When I heard the news that the Keystone XL pipeline had finally been rejected my first thought was “It’s about damn time!” I rushed to a computer to peruse articles in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the BBC, Politico, everywhere I turned was buzzing with updates from our unlikely narrative. An update of our resounding victory and the power that every single one of you has within. But this is simply one small part of this remarkable tale. In order to fully understand what we have just accomplished we must go back to where it began...
All great ideas start with one person, but they certainly do not end there. The Virginia Alliance for a Cleaner Environment (VACE) was no different. Back in April at Power Shift 2011, Virginia environmentalists were gathered in the state breakout room to talk about various issues in the state. Mountaintop removal, off-shore wind versus off-shore drilling, uranium mining, campus coal plants, and hydraulic fracturing were all recognized as problems faced in in Virginia. But we do not have to face these things alone.
Just two weekends ago, the feelings of solidarity and revolution were tangible. We came to Cleveland not only to share our struggles and our grievances with the current state of society, but also to search for solutions and support from one another. Though we have lots to accomplish, through working together and demanding the change that we so deserve, we really can move towards a cleaner future, one where the voice of every single person is heard and taken into consideration.
After stops at twelve universities over the course of eighteen days in a journey totaling over one thousand miles I have reached an important conclusion: students in the Pacific Northwest are taking campus climate organizing to new heights. Here is what a small fraction of these schools are doing:
I worked incredibly hard today to raise awareness about my Beyond Coal campaign on campus at the University of Iowa. I gave a quick pitch to a couple classes about it, and stood in an outdoor walkway with buckets of the very coal and oat hulls burned on campus - all the while, collecting student names in support of urging the University to extend their efforts just a little and commit to stop burning coal on campus completely.
On Friday, September 30th, Bates College in Lewiston, Maine kicked off 100 Actions for 100% Clean Energy with an action planned by the Bates Energy Action Movement (BEAM). The action was called "so...who were those green people?".
Yesterday on October 13, over thirty students in Students Promoting Environmental Action in Knoxville (SPEAK) met at the University of Tennessee’s library right before classes were to change. Everyone who passed by was wondering why there were students wearing breathing masks, green hard hats, and holding signs. Then, all of the sudden a siren went off and all thirty students dropped to the ground. Slowly, one student stood up and said, “Each year 24,000 people die early due to coal related pollution”. The student fell to the ground again. We continued to do this until our message was sent: Coal kills people, jobs, our environment, and our political system. Students held the die in flash mob on campus to call on the university to move beyond coal and fulfill their commitments to be an environmental leader.
by Jeff Mann, Online Director, Energy Action Coalition
Millions of young people are impacted by dirty energy every day — more than half a million from coal-fired power plants right on their college campuses.
This is unacceptable, and we are excited to launch a new campaign push with partners across the country to take this injustice head on: 100 Actions for 100% Clean Energy.
This October, over 100 local actions will challenge our university administrators and local officials to move beyond dirty energy, and unite the voices of our generation behind the call for 100% clean energy solutions.
Students from Washington, DC and the Greenpeace Student Network created this video to show the power we have when we come together.
