The focus on international climate change negotiations has receded since Copenhagen last year. Copenhagen was seen as a disappointment, with its much touted outcome, the ‘Copenhagen Accord’ looking like it could lead to an almost 4C in temperature rises, causing massive devastation – and solidifying the opposition to the Accord among many vulnerable countries such as Tuvalu and the Cook Islands.

So with less fanfare than last year, the countries of the world have returned to the table to negotiate further agreement on international climate action. The second official meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for 2010 will begin Monday in Bonn, Germany, with countries hoping to begin work on a pathway toward new legally binding agreements on emission reductions, funding for adaptation to climate impacts, and international institutions/governance.

There are plenty of new things to get your head around in the climate negotiations this year. There is a new executive secretary (starting in July); a new draft-negotiation text that has just been released; and a new infusion of ideas, courtesy of the People’s Summit held in April in Cochabamba, Bolivia. There is also, of course, new science, which shows that the situation for the planet is getting worse and that climate impacts could be more severe than previously projected.

Unfortunately, what’s old is the approach of the United States. Just six months after President Obama received his Nobel Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” and his “constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting”, people across the world are beginning to question whether he has lived up to that inscription in his actions.

Under President Bush the approach of the United States was easy to understand and easy to vilify. Bush denied climate change existed. He withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol. And he obstructed international negotiations. In a famous exchange at the Bali negotiations in 2007 a delegate from Papua New Guinea, asked the United states: ‘If you’re not willing to lead, then get out of the way.’

The approach under President Obama has been much more confusing – until now. It has been confusing because the US has actively engaged in the negotiations, not blocking with procedural issues, and actively taking leadership on issues, but often doing so in a way that hasn’t pleased campaigners.[1] Now, however, President Obama has followed up on his bald-faced blackmail of small developing countries to change their position in negotiations with a submission that clearly shows that the United States is not blocking negotiations but trying to take them backwards.

As the rules now stand developed countries have a collective target for emission reductions (an aggregate target) and then they negotiate their individual country targets underneath that aggregate. The negotiations focus on how comparable each countries’ individual target is, for example that the UK is doing the same amount of heavy lifting as Germany, and they work to make sure that the total sum of countries’ commitments will meet the agreed aggregate target. They then negotiate on the rules for meeting these targets and the penalties for failing to meet them.

The United States’ recent submission refuses to negotiate on any of these issues. President Obama rejects an aggregate target for the developed countries, which means we can’t be sure of how effective their contribution will be. He rejects that targets should be comparable, so different countries do their fair share of the heavy lifting. Now poor countries like India and Bangladesh will have to do a lot more than the US to keep temperature rises from wrecking havoc on their communities. Obama also proposes that there should be no rules about how targets are met or what penalties for not meeting them should be. In effect what President Obama has announced is that the US will not negotiate on emission targets – on their size, on how they are determined, or how they are achieved. In this context when the US says it’s for a ‘legally binding outcome’ I’m with outgoing UNFCCC Executive Security Yvo De Beor when he asks what does that mean in substance?

It’s also got the world asking the broader question: what’s the point of negotiating with the US at all? If the US will do whatever it decides (a 4% cut on 1990 levels by 2020 with unlimited offsets), no matter what the world decides, then what value is there for the world letting Obama save face by pretending to be a part of the solution? Increasingly the answer seems to be: very little. Perhaps someone at Bonn will say: ‘We want to go forwards. If the US wants to go backwards, please go by yourself. We’re going forwards and you can join us later.”

To see what is actually said at Bonn check back here as I (and others) provide updates – I’ll also be tweeting @climatedebtorg

Filed under: Americas, Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Climate Science, Copenhagen 2009, global warming, Government, International Affairs, Legal, Politics, United Nations, United States

Applications are now available for SustainUS’s Agents of Change delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, November 29-December 10.

Applicants must be 18-26 years old at the start of the negotiations, and must be either U.S. citizens or permanent residents, or have been studying or working in the United States for at least six months at the time of application.

Selected applicants will join a diverse delegation of youth, including those both familiar with and new to the youth climate movement; from across the United States and beyond; including young scientists and engineers, policy specialists, grassroots activists, media and communications specialists; students, young professionals, and community volunteers; and more. We have limited, need-based scholarship money for youth from climate change-impacted communities (requires separate application, see link below).

