In recent weeks James Cameron himself has been calling Avatar a catalyst for environmental action saying he now wants to “use the spotlight that’s been put on him by Avatar’s success to bring attention to environmental causes“. This caught the eye of Rainforest Action Network’s Becky Tarbotton. On yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle website Tarbotton started a call to Mr. Cameron to help expose the “real-life Avatar” that Chevron continues to enable in Ecuador.

In the article Tarbotton asks:

“What if in his acceptance speech James Cameron mentioned the real-life Indigenous Ecuadorean heroes who are battling the real-life evil oil corporation Chevron?

She then continues:

If Director James Cameron accepts an Academy Award next month, he should let his faithful fans know that while Pandora is fictional, what is happening to communities in Ecuador because of Chevron’s actions is as real as it gets.”

Now THIS seems like something worth watching on Oscar night, help us spread word on Facebook and Twitter (where it’s already gaining) by retweeting and posting “I want Avatar director James Cameron to mention real-life Ecuador struggle against #Chevron at #Oscars: bit.ly/9Rvut8 #realavatar RT Please”.

My personal two cents is that, after taking his narrative from the all-to-familiar struggles of indigenous communities and their fights against resource extraction, colonialism, and the corporations that perpetuate the destruction of these communities, James Cameron has a responsibility to use the global venue of the Oscars to highlight communities that are more real than any 3d glasses.

Last month Josh Schrei wrote a great piece on how Avatar’s dialog mimics the rhetoric of so many corporate hacks and unfortunately there are all too many real-life Avatar plots, from India to Peru. However the case against Chevron resonates with me for two reasons. One is has the potential to share some commonalities with the films ending in the very near future. Chevron and CEO John Watson are facing a potential guilty verdict in the next 6 months for their dump and run in the Ecuadorean Rainforest. Granted this battle will not be won with majestic trees, or flying dragons; it will be won with a communities unending will for survival, and a global rally for justice. While the means may be different, the result will be the same in that one of the world’s most powerful corporations (Chevron) will be held accountable to their crimes. Which leads to my second reason to why the Chevron/Avatar connection resonates with me.

The Chevron case is already sending ripples through the oil industry on how they are operating in communities, don’t get me wrong they are still destroying communities for the black gold but they have taken notice. Now we need these corporations to move beyond “taking notice”. As the Chevron case builds to a crescendo, and if Chevron is found guilty of the over $27 billion in damages, oil corporations worldwide will be forced to take measures to rethink their operations and their consequences, and communities will have an unprecedented momentum to fight back against the likes of John Watson who enable some of the most atrocious operations and crimes in the world.

This trial is a legal catalyst and Avatar has the potential to be the pop-culture catalyst. Something as simple a mentioning the ongoing fight in the Ecuadorian Amazon would be an enormous act of solidarity with communities that inspire his narrative, and bring the real-life stories of corporate corruption and colonization to an entirely new audience waiting to take action after being inspired by Avatar.

Help ask James Cameron:
Repost this blog, the SF Chronicle, or better yet write your own blog and post on Facebook.
Help spread the word about this group
Retweet “Avatar director James Cameron should mention real struggle of Amazonians against #Chevron at #Oscars http://tinyurl.com/ybd6d72 #realavatar” on Twitter.

Additionally, Public Radio International traveled with indigenous communities in Ecuador as they bused to Quito to see Avatar. Here is there reaction to James Cameron’s film.
You can find the full PRI article here.

I journeyed to the X Games this year wearing two hats: I’m an Educator with ACE (Alliance for Climate Education) and also our new National Campaigns Manager. ACE was invited to bring our sweet climate change assembly and our new Do One Thing (DOT) campaign to Aspen to support some of ESPN’s environmental initiatives. This was an amazing experience for a number of reasons! It’s easier to illuminate the experience in video – so if you’re interested, check out a short clip of some of our live reporting last week:

Here’s the scoop on what the companies I mentioned at the start are doing to lower their carbon emissions and raise their voices for a future safe from climate change:

Aspen Ski Co has dedicated millions of dollars and countless staff hours to environmental conservation and protection initiatives and have more in the pipes. What’s more, they recently joined BICEP (Businesses for Innovate Climate and Energy Policies), to take their environmental initiatives to the next level. BICEP companies are getting serious about clearn-energy and climate lobbying and Aspen Ski Co joined because they know their business depends on a safe and predictable – not warming – climate. Aspen Ski Co knows that climate uncertainty means business uncertainty, so they are taking action.

