Practical solutions for people + planet
PowerShift 2007!!
My Blog posting about PowerShift 2007 Nov. 2-5th!
"Remember, Remember, the 5th of November...Remember, Remember, the 5th of November"
That was the chant of Van Jones on this day, November 5th as he addressed nearly 3,000 young leaders from all over the United States and Canada as they gathered in front of the Capital Building in Washington, D.C.
This weekend I had the privilege to attend PowerShift 2007, the first ever National Youth Summit addressing climate change in U.S. history. Over 5,500 young leaders and organizers gathered at the University of Maryland for a conference addressing the defining issue of our generation...climate change. Students and Youth learned how to create effective policy shifts on their campuses, attended panels and workshops led by leaders within the movement, networked at a career fair, participated in the National Step It Up "Who's A Leader" day of action on Saturday, were briefed and trained on how to lobby, and most importantly, were unleashed on our Nation's capital to rally, and then lobby their representatives in the house and senate....and lobby they did!!
I don't think I've ever felt so inspired by a collective effort in my entire life. For me, to be there, as a representative of the youth of Bioneers and the greater Bioneers organization felt amazing. I am leaving D.C. (getting in a cab in 2 hours to go standby on a flight back to San Francisco to make a Bioneers on-site conference staff dinner in time!) tired, but rejuvenated to unite our network to help "the movement" and most importantly to support our young leaders.
It was also somewhat of a homecoming for me to be there at PowerShift, supporting Energy Action, and building relationships with those that I have been communicating with over the last few years but had never actually met in person. See, in the summer of 2004, fresh out of college, I was working through a federal grant to improve energy efficiency and renewable energy on college campuses in Vermont. That August, I got wind of Billy Parish and the Climate Campaign, a group focused on bringing college campuses together to address global warming and fight for clean energy policies on their campuses and in their communities. I attended a 10-day training in New York City with about 40 other student leaders from mostly east coast colleges. The friends I made there have been my colleagues ever since and are now the key influential leaders in what is the Energy Action Coalition. The Energy Action Coalition is now over 46 youth and student led organizations who have one unifying message "to create a clean energy future". It was there at that ten day training in NYC that we brainstormed names for this emerging movement/group.
In 2005, I got to work with Middlebury professor Jon Isham, recent editor of Ignition (which was given away to most Bioneers youth), and Bill McKibben, champion climate author, speaker, bioneer, and organizer of Step It Up, and then build from my work with them to create the 3rd Annual Northeast Climate Conference at the University of Vermont that brought over 350 students from across the Northeast together for a weekend of workshops, speakers, and networking on how to address climate change.
All this behind me, and 3 years later, I find myself as a participant at the culmination of all of our tireless work at PowerShift and the November 5th Lobby Day.
I will share with you some of the highlights of my weekend that really influenced my experience and strengthened relationships within Bioneers:
- Meeting with Kalia Lydgate of the Marion Institute and Youth Coordinator for Bioneers By the Bay in Marion Mass. Kalia and I rarely get the chance to meet face to face and discuss best practices for providing life transformations at Bioneers coast to coast! Our time was chaotic and brief, but important and I look forward to continuing the conversation over the next couple weeks!
-Saturday evening speaker rally with nearly 6,000 young people in the audience. For me, it was great to hear Hon. Nancy Pelosi of my home district in San Francisco address the crowd ever-so enthusiastically by chanting "80% by 2050, 80% by 2050"!! Amazing...
-Getting to see my Bay Area organizers Nick Magel (current subletter at my house too!) & Jodie Van Horne of Global Exchange's Freedom from Oil Campaign, Levana Saxton Youth Coordinator for Rainforest Action Network; Matt Leonard of RAN's direct action campaigns; Alli Starr from Art in Action; my crew from the Sustainable Living Roadshow; Josh Lynch (roommate in absence-Nick subletting from) Partnerships Director for Energy Action; Kassie & Briana also with Energy Action; Nia Robinson from EJCC; and Courtney Hull who is now working with Kristin Rothballer at Green For All!!
-Sunday- helping Jessy Tulkin, the main organizer for PowerShift and monumental in Energy Action, freaking out because only 1,500 people "registered" for Lobby Day and over 2,500 were expected to show up to be trained and they didn't have trainers nor space! Logistics extraordinare (thats me) got to help figure out what to do with the few hundred people who wanted to Lobby on Monday! It was great...but needless to say, I had to bail shortly after to get some sleep.
-MONDAY! Lobby Day and Rally at the Capital...so many today!! Bear with me...
1) Billy Parish's testimony at the Hearing in front of the Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. (click link to view 9 min video!!!) Said to be the BEST ATTENDED HEARING in the HISTORY of ALL HEARINGS EVER in the HOUSE!! I was there... soaking it in.