Full delegation details and application materials are available at http://www.sustainus.org/COP16

Applications are due by 5 p.m. EDT on June 4th to agents@sustainus.org

Filed under: Americas, Carbon Trading, Climate and Forestry, Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Economics, global warming, Government, Impacted Communities, International Affairs, Offsets, Political Participation, Politics, Region, United Nations, United States

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.

Our government’s failure to hold corporations responsible has allowed the spill to run wild and completely out of control. Yes, get angry. It didn’t have to get to this point. We had the cleanup solution to a spill of this enormity. In 1993, nearly 800 million gallons of oil were dumped into the Persian Gulf. They were not only able to prevent this spill from being an environmental catastrophe, but to also salvage 85 percent of the oil. Nick Pozzi, an engineer who worked on that spill, has been offering the lessons he learned to BP. The manager at BP in charge of this cleanup effort, told Pozzi simply not to bother him. BP will not even utilize the advice of educated and experienced scientists and engineers.

There should be someone other than BP directing the cleanup operation from the site of the spill to the threatened coastal estuaries. We are in a dire situation down here, and we need the most qualified people working on this spill.  We need all the help we can get here. It is going to be even more terrible as this slick continues to come onshore.

Please share my stories with all you know. We need this to be a massive wakeup call to the fact that our government is indeed run by the fossil fuel industries. We must stop this, and we need every one of us pushing as hard as we can for a clean energy economy.

Deep down, I am hopeful that positive change will come out of this if we all utilize our anger and momentum. Please know that we have a long, hard fight ahead.

Please stay strong and stay actively fighting with me.

Brinkley Hutchings

Video by John Wathen 5/17/10

Ways you can help:

Send a letter to the editor or host a rally

Contact Secretary Ken Salazar (202) 208-7351
Sample CALL SCRIPT: Hi, my name is _________________, I live in [city, state], and I want Secretary Salazar to stop Shell’s Alaskan drilling and to ban ALL new drilling on US off US coasts.

Send us some hair booms to protect our shorelines

Filed under: Act Locally, Americas, Climate Generation, Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Corporate Responsibility, Corruption, Dirty Energy, Economics, Extraction, global warming, Government, greenwashing, Impacted Communities, Oceans, Oil, Politics, United States, Youth Leaders

Filed under: 350, Americas, Asia, global warming, Renewable Energy

I’m talking about the first ever bona fide tar sands extraction project in the United States of America–right here, in my own backyard!

You might have heard about the tar sands extraction happening in Canada. This nightmarish debacle has transformed countless acres of priceless Canadian biodiversity into a sticky black cesspool, for primarily America consumption. Don’t take my word for it; do a simple Google image search for “Canadian Tar Sands.” After you’ve done that, imagine the effect these proposed tar pits would have on the land immediately adjacent to the sites. Now picture that land as Canyonlands National Park. I’m not making this up.

The citizens of the areas where the proposed pits would be created have had absolutely no say in the permit acquisition and decision-making surrounding this project—and the pits might potentially break ground this year. Did I mention the entire operation would be run by Canada-based Earth Energy Resources? The company made their excited announcement in November of 2009, although Grand County citizens weren’t made aware of the impending project until this month.

Utah Clean Energy, an independent organization devoted to exploring Utah’s potential for alternative and renewable energy resources, recently released a study that explains, in detail, how exactly Utah could create hundreds of new jobs and bring in millions of dollars in new GDP by exploring alternative energy and beefing up our energy efficiency standards. And yet, here in Utah, while 95% of our electricity depends on coal-fired power, our geographical uniqueness is fundamental to our state pride and one main source of tourism revenue, and water scarcity is fast becoming a frightening illustration of some of the foreseeable impacts of climate change, we (and by “we”” I mean a wealthy-but-desperate handful of powerful and shady Utah businesses) want to welcome an industry that would use between twice and five times as much water per barrel to produce oil–oil that wouldn’t even be ready for use before undergoing  an expensive and emissions-rich cultivation process.

Using tar sands, also known as oil sands, as a “cheap” source of fuel is a joke. According to the Pembina Institute, mining tar sands requires between 750 and 1500 cubic feet of natural gas for each barrel of oil. I’m not great at math, but that doesn’t seem terribly economical to my mind. The tar sands mining and extraction process produces three times as many CO2 emissions as regular oil production; the Alberta tar sands project is Canada’s number one source for CO2 emissions. As far as I can see, the only positive thing about introducing tar sands mining into the United States it that it might (and this is a BIG might) reduce our dependence on, and merciless exploitation of, Canada’s tar sands resources, which we are currently reaping without remorse to fuel our morning commute. Why import Canadian tar sands fuel, and the technology to destroy our own land and water for American tar sands?