Disney and ESPN have formed something called their “Environmentality Initiative,” which is a program to preserve environmental health, promote environmental sustainability, and raise awareness about responsible environmental stewardship. We hung out with Fabian DeGarbo, ESPN’s Senior Manager for Global Sustainability, for much of the weekend and got some inside information about all the efforts to minimize waste, conserve energy, and minimize the environmental footprint of the X-Games. They’re getting serious with composting, waste diversion, and saving tons of energy. They’re doing so much, I think they’re giving Bonaroo a run for their money!

My experience at the X Games taught me more than I thought it would. For one thing, Shaun White is a beast on the superpipe. More relevant to my line of work: businesses recognize that clean energy and environmental sustainability lie at the core of their success, now and in the future. I was thrilled to see three giant companies – that many of us admire and respect already – recognizing the threats and opportunities that our changing climate presents and bringing a bold plan for a cleaner, brighter future.

And friends in the movement – if I can share an idea that I’ve just come to realize, it’s this: businesses can be our allies in the fight against climate change – with the exception of perhaps the Chamber of Commerce and a few others. They’re influential, powerful, and self-interested. If we frame the conversation correctly, that what’s good for the planet (and human health) can be good for business, we’ll find some loud and powerful voices shouting on the behalf of fair, responsible, and just climate and environmental policy.

Make friends. Build consensus. Change the world.

photo: MoveOn Flickr

You’ve probably heard about the Toyota vehicle recall, related to sticking accelerators.  But did you know that despite selling the Prius as the eco-conscious vehicle of choice, Toyota is still a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most backwards trade group on climate?

Well, we have an opportunity to ask why.

On Monday, Digg is sponsoring a live dialog with Toyota’s US President and Chief Operating Officer, Jim Lentz.  Just like  CitizenTube, our question will be asked if enough people vote for it – so digg it now!

Last August, Bill Kovacs, the Chamber’s VP of Environment, Technology & Regulatory Affairs, called for a “Scopes Monkey Trial” on climate change, leading companies like Apple and Exelon to quit the Chamber while Nike left its position on the board of directors.  Many others have publicly stated that the Chamber does not represent them on climate change.

But did the U.S. Chamber of Commerce care?  Hardly.  In the final three months of 2009, it spent $79.2 million fighting climate change and other priorities of the president, for a grand total of $144.5 million for the year.  Whoa.

Toyota had this to say in its most recent North America Environmental Report: “With a new administration in the United States, the landscape surrounding climate change legislation has changed. Toyota supports the U.S. government’s initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve fuel efficiency through a single national approach.”

Additionally, Toyota is one of 46 companies in BELC, the Business Environmental Leadership Council, “focused on addressing the challenges of climate change and supporting mandatory climate policy.”

So what gives?

Despite pressure from groups like Moveon.org and others, Toyota has refused to leave and you can bet the Chamber is not about to change its ways.

Let’s remind Toyota that in addition to safe cars, we need a safe planet. Digg this question (you can login with your Facebook account) and spread the word.  We’ve got until Monday 11am EST to make this happen!

Please RT this: Tell Toyota COO to put the brakes on climate change & US CoC – Digg up this Q! http://ow.ly/14BdQ #climate #green #toyota #prius

The Sierra Club and its allies originally zeroed in on 2014 as the date by which burning coal at Boardman must end, partly because transitioning the plant off coal by 2014 would mean PGE wouldn’t have to spend $600 million in pollution retrofits by that time to comply with state and federal clean air rules.  2014 is also close enough that closing the plant by that time would give us real of eliminating Oregon’s largest point source of greenhouse emissions soon enough to actually do some good. 

