A Greener Eph: Editorials

Not one but two editorials grace the pages of the Record this week from the Thursday Night Group.

College skimps on sustainability: Giving the College a D for not letting Vitamin D do its thing

In a letter to the Williams community on Jan. 24, 2007, President Schapiro declared sustainability to be a “guiding principle” for the College, going on to say, “we need to honor that principle in all that we do.” One very important component of this promise involves more stringent efforts to incorporate renewable power into new building projects. Yet while Williams continues to vocalize its commitment to such projects, it does not appear to be doing all it can to put its money where its mouth is.

And the second one:

Increasing engagement: Implementing lessons learned in D.C. at the College


November 14, 2007 Edition Nov 16, 2007

Increasing engagement: Implementing lessons learned in D.C. at the College
Morgan Goodwin - Contributing Writer

“I never let school interfere with my education,” Mark Twain once said. Now, school’s a pretty important part of learning, but you’re wasting Williams’ resources if you don’t connect classroom learning with the real opportunities around us. We should be creative and brave in order to bring our academic lives to bear on the activities that are important to us.

Thirteen Williams students attended Power Shift 2007, the first national youth climate conference in Washington, D.C., last weekend along with 6000 other students from all 50 states. Every one of us took away valuable lessons that could not have been learned in the classroom here. The conference had panel discussions on challenging racism, how to develop effective messaging and the first-hand effects of climate change in New Orleans and Alaska. We did workshops on anti-oppression work, media strategy and the dirty life cycle of coal. Four thousand students lobbied the capitol on Monday, Nov. 5, learning how to speak to congressmen and what pressures influence our government.

Not a bad week.

A greener eph: Power Shfit Recap

Williams students lobbying congress in front of the one president from Williams, James Garfield.

13 Williams students traveled to DC this weekend for the first ever national youth climate conference, Power Shift 2007. Organized by TNG, this trip was planned simultaneously with the Step it Up events right here in Williamstown. Driving two college Prius (priui?), we learned valuable organizing skills, heard diverse perspectives on how to build a clean and just future, and gained a sense of the movement.

The conference attracted 6000 youth from all 50 states, as well as tv cameras, newspapers, influential leaders and the speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi. In her speech to the assembled students she linked global warming to the war in Iraq, saying we need to fix both simultaneously. Some of her comments were met with boos from the a crowd clearly disappointed with how she has failed to get our troops out. Her prescriptions for climate change solutions were met with fiery chants and calls for 'more, more, more'. She seemed very surprised at the intensity, and it was clear she did not fully capture the audience the way more passionate speakers like Ed Markey, chair of The Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming.

The highlight for me was lobbying Congress. We took the capitol by storm, meeting in groups of 90 or more to speak with one informed and unified voice to legislative aides and congresspeople about what we, their constituents, need to see for global warming solutions. There were a lot of us, and several aides commented that nothing like this had happened before. They're right, it hasn't happened for a long time.



Lastly, we came away with a clearer sense of a movement. We are a force for change, and we can see how this movement can grow larger and larger until we get what we need. In fact, we see this as the very essence of our power, that we are in this for the long haul, that we will not stop until we win.

We are not waiting for our leaders, but putting our own seat and blood into our work. College students spending 40 hours a week on organizing and only 20 on class. High school students taking time off before college. Graduates opting for the exciting, difficult and low-paying work of grassroots organizations. All because we know that it works, we know that despite how many people try and tell us otherwise, people have a voice in how their government runs and how their society is structured.

There are two kinds of power in this world: people and money. Our world is very good at organizing large amounts of money for a particular purpose, but we're just figuring out (at least for this generation) how to organize large numbers of people. But we're going to learn fast.

Do you think this is a movement?

Like many of you, I've had a lot of conversations recently about 'the movement'. It takes on a certain inflection when you say it. Talking to so many people who work deeply on this thing makes us forget that some people don't quite understand the special inflection.

Jeremy Doochin is an amazing leader. Growing up in Tennessee with parents in the Sierra Club, Jeremy started a student group in high school that grew to 80 members. As a teenager he was elected to the state Sierra Club board of directors and by all means is a well respected and accomplished activist. When we first started talking Jeremy didn't quite see this as a movement.

We talked about the divide between youth and adults in the types of campaigns they take on and how they approach their work. He talked about how there was so much room for collaboration, saying youth should be throwing events every year that adults can go to, and vice versa to establish an ongoing relationship. While I am all for working with and involving adults, I asked why we should run the same events every year. Why aren't we looking for an broad escalation of tactics? Why are we still thinking in terms of 'throwing events' for environmental issues? He didn't quite know.

