It's Getting Hot In Here

by Ryan Wishart and R. Jamil Jonna (authors are doctoral students in Sociology at the University of Oregon).

Two years ago we went into Power Shift with a lot of hope. The keynote speakers gave passionate addresses praising the youth uprising in the tradition of past social movements. Government figures that spoke pledged to fight alongside the audience assembled.

Looking back its clear we were overly optimistic. Some of what appeared to be the most promising developments remain tragically unattained. The modest steps taken by Lisa Jackson towards enforcing clean air and water laws has left the EPA under siege by lawmakers. Despite the meager resources a very centrist policy agenda, Van Jones came under vicious attack—predictably for the most progressive insights he offered at Power Shift ’09—and stepped down. Hopeful projects, like the creation of a new civilian conservation corps by Ken Salazar, turned out to be a farce all along. As had been predicted before PS09, the few thousand jobs for youth amounted to political cover for Salazar’s handouts to big energy, with fire sales of the public resources opening the door for the extraction of hundreds of millions of tons of coal. Continue reading ‘Power Shift: To Whom and From Whom Pt3′

This post is meant to kick off an actionable dialogue about where the U.S. climate movement is headed in the new year.  Please use the comment form to suggest additions, flesh out points, propose alternate ideas, etc!  Just remember that this blog is a public space, and the goal is positive action to move us forward.  Also– while this is a post about the US, this remains an international blog chronicling a global movement.  Many  of these steps apply to, or would benefit from the perspectives of, allies outside the US as well.  In random order, steps are as follows:

1) Learn to lineback

2) Make leadership feel good

3) Build personal accountability in leaders and decision makers

4) Assume a diversity of positions of power

5) Run for office

6) Move from the youth movement to our late 20s, 30s, and beyond

7) Become global citizens

More on what these look like in practice after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Happy New Year, Welcome Back: Seven Proposed Next Steps for the U.S. Climate Movement’

Young clean energy & climate companions,

The following is an enlightening piece from the Huffington Post by David Gershon, one of our movement’s older-in-body-but-young-at-heart  visionary thinkers and author of the just-released book, Social Change 2.0, which I highly recommend you check out.  I invite you to read carefully, consider implications for our strategies moving forward, and let me know if you’d like to get connected to David:

~

The political leaders of the world that gathered in Copenhagen had the unenviable responsibility of forging a strategy to pull humankind back from the brink of a dire future. What ultimately will come from this meeting is uncertain, but whatever occurs, the challenge ahead is immense. According to conservative climate change science, we need to stabilize concentrations of carbon dioxide at 400 ppm and then begin reducing it to 350 ppm to avoid triggering a cascading set of irreversible tipping points. To be successful in this task requires us to develop a solution to achieve by 2020 what the current treaty being negotiated hopes to achieve by 2050 — an 80 percent reduction in CO2 emissions.

The scale and speed of change required goes well beyond anything political leaders have ever had to contemplate, much less achieve. And even if the political will were there to achieve this level and speed of carbon reduction, the social change 1.0 tools at their disposal — command and control, and financial incentives — are not designed for this type of rapid, transformative change. They were purposely designed over two centuries ago for gradual, incremental change.

Continue reading ‘Solution in the Wake of Copenhagen — If Governments Can’t, People Can’

This is a great update on the first day of COP15, brought to you by the folks who masterminded the Australia Powershift 09 Flashdance Video (also shown below):

This piece of art is perhaps one of the best videos of our movement:

I went to the White House today, as one of 150 youth climate leaders invited to take part in the Clean Energy Forum.

Let me repeat that: youth activists were invited to discuss climate policy with 4 cabinet secretaries. This is not the same movement it was two years ago, and I think the changes have been overwhelmingly positive.

A little more than two years ago, a nervous and exuberant Energy Action Coalition gathered 5,000+ youth in DC for Powershift07. Van Jones said, ‘remember, remember, the 5th of November…’ and we raised some eyebrows in DC. But mostly, we sparked the feeling of a movement in a whole new circle of leaders: young people who went home with a sense of urgency and a sense of the plan.

Two years later, a huge youth election campaign, another Powershift, 100 coal plant permits denied and a lot of green jobs created, a small selection of an amazing movement of people were welcomed to the White House as partners in crafting the clean energy future WE want to see.