PGE apparently believes it can convince federal and state regulators to let it get away with fewer pollution controls than would originally have been required under the Clean Air Act, if it shuts the Boardman Plant down by 2020.  It’s unclear how realistic an assumption this is, and I certainly don’t have the requisite knowledge of the legal system to make an educated guess on whether PGE will get its way on this.  What’s important to keep in mind though is that, even if the company obtains permission to keep polluting until 2020, that’s no victory for the people of Oregon.  That means not only ten more years of Boardman spewing not just greenhouse gas pollution, but the several other pollutants which the control equipment originally mandated before 2015 were intended to reduce. 

The still larger issues is that we simply can’t afford ten more years of burning coal at Boardman; with the world approaching climate tipping points, years and even months have become a matter of life and death.  Settling for a 2020 shutdown date rather than 2014 would mean settling for 30 million extra tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.  And that’s unacceptable.

The Oregon Sierra Club has made the decision to continue pushing for a 2014 shutdown date for the Boardman Plant, and I’ll keep this blog posted as the campaign continues to gain momentum in 2010.  For now though, here are a few thoughts on how PGE’s announcement really has given us the upper hand:

First, from this moment on PGE will no longer be able to argue that it can’t in principle meet customers’ needs without the Boardman Plant.  Just a few months ago, we were hearing from PGE that Boardman had to be kept on-line as a “baseload” electricity source – this despite some big holes in the whole concept of an essential electricity baseload.  Now PGE itself has torpedoed that argument; they’ve admitted that, actually, they could get along without Boardman by 2020.  PGE will almost certainly try to hand us another ultimatum, claiming 2020 is the earliest shutdown date possible and that 2014 can’t be done.  All such claims should be taken with a large grain of salt; as this week showed, a utility’s definition of the “possible” can change with a few days’ notice. 

Second, grassroots activism gets results and can change a utility’s mind.  There’s no doubt in my mind that PGE would still be hemming and hawing over the idea of closing Boardman at all, were it not for the grassroots campaign spearheaded by the Sierra Club, that’s been putting more and more pressure on the utility.  It would be a mistake to lessen the pressure now.  Indeed, it’s now all the more important that we keep pushing PGE to do the right thing, make sure federal and state regulators don’t let the coal plant off the hook, and continue to build this movement.  As always, we should acknowledge when a utility takes a step in the right direction – but also refuse a compromise that would lock Oregon into ten more years of burning coal at Boardman.

Finally, if you think the intricacies of this debate apply only to Oregon then think again.  Utilities and regulators across the country will be watching this struggle to see what happens next, and whatever does happen could be precedent setting.  Oregon has a chance to build up its green economy by saying no to coal, and to lead the nation in a wave of coal plant closures.  Expect further updates soon.

The Clean Up Ecuador Campaign has launched a global petition to Mr. Watson, with an accompanying video-message (below) from the affected communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Watson is stepping into a mess that former CEO Dave O’Reilly left behind when he skipped out on the reeling company on 12/31. Unfortunately, judging the reaction by Chevron today in Houston where marathon runners had their free speech silenced, and comments attacking Amazon Watch’s global petition in yesterday’s Sphere article it seems that Watson is committed to enabling the same negligence towards human rights as his predecessor. Watson may choose to define his tenure by continuing down the O’Reilly path that just last year had Chevron publicly aligning themselves with known felons, losing precedent setting refinery battles, being wholly rejected by the US Trade Representative, and being a lightning rod for a thriving climate justice movement at their front door.

However, dealt such a rotten hand Mr. Watson stands at the most opportune time for an oil giant’s CEO to actually step it up…or just step in it. RAN’s newest campaign Change Chevron see that Watson holds an unmatched opportunity to right past wrongs and transform an industry from criminal to catalyst. Yet, there is a long way to go. Prior to this moment Chevron has not only ignored the communities they impact, they blatantly insult them. Chevron relies on lobbying and a brutal PR campaign to evade responsibility of, what experts call, the “Amazon Chernobyl”. As a recent Independent article points out Chevron seems to be standing firm in it’s refusal to pay any damages, even if ordered in a court.  In fact a Chevron spokesman has promised a “lifetime of litigation.”

Will Watson build a tenure on human rights or legal fights?

“It’s Human Right’s my Dear Watson”

In the above video, community members hope Watson’s tenure stands human rights, asking him to visit Ecuador and address the oil company’s toxic legacy. The video and petition lead the calls being made for John Watson to take this new approach as CEO and to rectify the human rights and environmental disaster experts call the “Amazon Chernobyl.”