2) Seeing the thousands of people rallying in front of the capital building
3) Seeing about 1,000 youth wearing Green Hard Hats representing the Green Job Economy.... brilliant!
4) Van Jones chanting "Remember, Remember, the 5th of November...Remember, Remember, the 5th of November"
5) The impromtu dance party on the lawn with thousands of people.... video coming soon.... shows our youthful energy thats for sure
6) Delivering Step It Up photos from California to House Representatives!
7) Josh Lynch and I meeting with Legislative Assistant to Nancy Pelosi to show our support and ask for her support of the 1Sky Campaign which asks for 3 things... Green Jobs, 80% reduction in Carbon by 2050, and no new coal...
8) Meeting with Representative Peter Welch from my home state of Vermont in PERSON, talking about 1Sky, and then getting him to do the Green Finger!! Again...totally awesome!
9) The reception/gala networking event Monday evening. Got to meet Betsy Taylor of 1Sky, connected with the Step It Up Crew who are on their way to Bali for the UN Negotiations on Climate, and also with some rad peops from the California Student Sustainability Coalition!
10) Post reception continuation of networking... meeting randomly with 6 representatives of the Labor Union Workers Alliance....want to know the story?? They stopped me as I walked by their table at the restaurant and asked me "about my pins" that I was wearing. One was a 1Sky pin. I told them all about the campaign and then proceeded to tell them about my work with Bioneers and why I was there this weekend. They were extremely captivated and particularly interested in the Dreaming New Mexico project!! I have their contact and will be putting them in touch with our appropriate people here at Bioneers to get them more involved... they sure to have a hard fight too! Let's join in and do it together!
Finally, I think I'm going to conclude for tonight (this morning). My cab now comes in one hour (it will be 4:30am EST) and I will arrive back in San Francisco around noon PST to meet and greet Roberto, Patty, Kai, and Kelli as we gear up for GreenFest this weekend!!
You can sleep when your dead right??
Feeling inspired... and hoping that someone reads this and watches the videos in the links!!
Adios for now.
~Liz
PS- More on 1Sky later...promise.
"Remember, Remember, the 5th of November...Remember, Remember, the 5th of November"
That was the chant of Van Jones on this day, November 5th as he addressed nearly 3,000 young leaders from all over the United States and Canada as they gathered in front of the Capital Building in Washington, D.C.
This weekend I had the privilege to attend PowerShift 2007, the first ever National Youth Summit addressing climate change in U.S. history. Over 5,500 young leaders and organizers gathered at the University of Maryland for a conference addressing the defining issue of our generation...climate change. Students and Youth learned how to create effective policy shifts on their campuses, attended panels and workshops led by leaders within the movement, networked at a career fair, participated in the National Step It Up "Who's A Leader" day of action on Saturday, were briefed and trained on how to lobby, and most importantly, were unleashed on our Nation's capital to rally, and then lobby their representatives in the house and senate....and lobby they did!!
I don't think I've ever felt so inspired by a collective effort in my entire life. For me, to be there, as a representative of the youth of Bioneers and the greater Bioneers organization felt amazing. I am leaving D.C. (getting in a cab in 2 hours to go standby on a flight back to San Francisco to make a Bioneers on-site conference staff dinner in time!) tired, but rejuvenated to unite our network to help "the movement" and most importantly to support our young leaders.
It was also somewhat of a homecoming for me to be there at PowerShift, supporting Energy Action, and building relationships with those that I have been communicating with over the last few years but had never actually met in person. See, in the summer of 2004, fresh out of college, I was working through a federal grant to improve energy efficiency and renewable energy on college campuses in Vermont. That August, I got wind of Billy Parish and the Climate Campaign, a group focused on bringing college campuses together to address global warming and fight for clean energy policies on their campuses and in their communities. I attended a 10-day training in New York City with about 40 other student leaders from mostly east coast colleges. The friends I made there have been my colleagues ever since and are now the key influential leaders in what is the Energy Action Coalition. The Energy Action Coalition is now over 46 youth and student led organizations who have one unifying message "to create a clean energy future". It was there at that ten day training in NYC that we brainstormed names for this emerging movement/group.
In 2005, I got to work with Middlebury professor Jon Isham, recent editor of Ignition (which was given away to most Bioneers youth), and Bill McKibben, champion climate author, speaker, bioneer, and organizer of Step It Up, and then build from my work with them to create the 3rd Annual Northeast Climate Conference at the University of Vermont that brought over 350 students from across the Northeast together for a weekend of workshops, speakers, and networking on how to address climate change.