When you assess the fact that it takes five liters of water to produce one of usable petrol via tar sands extraction, this starts to seem blatantly criminal in a desert state. The privatization of water is a scary dream that is slowly folding itself into our reality, and when you realize that water is required every step of the way with tar sands extraction—to move gas, to build new tar pits, and to provide a waste receptacle for the filthy pits once they are up and running—you start to wonder where all this water will come from, in Utah. Colorado and Nevada are not too excited about sharing their drinkable water with us, of late.

So, what will it be, America? Should we urge Utah to become a leader on the alternative energy frontier, securing our economic and environmental future for our children—or shall we allow her to regress a decade or three, and become the nation’s very first home to tar sands extraction—and its subsequent leader in toxic emissions and contributions to global climate change? My decision is made. We are exploring every avenue for ways to stop this project, and we will update you on how you can take action to help. The tar sands nightmare will not be allowed into my beloved home state and our fine nation, if I have anything at all to do with it.

[Note: We are still trying to figure out the best ways to take action, so as soon as we have a good outlet, we will let you know.]

Other resources:
www.nodirtyenergy.org/
http://oilsandstruth.org/
http://www.tarsandswatch.org/

Filed under: Americas, Canada, Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Climate Science, Corruption, Dirty Energy, Extraction, global warming, Oil, Politics, Renewable Energy, Tar Sands, United States

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.

Filed under: Americas, Corporate Responsibility, Corruption, Dirty Energy, Extraction, global warming, Impacted Communities, Indigenous, Oil, Popular Culture, Video

[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.

Tim’s action drew national attention to the fact that the Bush Administration spent its dying days in office handing out a last round of favors to the oil and gas industry. After investigating irregularities in the auction, the Obama Administration took many of the leases off the table, with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar criticizing the process as “a headlong rush.” And yet that same Administration is choosing to prosecute the young man who blew the whistle on this corrupt process.

We cannot let this stand. When Tim disrupted the auction, he did so in the fine tradition of non-violent civil disobedience that changed so many unjust laws in this country’s past. Tim’s upcoming trial is an occasion to raise the alarm once more about the peril our planet faces. The situation is still fluid—the trial date has just been set, and local supporters are making plans for how to mark the three-day proceedings. But they are asking people around the country to flood into Salt Lake City in mid-March. If you come, there will be ample opportunity for both legal protest and civil disobedience. For example:

#Outside the courthouse, there will be a mock trial, with experts like NASA’s Jim Hansen providing the facts that should be heard inside the chambers. We don’t want Tim on trial—we want global warming on the stand.

#Demonstrators will be using the time-honored tactics of civil disobedience to make their voices heard outside the courthouse in an effort to prevent “business as usual”—it’s business as usual that’s wrecking the earth.

#There will be evening concerts and gatherings, including a “mini-summit” to share ideas on how the climate movement should proceed in the years ahead. This is a people’s movement that draws power from around the globe; for a few days its headquarters will be Salt Lake City.

You can get the most up-to-date news at climatetrial.com, including schedules for non-violence training, and information about legal representation. If you’re coming, bring not only your passion but also your creativity—we need lots of art and music to help make the point that we won’t sit idly by while the government tries to scare the environmental movement into meek cooperation. This kind of trial is nothing but intimidation—and the best answers to intimidation are joy and resolve. That’s what we’ll need in Utah.

We know it’s short notice. Some of us won’t be able to make it to Utah because we have other commitments or are limiting travel, and if you’re in the same situation, climatetrial.com will also have details of solidarity actions in other parts of the country. If you can contribute money to help make the week’s events possible, click here. But more than your money we need your body, your brains, and your heart. In a landscape of little water, where redrock canyons rise upward like praying hands, we can offer our solidarity to the wild:  wild lands and wild hearts.  Tim DeChristopher deserves and needs our physical and spiritual support in the name of a just and vibrant community.