A movement escalates until it wins. It may do a lot of other things, but it will not accept half-way measures, it will not accept stagnation and it will expand at an ever-increasing rate. The climate movement is very young. We're growing really fast, but we're also still figuring a lot of stuff out.

Here's a book recommendation: Tools for Radical Democracy: How to Organize for POWER in your Community by Joan Minieri and Paul Getsos. It says engaging in movement-building “provides a space for intensive political education.” Investing in the political education of all our members not only spurs activists to greater levels of commitment, it also empowers them to guide and change the direction of the movement. We've already challenged established leaders of environmentalism, and this bottom up ground-swell is going to challenge every leader out there to listen harder to what the people are saying will get the job done.

Americans are generally pretty poorly informed about social movements. High school history class tends to teach the 'great leaders' version of events, and imply that only extraordinary citizens have an impact. More from the book:

“Your work is rooted in the history of social change. Your day-to-day organizing may give you some opportunities to educate members, leaders, and staff about this history, but in movement activities, this political education can occur at a deeper level. Members learn about the history of struggle in a place they are visiting and about other people they need to work with but may not understand.”

But there are a lot of youth like Jeremy out there who don't see it yet. So far we haven't reached a critical mass of youth. Why do you think we're bringing 4,000 people to DC for Power Shift? Is it going to shift the balance of power? Is every one of us going to come away with a crystal clear vision of where we need to go? Or is this a huge drumbeat in the increasingly rapid rhythm of a movement which might falter or stall, but which will be so democratic, so well planned, so inspired that we will not only win without compromise, but we will win before its too late. I'm in it for the Long Haul, and I want to be smart. I want to win more than anything in the world, but I know we're not going to win until we're ready.

We must internalize the need to escalate tactics until we win. We must lose the notion that we'll only work on climate change for a few years until we get a real job, or until we pass the legislation we need. If you think that the next president is going to fix this, you've been dreaming. They'll pass some legislation, and it won't be nearly as good as we need it to be. Old style environmentalists, and the American public, will call that a success. Hey, compromise is always better than nothing, right? That's the mentality the climate cannot afford.

Our work right now is to invest in the political awareness of ourselves and other youth. With political awareness comes more strategic campaigns, and with really good strategic campaigns, we're going to win. Do you think this is a movement? Do the people you work with?

This essay is the third of a six part series this fall looking at organizing for power in the youth movement. All comments and feedback are greatly appreciated.

A Greener Eph: We're Flying

Holy shit, its hard to keep track of the multitude of events. Here's a little help!

Check out John Edwards and the New Orleans Step it UP event. Check out any post on Its Getting Hot in Here to see everything that's going on. Thousands of youth are going to converge on DC to slingshot our energy forward at Power Shift, including 17 from Williams and tons from other schools in Western Mass.

Bill McKibbon's posting on the Daily Kos and CNN's investigation 'A Planet in Peril'. (Although note CNN's action center, which tells you to save the world by donating money. Apparently there's no other way.) Why not post a Green Finger video or invite a presidential candidate to a step if up rally?



Coal power plants are being denied in Kansas. Check out the dedicated citizens who got themselves arrested last weekend for disrupting the daily flow of Washington.

The earth is on fire, from the parched fields in Atlanta to the literal flames lapping at the hills of Holywood. This summer's sea-ice loss shocked scientists and the great lakes are shrinking.

"Social movements are a type of group action. They are a large scale informal groupings of individuals and/or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out a social change."
--Wkipedia, "Social Movement"

We are becoming the change we wish to see in the world. When do we call upon ourselves to step it up? At what point do we start missing class to fight for global justice? When do we forgoe (or at least postpone) income and career to work day and night on a cause? When do we use the tools available to us, our minds and our bodies, to speak truth to power, stand up to destruction and be braver than has ever been asked of us before?

A Greener Eph: Ready for Power Shift 2007

Power Shift is coming. Here's the update from Williams, and for Mass Youth Climate Action.

We're taking 17 students from Williams to the 3 day conference at the University of MD. About 19 students from MCLA and another 18 from Simons Rock in Great Barrington round out the Berkshire country squad.

We had a good conference call tonight to work on an agenda for the state break-out session. We're planning on getting the roughly 200 MA students excited to work on state campaign type stuff, and share what we've done so far, and plug them into specific committees - all in an hour! I hope its a good agenda.

Things are flying.