All this behind me, and 3 years later, I find myself as a participant at the culmination of all of our tireless work at PowerShift and the November 5th Lobby Day.
I will share with you some of the highlights of my weekend that really influenced my experience and strengthened relationships within Bioneers:
- Meeting with Kalia Lydgate of the Marion Institute and Youth Coordinator for Bioneers By the Bay in Marion Mass. Kalia and I rarely get the chance to meet face to face and discuss best practices for providing life transformations at Bioneers coast to coast! Our time was chaotic and brief, but important and I look forward to continuing the conversation over the next couple weeks!
-Saturday evening speaker rally with nearly 6,000 young people in the audience. For me, it was great to hear Hon. Nancy Pelosi of my home district in San Francisco address the crowd ever-so enthusiastically by chanting "80% by 2050, 80% by 2050"!! Amazing...
-Getting to see my Bay Area organizers Nick Magel (current subletter at my house too!) & Jodie Van Horne of Global Exchange's Freedom from Oil Campaign, Levana Saxton Youth Coordinator for Rainforest Action Network; Matt Leonard of RAN's direct action campaigns; Alli Starr from Art in Action; my crew from the Sustainable Living Roadshow; Josh Lynch (roommate in absence-Nick subletting from) Partnerships Director for Energy Action; Kassie & Briana also with Energy Action; Nia Robinson from EJCC; and Courtney Hull who is now working with Kristin Rothballer at Green For All!!
-Sunday- helping Jessy Tulkin, the main organizer for PowerShift and monumental in Energy Action, freaking out because only 1,500 people "registered" for Lobby Day and over 2,500 were expected to show up to be trained and they didn't have trainers nor space! Logistics extraordinare (thats me) got to help figure out what to do with the few hundred people who wanted to Lobby on Monday! It was great...but needless to say, I had to bail shortly after to get some sleep.
-MONDAY! Lobby Day and Rally at the Capital...so many today!! Bear with me...
1) Billy Parish's testimony at the Hearing in front of the Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. (click link to view 9 min video!!!) Said to be the BEST ATTENDED HEARING in the HISTORY of ALL HEARINGS EVER in the HOUSE!! I was there... soaking it in.
2) Seeing the thousands of people rallying in front of the capital building
3) Seeing about 1,000 youth wearing Green Hard Hats representing the Green Job Economy.... brilliant!
4) Van Jones chanting "Remember, Remember, the 5th of November...Remember, Remember, the 5th of November"
5) The impromtu dance party on the lawn with thousands of people.... video coming soon.... shows our youthful energy thats for sure
6) Delivering Step It Up photos from California to House Representatives!
7) Josh Lynch and I meeting with Legislative Assistant to Nancy Pelosi to show our support and ask for her support of the 1Sky Campaign which asks for 3 things... Green Jobs, 80% reduction in Carbon by 2050, and no new coal...
8) Meeting with Representative Peter Welch from my home state of Vermont in PERSON, talking about 1Sky, and then getting him to do the Green Finger!! Again...totally awesome!
9) The reception/gala networking event Monday evening. Got to meet Betsy Taylor of 1Sky, connected with the Step It Up Crew who are on their way to Bali for the UN Negotiations on Climate, and also with some rad peops from the California Student Sustainability Coalition!
10) Post reception continuation of networking... meeting randomly with 6 representatives of the Labor Union Workers Alliance....want to know the story?? They stopped me as I walked by their table at the restaurant and asked me "about my pins" that I was wearing. One was a 1Sky pin. I told them all about the campaign and then proceeded to tell them about my work with Bioneers and why I was there this weekend. They were extremely captivated and particularly interested in the Dreaming New Mexico project!! I have their contact and will be putting them in touch with our appropriate people here at Bioneers to get them more involved... they sure to have a hard fight too! Let's join in and do it together!
Finally, I think I'm going to conclude for tonight (this morning). My cab now comes in one hour (it will be 4:30am EST) and I will arrive back in San Francisco around noon PST to meet and greet Roberto, Patty, Kai, and Kelli as we gear up for GreenFest this weekend!!
You can sleep when your dead right??
Feeling inspired... and hoping that someone reads this and watches the videos in the links!!
Adios for now.
~Liz
PS- More on 1Sky later...promise.
Tags: billyparish, climate, energy, global, hearing, leadership, poweshift07, warming, youth
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Interdependent Project on -
Hi Liz - awesome to know that you were there! We watched it from the Satellite feed and posted stuff on our website about it. It truly is a time of passing the torch and "shift in power" on all levels. Go Girl Go - we look forward to the unfolding of this epic transition.
In Sustainable Solidarity
Dandarius
P.S. You might want to correct the year above - 2007...
About
Stay in Touch
© 2009 Created by Bioneers on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