Emergildo Criollo, a leader from the Cofan tribe, and rally cry for this weekend’s Chevron Houston Marathon where activists are running on his behalf, says in the video, “We don’t want to continue dying from cancer.” Criollo lost two sons to fatal illnesses after coming into contact with toxic waste-water dumped into Amazon waterways by Texaco. Mariana Jimenez, another community member living with Chevron’s lifetime litigation strategy invites CEO John Watson to Ecuador and says that he “will be received well” and that they are only “hoping for a rational person”. Seems like a reasonable request. However, considering the last guy, rational has never been one of Chevron’s (or any oil companies) strong point.

Around the contaminated region, an area roughly the size of Rhode Island, there are thousands more cases like Emergildo and Mariana’s. Joining with 30,000 other indigenous people and campesinos, they are plaintiffs in the landmark lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador that has the potential to change the landscape of the oil industry and catalyze a new era of accountability to the communities big oil operates in.

I’m pretty confident real solutions to the human rights violations and climate crisis are not going to come easily from Watson and Chevron. However I am confident that as pressure continues to boil over, the oil giant will be held accountable to their past, present, and continuing attempts to sell out communities and the climate for a cheap barrel of crude.

At the beginning of this month, staff from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) visited Oregon to look at the environmental impacts of a proposed LNG pipeline which would ship imported gas from the Columbia River to the California market.  I wrote about this visit in detail earlier, but it’s worth repeating that students from Linfield College and Pacific University turned out in force for the event, to express youth concerns to FERC.  FERC has already established a trend in Oregon of rubber-stamping LNG infrastructure without fully considering the environmental and economic impacts for Oregon. 

On December 8th, the Hey! Northwest Natural campaign staged a press conference on the steps of Northwest Natural Gas headquarters, urging one of Oregon’s largest energy companies to pull its support of the Palomar LNG Pipeline.  Northwest Natural has been feeling increasing amounts of heat from activists as it becomes clear the company is bottom-lining a project hurtful to Oregon’s environment, economy, and ratepayers.

As of early this month FERC had already approved one LNG import terminal in Oregon, the Bradwood Landing terminal – this out of a total of three proposed terminals, each of which connects to proposed pipelines.  That FERC decision is already being challenged in court by the State of Oregon and others, and is far from a done deal.  Despite serious concerns over the flawed Bradwood approval process however, FERC later this month granted approval to a second import terminal - the Jordan Cove project on Coos Bay.  The State of Oregon immediately announced plans to sue, citing concerns similar to those expressed over Bradwood.  The Bradwood Landing project can no longer be considered an isolated case, and FERC has now clearly established a trend of ignoring Oregon’s concerns and rubber-stamping LNG projects without sufficiently addressing the environmental impacts. 

Next, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden sent a letter to FERC asking that the commission investigate citizen complaints stemming from this month’s site visits.  It seems Senator Wyden is particularly concerned about the fact that the FERC-orchestrated tour gave LNG industry representatives an opening to abuse the rights of impacted landowners.  Wyden is spot-on in this analysis: industry reps from the corporation Oregon LNG accompanied FERC on the site visits, and were found on one property gathering GPS readings after being specifically notified by the landowners that they were only allowed to gather visual information.  FERC staff present at the time made no move to criticize this abuse (see my earlier post on the site visits).

Finally, on the other side of the country the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals clearly established that state governments have the right to reject an LNG terminal, even after it has been approved by FERC.  FERC previously approved the AES Sparrows Point LNG terminal in Maryland; the project was then blocked by the state, which denied final permits based on concerns that it didn’t meet Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act requirements.  The LNG company sued over the state’s decision, but lost the case this month when the Fourth Circuit ruled that Maryland has the right to reject an LNG terminal.  Considering that Maryland’s concerns about LNG were very similar to Oregon’s, this decision paves the way for Oregon to reject LNG proposals in the face of FERC approval.  Though I can’t speak for the folks in Maryland, I assume it’s good news for climate activists there as well.  The AES Sparrows Point project is now almost certainly dead.