The forum didn’t result in any game-changing policy commitments, but it wasn’t supposed to. It was a chance for the administration to showcase just how much better they are than the Bush administration (an underwhelming comparison, perhaps), and for them to present a convincing argument of why they are doing a great job. I think they accomplished that, acknowledging that they can do more to stop dirty energy and lead on the clean and just economy, while placing a large chunk of blame on the Senate for their deadly inaction.

The forum succeeded wildly in a different way, and an incredibly important way. We were all in the room together – a couple dozen administration staff, 80 or 90 youth leaders affiliated with the Energy Action Coalition, and another 40 or 50 clean energy leaders. We got to see what we look like, where we come from, and what issues really move us. With that focused cross-section of the movement, I realized more than ever, that we are such a diverse generation, and we are a diverse movement united in a very large goal. Continue reading ‘Youth Climate Movement Grows Up… In a Good Way’

Yesterday I came back from Ohio jazzed about all of the great work and outcomes of the Power Shift Ohio Summit – movement building, training, campaign development, and real political impact!

Power Shift Ohio and West helped us conclude the regional summits with a bang, and when I returned to DC, I wondered what would come next.  I turned on my computer, started sifting through emails, Facebook messages, and Tweets, and WOW, did I find a lot.  So much that I’m afraid I can’t chronicle it all, but I do want to highlight a couple of the most immediate things.

• Tomorrow the Michigan Student Sustainability Coaliton and Detroit ASAP are hosting the 11th Hour Rally and March, and in two locations! Calling on Senators Stabenow and Levin to support strong legislation that will deliver clean energy jobs to hard hit areas like Detroit.
• On Nov 13th, in Connecticut there will be a March on CT Senators’ Hartford offices, and not a moment to late at Sen. Lieberman becomes a more influential deal-maker in the deliberations.  Follow @GreenKatCT on Twitter for more info.
• That same day in Pittsburgh, local youth and the Sierra Student Coalition will be meeting with staff of Senator Spector’s office.
• Further down the coast, on Nov. 21st, there will be a rally at the South Carolina State House to remind federal representatives what youth stand for: real climate solutions and action!
• And we can’t forget the Leadership Campaign in Massachussetts which continues to host weekly sleepouts Sunday nights on Boston Commons, refusing to sleep in homes or dorms powered by dirty energy, until the state legislature and Governor Patrick pass legislation that takes the state to 100% clean electricity by 2020!

Again, I know that I’m only skimming the surface, but I wanted to share some of the action.  If you are hosting an event, rally, call-in day, or anything else, let us know in the comments or by posting it on the developing online community, that allows others to see your events, join them, or get some ideas for events in their own community!  We need to keep it up, keep building stronger and louder, so that Congress and Obama clearly know that It’s Game Time.

Stop Everything
Rebecca McNeil and Darcy Higgins

October 27, 2009

After the flash mob that appeared in Parliament yesterday, disrupting question period to call immediate attention to climate change, we had very mixed feelings.

The flash mob evokes tactics of yester-year, though a little more clever. To those of us who are used to doing campaign and policy work in the environmental sector, making incremental change by going in the front door with a suit and a tie (well a suit, anyways), it’s hard to not feel like this approach loses credibility for our whole sector and the point we are trying to make – that our government must act now to reduce climate change. Continue reading ‘Between Rocks and Hard Places’

Royal Bank of Canada Die-In

Today in Ottawa, 100 concerned citizens staged mock deaths at the Royal Bank of Canada, accompanied by chanting and chalk outlines. Following a weekend of activity at Powershift Canada, the action called attention to RBC’s role as the lead financier of tar sands extraction.

The action in Ottawa continues a series of actions performed by RAN Toronto who are lobbying RBC to divest funding from tar sands projects. Tar sands oil has serious environmental, climate and human health impacts. Described by the United Nations Environment Program as one of the world’s top “environmental hot spots,” global warming pollution from tar sands production is three times that of conventional crude oil. Unconventional tar sands oil is derived from lower-grade, difficult and expensive-to-access raw materials, which have enormous consequences for air quality, drinking water and the climate.

To extract tar sands oil requires churning up huge tracts of ancient boreal forest and polluting so much clean water with poisonous chemicals that the resulting waste ponds can be seen from outer space. The health impacts to Alberta’s First Nation communities are severe, with cancer rates up in some communities as much as 400 times its usual frequency. In addition, as this oil spills into the U.S., refinery communities face air and water pollution from tar sands oil, which contains 11 times more sulfur and nickel and five times more lead than conventional oil. Continue reading ‘Die-In at Royal Bank of Canada Includes 100 Protesters Who Oppose the Bank’s Involvement In the Tar Sands’