It’s Getting Hot In Here

[The following was co-written by Naomi Klein, author of #1 international bestseller The Shock Doctrine, Terry Tempest Williams, world renowned wildlife author, Bill Mckibben, founder of 350.org and author of The End Of Nature, and Dr. James Hansen, author of Storms of my Grandchildren, and who is regarded as the world's leading climatologist. All recognize the trial of Tim DeChristopher to be a turning point in the climate movement. Please visit our resource page for more information]

Dear Friends,

The epic fight to ward off global warming and transform the energy system that is at the core of our planet’s economy takes many forms: huge global days of action, giant international conferences like the one that just failed in Copenhagen, small gestures in the homes of countless people.

But there are a few signal moments, and one comes next month, when the federal government puts Tim DeChristopher on trial in Salt Lake City. Tim—“Bidder 70”– pulled off one of the most creative protests against our runaway energy policy in years: he bid for the oil and gas leases on several parcels of federal land even though he had no money to pay for them, thus upending the auction. The government calls that “violating the Federal Onshore Oil and Gas Leasing Reform Act” and thinks he should spend ten years in jail for the crime; we call it a noble act, a profound gesture made on behalf of all of us and of the future. Continue reading ‘Call to action by Naomi Klein, Terry Tempest Williams, Bill McKibben, Dr. James Hansen and Peaceful Uprising’

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’

I wrote this poem on new years and thought I would share it:

The morning that followed
Our message was echoed.
A failure! A failure!
My heart in despair.

The science lost, funding tossed,
No commitment in sight.
A stench of injustice,
The result: A failed plight.

“What more did you expect?”
Accusing voices chimed,
“Your efforts are a waste
Of carbon, cash and time”.

Continue reading ‘Poem: How will we remember Copenhagen?’

Did you ever wonder where It’s Getting Hot In Here came from?  I mean beyond the Nelly song, which is now a distant relic of early-2000s pop culture.

Here’s that story.

It’s Getting Hot In Here, the blog, was founded at the United Nations climate negotiations in Montreal in 2005: COP11/MOP1.  Just that year Russia ratified the Kyoto Protocol, meeting the requirement that countries producing at least 55% of global emissions signed on for Kyoto to take effect.  Montreal was the first meeting of Kyoto Protocol signatories. It was also the foundation of the International Conference of Youth, the body that brings youth from around the world together to develop a common platform, strategy and story.

The atmosphere in Montreal was both hopeful and frustrated.  The Kyoto Protocol had finally come into effect, the first ever international treaty on climate.  This was a major step forward.  And yet, the United States and Australia, two of the world’s largest emitters, had refused.  While delegates met to discuss making the Kyoto Protocol stronger and how to improve implementation, parallel negotiations began to discuss a new framework to replace Kyoto after 2012.  It was in this context that I found myself thrust into the international climate movement.

Continue reading ‘Climate Generation: From Humble Beginnings To A Global Movement’

Written by Yiting Wang, a member of China Youth COP15 team

Yes things did not turn out to be as fair, ambitious and binding as we all hoped for upon the conclusion of COP 15. Yet in many lights, it was inspiring, constructive and everlasting. I want to share several little a few serendipitous moments when I was struck by what I said, what I heard, what I was part of and what I think it now.

In the wake of Wednesday 16th riot, the police had pushed back the crowd. I was walking toward Bella Center trying to get in, a guy with a little video camera stopped me and asked me to say a little something about what I think the solution [to our climate crisis] was. I replied, in gasps, that I think we need to put ourselves in each other’s shoes. We need to understand that we are one people in different forms;our lives connected. He asked me where I was from. I said China. He waved one of his hand whiling the other still holding the camera, “thanks for the Chinese wisdom.”

I don’t know if it is particularly Chinese. I just always remember a peacemaking guru who only sleeps for four hours everyday, once said that we are all one. I just cannot agree more. Continue reading ‘Drops during COP 15′

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’

Monthly page views since May '07 when we moved to wordpress.com. Stats calculated by wordpress.

The global youth movement came to a bit of a peak this month, and IGHIH not only reflected it, we wrote it as it was happening.  Just take a look at our monthly traffic over the past 3 years.  December was the biggest month by far, topping 100,000 views. An epic youth climate sit-in at the Bella Center in Copenhagen (live-blogged by Whit Jones), but it was by no means the only amazing instance of activists telling the story in their own words, and the world listening.

For commentary on the decade and the 5 year history of this site, other people will need to do step in, since I’ve only been involved here for 2 years.  But you’re in luck! In January, over a dozen veteran youth climate activists who’ve been involved here for longer than me will post as part of the “Climate Generation” series – stay tuned for updates.

Also in January, there will be a bit of an overhaul process.  We’ll start with a survey on how the site works for readers, writers and partner organizations.  That feedback will go into a proposal to make changes to how this whole thing works, which should start to be implemented by the end of the month.  We’ll be revamping the ‘events and opportunities’ page to make it easier to post and also overhauling the list of contributors and authors.  Lastly, the editorial board needs some fresh blood, and recruitment will start at the end of the month.  Like to promote the voices of the youth climate movement?  Lets talk.

Now to really geek out, here are this month’s most viewed posts, referring sites, web searches and outgoing links.  Hold your breath, hold it, hold it, here it is…. Continue reading ‘How’s the Blog Doing? (Holy Crap!)’

I probably don’t even need to provide a link to “How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room,”  Mark Lynas’s recent Guardian article that has found itself at the center of so many a post-Copenhagen conversation.  Chances are you’ve read it.  Just in case: Of China’s role in this month’s round of UN climate talks, Lynas says, “China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again.”

Continue reading ‘Getting Past “Blame China”’

I spent eight weeks traveling Europe with a group of 13 AVAAZ climate activists from five different continents, organizing for a better Copenhagen.  For the past three days I’ve been trying to make sense of what happened in the final moments of that journey.

The story of Copenhagen began in Bali, Indonesia two years ago. After an intensive two weeks of negotiations, 192 countries, including the Bush Administration, signed on to the Bali Roadmap, a plan to complete a binding global climate treaty in Copenhagen. The Bali Roadmap was a political agreement acknowledging that the evidence for the planet warming is “unequivocal”, and that further delays in reducing emissions would further increase the risks of “severe climate change impacts.”

Deepa Gupta speaks to a crowd of onlookers during a global hunger strike for climate justice event in Copenhagen

Fast forward to 2009 – after two years of high level negotiations and new peer-reviewed scientific findings warning that climate change is accelerating faster than previously anticipated, the stakes had been raised for Copenhagen. In the first week and a half of the negotiations, leaders from small island states like the Maldives and Tuvalu and from African countries already being thrust into water-related conflicts from extreme drought resisted threats and bribes from developed countries as they insisted on an ambitious and fair legal treaty committed to containing warming below 1.5 degrees C. Tensions ran high and the talks were deadlocked as rich nations and emerging economies blamed each other and the most vulnerable.

After nine hours of direct negotiations from world leaders on the final day, a weak agreement was reached by a diverse group of interests. The three-page Copenhagen Accord is by all accounts far short of the ambitious and fair legal treaty promised in Bali. While it does finally tie emerging economies like China and India in with the United States under the same climate agreement, it also punts most of the hard decisions down the road another year.

At most the Copenhagen Accord can be called another baby step forward, when the world needed a bold leap. The reason for this colossal failure of leadership was a No Ambition Coalition of the United States and China. Held hostage by fossil fuel lobbyists and an addiction to a 20th century growth paradigm, China held out against a legally-binding outcome and international verification of emission targets while the United States refused to budge from their weak emission targets.

Continue reading ‘Understanding Copenhagen’