This month it’s become abundantly clear that unless we see a change of leadership in FERC, the commission charged with approving large energy projects in the US cannot be counted on to protect the interests of local communities.  Our victory in this fight may ultimately depend on the State of Oregon following Maryland’s lead in denying LNG permits, and on grassroots activism that continues to put pressure on the companies responsible for LNG projects.  FERC may have failed Oregon citizens, but we’ll keep up the pressure until we win.

Yet some guilty parties are actively trying to mess the process up instead of just not doing enough: powerful fossil fuel and business interests are working against the interests of the people in the struggle for a senate bill and in the negotiations for a treaty. As Ricken Patel from Avaaz said about Copenhagen: “one group was cracking open the champagne – the polluting industry lobbyists.”

Even before the dust had settled or the last negotiations had stopped, the DC Action Factory used its last few hours as a group to deliver Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming to every single senate office and Roland Burris (D-IL) in person. Maybe we didn’t do enough to expose the dirty energy campaign to hijack the senate, but hopefully final hours as an Action Factory are a sign of big things to come.

Mr. Burris probably shouldn’t have stopped to talk to us, because it didn’t make him look good at all. Even without knowing what an astroturf suit with a coal lobby name-tag symbolizes, you would think any senator with an instinct for self preservation (all of them?) would be wary. Instead, Julie said we had a book for him about how dirty industry has spun the science on global warming.Burris  saw the coal lobby name tag on David’s astroturf jacket and said, “You know, we have a lot of coal in Illinois, and we need to burn that coal.” Ouch.

AcFac’r Tom Owens, from western PA, jumped in at this point to say that he came from a mining town that exemplifies how the coal industry is taking the miners out of mining. If Senator Burris thinks that coal is going to create jobs in his state, then he has clearly fallen for the lies perpetuated by industry PR campaigns.

Burris left us with some words of thanks for being idealists and doing the important work, but we left him with something more powerful: A book that screams scandal from the cover to the last page. Even a 5 minute glance at Climate Cover-Up will show all but the most jaded corporate hack that global warming science has been mutilated by fossil PR spin.  It details how citizen opposition to climate legislation is bought and paid for the same way they convinced people cigarettes were harmless. Burris, I hope you enjoy your holidaze, reading about how you and the Senate were duped by some of the dirtiest industries in the world.

The Avaaz Action Factory has pushed back on corporate trickery, helping to expose astroturf operations and raising awareness about the dire threat posed by dirty industry. When Bonner and Associates got caught forging letters to congressmen before the key house vote, the AcFac showed up the same afternoon calling out their fraud and putting them on the front of HuffPo (not in a good way.) Ed Markey (D-MA) hauled Jack Bonner before a congressional panel to grill him and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity on their lies and deceit. The AcFac was there in astroturf suits, even shaking Bonner’s hand for all the great astroturf work he’s done.

But its a lot bigger than that. Bonner’s firm is small fry compared to the forces behind the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Petroleum Institute, Koch Industries and more.

I was thrilled to read Avaaz’s email today, sent out to its 3.6 million members around the world.  It captures the anger that I feel about COP15, and clearly lays out the next steps.  Avaaz is going to take the Chamber of Commerce and other powerful industry loggies head-on.  For a teaser, they closed with this:

In our journey together as the Avaaz community, we’ve taken on dictators in Burma and Zimbabwe, promise-breaking politicians in Europe and North America, and the forces of extremism in the Middle East. But the Chamber is in some ways the most powerful and dangerous opponent we’ve faced. Some have advised Avaaz to stay quiet about this, to protect our own organization. But with danger comes opportunity, and if people power can defeat even the most powerful corporate lobby in the world, we’ll send a much broader message, that a new world, the one we all seek, is on its way.

Acknowledging and fighting corporate power where it directly blocks the change that people want is crucial.  We can remove the roadblocks to climate action, build powerful alliances between people’s organizations of all kinds, and really get at the root causes of our unjust, polluting system.

Lets brainstorm some actions to target corrupt corporate lobbyists and hit the ground running next year.