A Greener Eph: Ella Baker on Organizing

For Ella Baker, the increased reliance on the press and th need of leaders for public recognition was a common element in the degeneration of social movement, a part of the pattern by which initially progressive American movements have traditionally been
rendered ineffective. She contended that the labor movement had succumbed to what she called the American weakness of receiving some recognition from the powers that be and then taking on some of the characteristics and values of their former enemies. Similarly, in the NAACP of the forties and fifties, she thought that the thirst for
recognition was one of the factors leading to accommodationist politics at a time when many of the members were ready for a more militant program. Too many leaders thought that as long as they were getting some attention from the press, as long as they could call important whites on the phone, the Race was making progress. In the
1960s, she thought that some Black Power spokespersons became so enamored of the coverage they were receiving from the press as to begin performing for the press. ...

The substance of Black Power didn't trouble her; the lack of organizing did. She noted that she had seen Carmichael explain Black Power in ways that should have made sense to any person willing to look at the facts.

"But this began to be taken up, you see, by youngsters who had not gone through any experiences of any steps of thinking and it did become a slogan, much more of a slogan, and the rhetoric was far in advance of the organization for achieving that which you say you're out to achieve. What was needed was a greater
degree of real concentration on organizing people. I keep bringing this up. I'm sorry, but it's part of me. I just don't see anything to be substituted for having people understand their position and understand their potential power and how to use it. This can only be done, as I see it, through the long route, almost, of actually
organizing people in small groups and parlaying those groups into larger groups."

I've Got the Light of Freedom, Charles Payne

A greener Eph: Power Shift 2007

If you haven't checked out the website, there's tons of info about the schedule,
talks, trainings and generally how awesome it will be. http://www.powershift2007.org You can also see who else from Williams is interested in going so far on the facebook group Power Shift - Williamstown.

As a climate activist here, a big priority for the year is getting a lot of students to DC for this event. Of course its important nationally for this conference to have a huge turnout, because that shows the strength of our movement, but there are also a lot of reasons why Williams students will get a lot out of this.

First, we live in the purple bubble. Its often hard to feel like we're doing anything significant when we don't see what's going on at other schools or what other students like us are working on. We're not the only ones, but we don't always see our peers.

Second, conferences get people excited. I come away from every conference even more excited about the possibilities for work, connections to be made, new arguments to talk about and a greater sense of the urgency of the climate crisis. Its often not the key-note speakers, but the random conversations in hallways, friends of friends, or hearing the questions/frustrations/experiences of other attendees. I thrive off that kind of excitement, and I think a lot of other people can get into this that way.

Third: trainings. It takes lots of skills to be an effective activist. No one wants to be an ineffective activist, but without the how-to knowledge of leadership, organizations, press, budgets, lobbying, recruitment, etc, a lot of people just get really frustrated. A lot of this weekend will be this type of skills training. We pay a lot for a Williams education, but you'll be shocked to find out how much you can learn in a weekend (and things taught by other students or recent students, too!).

Fourth, this weekend is going to be historic. I have a feeling that you'll be able to tell your grand-kids that you were at one of the major tipping points in the battle for citizens to have a voice in how the world is run, when we finally started to take power into our own hands the way a democracy should be run. There's a feeling that I'm getting from people that its time for a change.

So that was probably more intense than you were looking for. It'll mostly be really fun.

Hamburgers

Winning a campus victory is nothing more than a hamburger.

"More Than a Hamburger" went a speech by Ella Baker at the founding conference of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC. The organization went on to lead the most radical, militant and successful non-violent protests to break the back of the Jim Crow south, but in April of 1960 the participants at this conference were rookies, fresh with the pride of victory. They had started doing sit-ins only three months before, and the wave of spontaneous protest had spread across the south. Now they assembled at the first conference many had ever been to, and had to decide what to do. Baker desperately wanted the students to see their recent victories as a wedge to pry open much broader and more difficult problems for Blacks.

In the hind-sight of history, we often forget that great things have auspicious, even uncertain beginnings. The chance that these students would succeed in creating a strong and dynamic organization with enough independence to actually be radical was not good. Older civil rights activists schemed about how to co opt the students. The students themselves didn't have a focus or a direction. Julian Bond remembered, "to our mind, lunch-counter segregation was the greatest evil facing black people in the country."

Young people in SNCC saw two kinds of goals. First was the final goal of equality and freedom. Equal protection under the law, safety from discrimination and intimidation, respect, opportunity, etc. I can only speculate that even the students who had recently desegregated their lunch-counters didn't imagine all these things as immediate goals, or even ones they would see in their life-times, but I bet for the first time in their lives they were considering these to be possible. Nonetheless, the end goals were fairly established, barring somewhat fringe debates over returning to Africa or specific retaliations against whites.

