clean energy revolution. With relatively little national organizing experience and few of us over the age of 25, we set out to tackle the beasts of global warming and dirty energy by creating a North American youth and student clean energy and climate coalition rooted in unified action.

Thanks to the efforts of more than 20 environmental networks and organizations and more than 300 student campaigns for clean energy across the United States and Canada, the student and youth clean energy movement has become a powerful force for change locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. As is so often the case with important movements, our network grew out of several small, but forceful local examples initiated by students and young people. In the mid to late 1990s, Middlebury College, Tufts University, Northland College, and University of Vermont all made significant clean energy achievements. Students played an important role at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 where the seeds were planted for a concerted international response to the problem of global warming. Between 1997 and 2001, University of Vermont, Tufts University, Cornell University, and Lewis and Clark College in Oregon had all committed to or achieved the greenhouse gas emission reduction levels called for in the Kyoto Protocol. By 2001, 55 colleges in New Jersey had committed to reducing greenhouse gas levels to 3.5% below 1990 levels. The student campaign, “Kyoto Now!” at Cornell was particularly important for the growth of the national movement.

Continue reading ‘Climate Generation: A History of Energy Action (2005)’

Friday, DC Students for a Democratic Society and DC Rising Tide led a direct action parade against the Fossil Hawks. The War on Terror and the Corporate War on the Earth are one in the same. The same corporations that lead the world in CO2 pollution are the main lobbying force behind the Resource Terror Wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Palestine. The Fossil Hawks are growing ever wealthier off the war while military recruiters feast on 50% youth unemployment like vultures.

“Young people are turning up the pressure because we are not convinced by Obama’s promises to draw back from war and support a clean energy-driven economic recovery,” says Brian Menifee, Howard University student activist.

video from dc.indymedia.org

Stay tuned for more footage from the parade, including our Green Jobs Not War action at the Armed Forces Recruiting Center.

From the press release…

Continue reading ‘Funk the Warming Takes DC Fossil Hawks by Storm’

The Climate Generation series has brought much-needed reflection, history, and  vision to this blog, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

The internet: our movement is like this

Some back-history on my journey: I started out organizing in the public high school system in Hudson County New Jersey in 2004 trying to connect big-picture energy and climate issues with daily life in the inner city. I met up with some cool folks who were helping launch the Energy Action Coalition during the summer of 2005 and immediately launched into campus and regional level work when I headed to college in Minnesota a few weeks later. I’ve done project work on campus around energy efficiency and green roofs, developed cool campus innovations like the Clean Energy Revolving Fund that led to a powerful campus carbon neutrality strategy while developing state and regional networks in Minnesota and the Midwest. I started reconnecting to the national climate movement in 2007, and have been closely involved ever since. Simultaneously, I’ve also been focusing intensively on community level work across the Twin Cities and Minnesota, helping launch intergenerational community energy efficiency and green manufacturing initiatives that build a green economy. Through that work, I helped found and am now helping lead The Summer of Solutions, a nation-wide program that trains youth leaders in  sustainable community development while pioneering innovative green economy solutions in communities across the country.

In the process, I’ve learned a lot, seen so many successes and victories, gotten inspired by more leaders than I can name, and been an agent for inspiration for many more. I keep meeting new people in new places, many of whom don’t identify as “the youth climate movement” but that nevertheless are part of our Great Work. I think this movement is vaster than any of us imagine, and deep beyond our wildest dreams. I think it’s just beginning. I’m glad you are part of the journey.

In this post, I’m going to highlight three priorities that I have noticed the movement struggling with over the past years and that I think we need to focus on intensively as we move forward:

1. Embrace Community Power (Energy-wise and Political)
2. Think For the Century
3. Show the Solutions

Check it out!

Continue reading ‘Climate Generation: Our Power in a Century of Solutions’

Great posts so far in the Climate Generation Series and it sounds like more to come in the next week.   I was very involved in the youth climate movement from 2001 to 2009, and now kind of like Meg, I’m trying to figure out what to do now.  I’ll talk a little about how I got involved, some of my observations about the movement and some of my thoughts on the future.

Some of my history

I worked with many others at the University of North Carolina to create a student-funded renewable energy account, which has since funded solar hot water panels and geothermal projects on campus.  It was one of the first Southern student initiatives for clean energy.  Then some of us from UNC joined with others from Duke and NC State University to put on a Southeast regional conference to help spread similar initiatives for renewable energy and energy efficiency to campuses around the region.  The South as a region uses some of the highest energy per capita and the dirtiest energy in the nation.

Continue reading ‘Climate Generation: More history, thoughts & reflections’

In a few weeks, I will celebrate seven years to the day since becoming involved in the youth climate movement.  A few weeks after that, I will officially be an old lady at the ripe old age of 27.  Back in my day, we walked uphill both ways in the snow to youth climate conferences, which we ran on zero dollars and planned while subsisting on only one flavor of (stale) Clif Bar for days on end. I jest a little, but the point is this:  It’s getting old in here.
Continue reading ‘Climate Generation: It’s Getting Old In Here’