We at the DC Climate Action Factory teamed up with a delegation of irate Danish anthrofishies and hit the frozen streets of K and I: global corporate lobby ground zero. It’s from here that climate criminals and climate profiteers waged their war to infiltrate and cripple the climate legislation that so many saw as the lynchpin for progress towards a real deal at the COP. Naturally, this place is home to the Angry Mermaid Award winners.

First stop we hit it was API, the American Petroleum Institute. API came in at 3rd place in global interweb polling of over 10,000 homo sapiens sapiens and mermaids. API’s lobbying war chest weighed in at $4.1 million this year. Beyond the beltway, they fielded a mercenary astroturf army, lobbing lies at congresspeople and directing climate coverage in corporate media. All to perpetuate the fossil fuel economy that’s devastating the planet and threatening mermaids, humans, and everyone else who depends on natural temperatures and stable ecosystems.

Apparently someone tipped them off, because we arrived to find the API entrance caution-taped. But nay, no length of ribbon could thwart our MERMAID FUNK ARMADA. We triumphed in delivering a 5ft. Angry Mermaid award inside the building despite heavy resistance from the astroturf army sentinels who tried in vain to blockade the entrance.

But that’s all for another video. And so is our daring ascent up the highest steeple in the Church of Shell Oil, Jorma Ollila’s sustainable tar sands spa. Yes, we bested them too, the 2nd place winners. But that is also for another video. This is a 3-part series.

What we can share is this: Exclusive footage of a daring fin and foot dance attack on Monsanto castle, 1st prize winners. We were victorious in our goal of decorating Monsanto’s terrific genetically modified Christmas tree with a life-size Mermaid trophy. But, alas, there were casualties on our side. Chalk another up for the murderous behemoth that is Monsanto.

Monsanto is at the head of the corporate climate profiteers‘ counter-evolution, undermining sustainable technology by lobbying for false solutions to the CO2 emissions crisis. Monsanto’s prime false solution is leading the proprietary GMO biofuel monoculture empire. Similarly, Shell and API champion Carbon Capture technology and unconventional extraction like the Alberta Tar Sands project.

Alongside the false solutions scam, the Angry Mermaid winners feed from another common trough: government subsidies for carbon-intensive economic sectors. All three winners benefit from fossil fuel, factory-farming, and military-industrial subsidies. The related industrial sectors, transport, industrial agriculture, dirty energy, manufacturing, and war, comprise the greatest emitters in the second-worse emitting country in the world.

As people who depend on the land and water ecosystems in the United States and depend on the same oceans and atmosphere, we share in the rage of the angry mermaids. Thus the uncompromising beat of our global MERMAID FUNK ARMADA. We are unstoppable. And as with all things unstoppable, more action is on the way.

The Angry Mermaid Award is organised by ATTAC Denmark, Corporate Europe Observatory, Focus on the Global South, Friends of the Earth International, Oilchange International and Spinwatch.

Here’s another DC Delivery by the Organic Consumers Association

In the essential film The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard says, “Our primary identity has become that of consumer.” This is certainly a disturbing notion for those of us who are trying to steer our society toward sustainability.  Perhaps even more disturbing, though, is the way that environmentalists endorse and ultimately perpetuate this mutation of our humanity.

The vast majority of times green groups ask people to act, it centers on changing our consumption habits.  At first glance this makes sense.  If consumption is the problem, shouldn’t we try to change the way people consume?  The catch is that every time we focus on how individuals can change their consumption, we are sending the message that their real power to make a difference lies in how they shop.  This simply reinforces the cultural myth that the most important part of who we are as people is our role as a consumer.

That myth is a lie.  We are much more than consumers.  We are citizens of what was once the greatest…

democracy on the planet, citizens with the ability and responsibility to change our government.  We are human beings with the power to inspire others through our creativity, our sacrifice, and our courage.  These are the parts of humanity we must point to when we call others to action.

The focus on individual consumption habits comes from the notion that changes on any level start with personal transformation.  That is certainly true, but not all personal transformations are created equal.  Changing people from being obsessed with consumption to being obsessed with green consumption is not going to get us to real sustainability.  We need transformations away from consumer-centered identity into human-centered identity.  We need personal evolution into engaged and demanding citizens and into bold and creative activists.  We need the kind of transformations that awaken us to our own potential and remind us that we are not helpless.