Thank you for standing with us,

Naomi Klein,

Bill McKibben,

Terry Tempest Williams,

Dr. James Hansen

Filed under: 350, Act Locally, Americas, Climate Challenge, Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Climate Science, Coal, Copenhagen 2009, Corruption, Direct Action, Dirty Energy, Events, global warming, Government, IGHIH News, Natural Gas, News and Media, online organizing, Political Participation, Politics, Popular Culture, Renewable Energy, United States, Youth Leaders

Today the Yale Project on Climate Change is releasing the second wave of results from their recent national survey. This report finds that, despite the recent drops in public beliefs and concern about global warming, a large majority of Americans—regardless of political affiliation—support the passage of federal climate and energy policies. These include support for:

• Funding more research on renewable energy, such as solar and wind power (85 percent)
• Tax rebates for people buying fuel-efficient vehicles or solar panels (82 percent)
• Establishing programs to teach Americans how to save energy (72 percent)
• Regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant (71 percent)
• School curricula to teach children about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to global warming (70 percent)
• Signing an international treaty that requires the U.S. to cut emissions of carbon dioxide 90% by the year 2050 (61 percent)
• Establishing programs to teach Americans about global warming (60 percent).

Surprisingly, majorities of Republicans and Democrats support many of these policies, including renewable energy research, tax rebates, regulating carbon dioxide, and expanding offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Further, majorities in both parties support returning revenues from a cap-and-trade system to American households to offset higher energy costs, perhaps opening a pathway for Congressional action.

Sixty percent of Americans, however, said that they have heard “nothing at all” about the cap and trade legislation currently being considered by Congress. Only twelve percent had heard “a lot.”

When cap and trade is explained, 58 percent support the policy, but this support drops to approximately 40 percent if household energy costs increase by $15 a month, or 50 cents a day. Sixty-six percent support cap and trade, however, if every household were to receive a yearly bonus of $180 to offset higher energy costs. In addition, 59 percent of Americans said they would likely spend the bonus on home energy efficiency improvements. Support increases to 71 percent if the bonus is doubled and spent entirely on energy efficiency improvements.

It may at first glance seem strange that public support for many of these policies remains high, despite the drops in public belief and concern about global warming reported last week. These results are from the same survey respondents, however, and it is important to remember that different people support these policies for different reasons. For example, some do so because they want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, others because they want to strengthen national security, or make the US less dependent on foreign sources of energy. Some of these policies have had solid majority support for years (e.g., renewable energy research), while for others (e.g., cap and trade) public opinion is still fluid and could go either way depending on how well advocates and opponents make their arguments.

A copy of the report can be downloaded from: http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/PolicySupportJan2010.pdf

Filed under: Americas, Climate Policy, Climate Science, Efficiency, Government, Oil, Political Participation, Politics, United States

Amtrak's Acela High Speed Train photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The U.S. youth climate movement has rightfully been dissecting Obama’s State of the Union speech and its aftermath – the good, the bad, the really? – and taking action of our own.

But this week, Obama did more than just talk, he acted, putting a big down payment on a high speed rail network that will cut pollution, save energy, and provide good jobs in the clean energy economy.

On Thursday, President Obama and U.S. Transportation Secretary (and former Illinois Republican congressman) Ray LaHood announced $8 billion in economic recovery money dedicated to building high speed rail and otherwise improving rail transportation across much of the country.

That’s good for cutting climate change and improving air quality, since rail transportation is more energy efficient and overall less polluting than cars or planes. That’s assuming people actually use it, though, and long travel times compared to flying have hurt Amtrak’s public acceptance, even as it’s fastest routes grew their ridership (page 6).

It’s good for creating American manufacturing and other blue collar jobs, too. The administration estimates it will add and protect tens of thousands by the time the money is fully spent.

It’s also a big change from the last administration. In 2007, when the independent, congressionally mandated National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission released its final report on funding and improving our road and rails, recommending $7-$9 billion per year in passenger rail investments (sound like a familiar number?), then-Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters was one of only three commissioners to object (page 65) to passenger rail funding, and President Bush showed little interest in the issue.

Filed under: Americas, Cascade Region, Efficiency, Government, green jobs, innovation, News and Media, North East, Oil, Region, Transportation, United States, Victories ]]> http://youthclimate.org/high-speed-rail-%e2%80%93-actions-speak-louder-than-state-of-the-union-words-35898/feed/ 0 http://youthclimate.org/climate-generation-more-history-thoughts-reflections-35581/ http://youthclimate.org/climate-generation-more-history-thoughts-reflections-35581/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 01:11:03 +0000 lizveazey http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/?p=16766 ]]>

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.

