A group photo of students at the 2009 Power Shift conference in 2009 in Washington, DC.
On April 15 an estimated 10,000 students will converge on Washington, D.C. to make their demands known for a clean, sustainable future.
They’ll be taking part in Power Shift 2011, a conference that brings youth activists together from around the country to bolster grassroots efforts on environmentalism, sustainability, and climate change. The four-day event will include workshops, keynote speeches, and lobbying events that will educate and inspire the next generation of leaders in the green movement.
This is the third time the biannual conference has met in Washington, D.C. The first conference was held in 2007, and it drew over 5,000 young activists from around the country. Power Shift 2009 attracted an even larger crowd, and the latest conference promises to generate even more involvement. Power Shift has also been held in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
The event is sponsored by the Energy Action Coalition, a partnership of over 50 youth-led organizations that work on environmental and social justice issues. This highly collaborative model has opened lines of communication between students around the country and the world, and has led to collective action on environmental issues on an unprecedented scale.
Three themes will guide Power Shift 2011 and be the focus of the conference’s workshops:
- Catalyzing the clean energy economy: How can we create a thriving green-collar economy that leads to job growth and solves sustainability problems?
- Campus climate challenge 2.0: What can we do to transform institutions of higher education into hubs of sustainable innovation?
- Beyond dirty energy: What steps can we take to move toward clean energy sources, and how can we protect our air, water, and food from contamination?
Additionally, a number of high-profile keynote speakers will discuss the importance of protecting our environment and mitigating climate change. Confirmed speakers include former Vice President Al Gore, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, CAP Senior Fellow Van Jones, and renowned author Bill McKibben.
The conference agenda won’t be all speeches and panels, however. The organizers have stressed the importance of providing opportunities for activists to engage with one another to build important working relationships and share knowledge and insight about the green movement. Social events such as dinners and music performances have been planned, as well as movement-building events where conference goers can share knowledge about the components of successful grassroots campaigning.
The conference culminates on Monday with a lobbying event and a demonstration on Capitol Hill. Lobbying visits will give attendees the opportunity to directly petition their legislators to work toward clean energy and sustainable goals. Meanwhile, the demonstration could be one of the largest gatherings of youth in the name of environmental justice ever assembled in our nation’s capital.
Power Shift 2011 promises to be a fulfilling educational experience and an important display of strength for the environmental movement.
This is a Center for American Progress repost.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Could it help to let the Republicans know that their party will be losing generations of new voters if they continue their denial of science?
With all the bad news about climate change this century, and our politicians who keep their collective heads in the sand it is difficult to remain optimistic. But when I see our youth and their spirit and energy, I want to remain optimistic for their sake.
Why isn’t somebody planning a real march on DC? Or are we only good at talking?
Mr Gore’s opening keynote address will be carried live online on April 15 at 7pm EST at
http://www.powershift2011.org/live
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Also, an excellent brief video by Dr John Price, Our Grandkid’s Future and the Climate
is online at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV8B1rHuyn0&feature=player_embedded
Did anybody else notice the demographic of this photo?
And how many years has Powershift been meeting? And what has it accomplished? It’s good to see young people care, but what has it really produced besides talk? The Arctic is melting faster than predicted and studies claim this could well effect the thermohaline circulation of the Atlantic. So what exactly is another meeting going to do now in addressing this? Where is the real environmental movement in this country that takes it into the streets and to DC loudly everyday?
The Civil Rights and Women’s Suffrage movements weren’t just a group of people who met every year to shoot the breeze. They were truly committted to social justice and they lived and breathed it every day. Where then is the civil disobedience? That daily passion? I’m actually getting tired of reading about all of these yearly conventions and meetings where people go, wear the same colored hats, wave a green banner, have a couple of meetings, say that we need to address it and then everyone goes home and all we get as a result is talk and a Congress pulling us faster back to the dark ages. I think we are beyond the convention stage at this point.
Jan – Do you know these youth and what they are doing all over the country? They are on fire. They are changing the way their colleges do business, they are running for office, they are biking across the country, they are starting organizations like Summer of Solutions. This is not about conversation, it’s about getting the skills to take the message to the streets.
Jan – I have to agree with Julia. We (the youth) are doing a hell of a lot besides meeting and talking). At my campus in Santa Barbara, this quarter alone, we’re doing water conservation projects in the dorms, Meatless Monday in the dining commons, working with administration to implement sustainable practices concerning purchasing, energy, waste and more, publishing a magazine with environmental messages, working to ban plastic bags at grocery stores, holding a food and agriculture conference that explores solutions to the carbon footprint of our food, introducing sweat-shop free garments at our university bookstore, and even opening a student-run restaurant whose menu will be the pinnacle of sustainability. Our organization, the Environmental Affairs Board, has trained leaders who have gone on to work with Earth Island Institute, PachaMama Alliance, California Student Sustainability Coalition, and have formed their own companies and non-profits. We ARE on FIRE and you better believe we’re doing everything we can, every moment of our lives to keep this world alive!!!
Seconding Julia and Andrew. My alma mater was actively pursuing carbon emissions reductions when I was there and have made even more significant progress over the last two semesters.
That being said, I would like this website to promote more rallies to stop the oil sands pipeline / new coal plants / the koch brothers. If there were a weakness to this site it would be that as an avid follower for almost a year now I have not been instigated to attend enough peaceful rallies (though I did throw a 10/10 event.)
I will be at power shift though! Can’t stop the arctic from melting but I can have a good time with good people, learn, and be outside.