Of course, those consumption habits do need to change if we’re going to have a livable future.  But to get that sustainable culture, who we are as consumers will have to become a small part of who we are as human beings.  When we start people on that road of personal transformation, we automatically attack that pathological overconsumption.  The spiritual void which begs for material consumption begins to be filled by a more human identity.  In order to truly be the change we want to see in the world, we environmental leaders might have to stop talking to people about their consumption so much.

When I ask people to take action against climate change, they often think what I’m asking them to do is impossible.  If someone only sees herself as a consumer, it makes sense that she cannot see her potential to be an agent of fundamental change in our society, economy or political system.  I suspect this is responsible for much of the helplessness many people feel when addressing huge issues like climate change.  Our job in Peaceful Uprising is to show people that they are not helpless.

Something loud is afoot on our sleepy campus in St. Louis. Washington University students are beginning to re-discover what connects them. Students that have never worked together before have just executed the largest direct action on our campus. The target: big coal’s influence on our institution.

At the end of this summer, Washington University appointed two new members to its board of trustees, Gregory Boyce, CEO of Peabody Energy, and Steven F. Leer, CEO of Arch Coal. As you most likely know, they are the one-two of coal mining who together preside over 13 billion tons of proven coal reserves.  They are both deeply involved in mountaintop coal mining, destroying communities and ecosystems across Appalachia. For years they have lobbied against positive protective legislation, including the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. Now, they check our chancellor’s every action and shape the future of our institution. This comes in the wake of the formation of the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization (CCCU) last December. This research group, funded by (guess) Peabody, Arch Coal, and the local utility Ameren, plans to build a 1 megawatt demonstration carbon capture & sequestration plant on our campus.

And this last Monday, our administration organized “America’s Energy Future,” a symposium to which Steven F. Leer of Arch Coal and Fred Palmer of Peabody Energy, among others, were invited to discuss our energy “future.” It was a five-hour-long symposium culminating in a reception in the new student center (to see a program description, see here). We saw presentations on “Green Coal” where earth movers the size of houses were depicted moseying through fields. There were a couple champions of reality, but the overarching theme was deceit. There was nearly zero representation from renewable energy companies. What is the “future” according to our administration? Well, it looks a lot like our present: coal, oil, and nuclear. This is not OUR Energy Future.

To coincide with the conference, we held a rally, a press conference, an alternate symposium titled “OUR Energy Future,” and executed a silent flash mob and banner-drop to challenge Big Coal on campus!

We had unsuccessfully lobbied to change the name of the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization and remained silent since the appointing of the trustees. We really couldn’t take it anymore. We saw an opportunity- and they just made it so easy.

A coalition of student groups, including the student-run farm The Burning Kumquat, Students for Endowment Transparency, and Green Action planned a direct action to challenge our university’s failure to recognize the legitimacy of renewable energy. During their plush reception in our student center, over 100 students entered the building and dispersed themselves among the assembled crowd. Along the balconies lining the reception were five two-person banner drop teams. On a signal, four teams dropped their banners over the balcony, baring messages including “Coal Is Never Clean” and “Our Energy Future.” At the same time, the 100 assembled students raised their fists to display yellow wristbands made of global warming crime scene tape and held up yellow signs with the “Beyond Coal” logo. The final banner was dropped over the main staircase bearing the words “Power Beyond Coal” painted among students’ signatures. A student addressed the silent crowd with a megaphone, “We present to you a banner bearing our signatures as a petition on behalf of this and future generations. We will not stand aside while executives from Arch Coal and Peabody paint a dirty energy future for our school and our nation.  We believe that America’s real energy future uses renewable, socially responsible energy sources,” and invited them to our alternate symposium.  It was fantastic- ethereal- and it’s all on tape.

Where do we go now? Our Student Union Senate plans to pass a resolution denouncing Washington University’s use of the “clean coal” marketing slogan, supporting Monday’s direct action, and demanding the university change the name of the Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization. We will maintain the alliances we have developed and work on involving more students to feed off of the energy we have created. We will push forward, gaining momentum in our rally against the unjust actions and policies of our administration.   This is the beginning- AND WE WILL CONTINUE TO KICK ASH!