I was first inspired to take action at a student energy and climate conference in early 2002 at the University of  Colorado at Boulder, where I met a number of  students like Kassie Rohrbach, who had led a successful campaign at Connecticut College for renewable energy (and who I met up with later to start the Energy Action Coalition). I was further stirred to action by the fact that none of the students I met from the South and I eventually went on to start the Southern Energy Network and support regional networks around the US.

Through encouragement from my advisor at UNC, I ended up winning the Morris K Udall Scholarship in 2002 & 2003.  It was in 2003, at the Udall scholars gathering, where I met folks like Billy Parish, Jared Duval who I worked really closely with over the next four years or so on creating EAC.  A number of us decided that the biggest thing we could do to help the environment was to get someone other than George Bush elected in 2004, so we stayed up late one night trying to figure out how we could best do this.  I had never met Billy, but he looked at me and said “you know you want to do this.”  I agreed to help start Students for an Environmentally Responsible President (SERP).  SERP may not have been successful, but I learned a lot of helpful skills about organizing with others around the country.  I also counted on the support of many of the SERP folks around the country to help keep me committed and passionate about working to make change.

And there’s so much more including national days of action, the creation of the Energy Action Coalition, the creation of this blog at the UN Climate Negotiations in Montreal in 2005, climate fast in front of the White House, four more Southeast conferences and . . .

Some Observations and more history

My experience with EAC also brought me to my first anti-oppression (working against oppression) trainings where I started to understand my privilege and the privilege or lack of privilege of others in my life and in the context of my work.   This has made it a lot easier for me to understand different perspectives and to work in diverse coalitions.  I think the continued anti-oppression trainings and readings for all coalition partners participating in the funded work of the coalition helped keep the coalition together.  It wasn’t easy, though; once we spent a whole meeting that was supposed to be focused on budgeting on trying to work with one organization that refused to participate in doing one reading and discussion on anti-oppression per semester.  The coalition work also funneled down into some organizations.  The Southern Energy Network, for example, implemented anti-oppression trainings at most of our state and regional summits and many of our steering committee gatherings.  The steering committee also drafted anti-oppression principles and policies to better carry out these principles.  It has been a long, challenging journey, but I think it is well-worth it and I encourage everyone to continue learning about and exploring anti-oppression.  School of Americas Watch has some good resources on anti-oppression.

Being a white person from a middle-class family, I don’t feel like I experienced much oppression, but as a woman, I do feel that I’ve experienced oppression.  I’ve experienced that people are more likely to listen to and respect male voices than female voices and females often fall into roles doing logistics and behind the scenes work (versus males who are more likely to be seen and heard).  For example, I have been a youth climate conference where there were lots of male and few female youth leaders speaking, even though there were lots of strong women leaders involved in the work.  I’m writing about this not to call anyone out, but because I think most men and women are not aware of these issues, and I think we all need to be more aware of this especially in our work within the climate movement.  [On a side note, let me know if you’d be interested in helping me put together a longer piece on this in the future.]

Quick Thoughts on the future

In 2006, I made a gamble on a keynote speaker that I’d never heard of for the 4^th annual SSREC in early 2007.  Van Jones was that speaker and he blew everyone away with his vision of a diverse green movement.  Young leaders kept talking to Van and asking him questions until hours after his talk when the building had to be locked.  And in the years since, I’ve seen the youth climate movement help propel the green jobs movement to the national stage and vice versa. With our world now deep in a recession and on the brink of climate destabilization, there is a necessity to bring together labor, environmental, and social justice interests to create solutions.  We have the opportunity to create of tens of thousands of good green jobs that will improve environmental quality, pay living wages with good benefits, and empower people to create positive change in their communities!

So, my advice is: tell your stories (you’re likely to inspire others), keep doing what you’re doing, support and mentor other leaders as much as possible, learn more about anti-oppression, fight oppression in your work, and help create good, green jobs!

It’s Getting Hot In Here: Climate Generation is a month-long series reflecting on the state of the youth climate movement.  As we pivot into 2010, the series will provide a forum for discussion on the history of the youth climate movement, recent victories and setbacks, potential for growth in capacity and influence, and how to orient the movement in the post-Copenhagen landscape.  Please join youth leaders for posts on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and early evenings.

Posted in Americas, Climate Generation, United States, Youth Leaders ]]> http://youthclimate.org/climate-generation-more-history-thoughts-reflections-35581/feed/ 0