The second goal that most of these students saw clearly was desegregation. They had seen the problem, they had a ready made goal (to be able to sit in some place) and they had shown bravery in reaching that goal. Unfortunately, they were quickly realizing desegregated lunch counters were only a little bit closer to an end of racism than before.

The climate movement is stuffed full of "hamburger" actions. We've heard the list of personal actions time and time again. If you're reading this, you already have the good lights, your probably a vegetarian and you don't go joyriding in your 4x4 truck. There is another kind of hamburger out there. Campus Climate Challenge victories, signatures on the President Climate Commitment and clean energy purchasing fees are also just lunch-counters. Very important, but definitely not intermediate goals.

There is a huge disconnect between the big, giant problem of climate change, and the tiny solutions we offer to individuals or small groups. Of course we need small actions to hook people into taking bigger ones. Whether its switching to a high-fuel economy car or getting a group together to lobby your administration, these are still just steps that get more involved and invested experienced so we can take on bigger things.

The other reason we're afraid of intermediate goals is their complexity. Intermediate goals require collaboration with other organizations. They require us to trust groups that we haven't worked with before, and they require us to ask much harder questions about strategy - what will be most effective? Does a march do more for the climate than signing up 10,000 customers for clean energy?

I applaud efforts in several states to establish action-oriented state networks. I am fascinated by where some schools have gone after achieving a significant victory - expanding the activism and vitality out into the community like in MaCalister and Middlebury. But I feel that this is a key time for our movement because we do need to shift from primarily working with student groups on campuses to engaging a much broader and more diverse society, but doing so in a way that brings more focus on ambitious but achievable goals.

We're moving beyond hamburgers. They're important, we're earned them, but don't kid yourself for a moment into thinking that was the easy part...or the tipping point.

Sources: I've Got the Light of Freedom, Charles Payne

Note: This essay is the second in a six part exploration into campus organizing. The study will focus on applying organizing theory and experience to the day-to-day challenges of building the youth climate movement at Williams College, in Berkshire County and in the state of Massachusetts.

A Green Eph: Visit to Middlebury

SUNDAY NIGHT GROUP is the climate activism group at Middlebury. Only about 3 years old, SNG has transformed the campus into a hotbed of national climate action. One year ago SNG was the inspiration for Williams TNG - we even copied the name. Having heard about SNG for so long, and spent loads of energy for the past year trying to emulate it, I finally had a chance to attend a meeting.

Being reading period, we don't have class on Monday or Tuesday. Three of us drove up last night and met Sierra, a junior and leader of the group. We had dinner and then headed up to the gathering. About 55 people filled a big living room, with some beer in the middle of the circle and chatted for a while. The meeting started with rhythmic clapping which spread and quieted the conversation. Everyone went around saying their name and the answer to a random question they had thought of in their head. I said Ella Baker.

There was a period of announcements about events, news, and fun facts, including one from a community member. Then project groups were announced and things split up. Groups consisted of a 'kick the bottle' campaign against bottled water, a mock-presidential debate on the climate, a group working on campus lighting, and another on solar heating for dorms.

I sat in the presidential debate group, which was in its second week, planning an event 2 1/2 weeks out. They divided up roles and brainstormed actors who could fill the roles. The campus improv group was decided upon. Publicity, scripts, location and logistics were all taken care of in a few minutes each.

Then clapping brought everyone back together again, and the circle reformed, standing, to do a quick 'shake-it-to-the-left' dance/song.

I liked clapping as a means of bringing the group in, as opposed to one person shouting (communal vs. individual), and consequently there wasn't nearly as much feel of someone facilitating the meeting. I was most impressed by how readily people volunteered for roles. The expectation of doing work on projects independently, outside of meetings was very strong. And I loved how accepted the song was at the end.

Lots of thoughts here for TNG, but at the same time I don't feel we need to copy it even more - every campus is different. Sierra felt that Middlebury students really respond to the chill atmosphere and the non-hierarchical nature of the group. My feeling is that Williams students respond to a more professional atmosphere, even if it seems chill and relaxed on the surface.

The bottom line: both groups major strength is an emphasis on getting things done and promoting leadership in every member. A bunch of them are coming down on Thursday to see Michael Pollen, and then staying for TNG. It'll be sweet to compare notes.

A Greener Eph: Names are important

TNG is now officially Thursday Night Grassroots. After a brainstorming session, the co-chairs talked about what we need in a name.

We need something that is not off-putting, or assigns us some automatic identity. But we also need something that has some description of what we do - grassroots activism. Its cumbersome to recruit new members or make connections with the greater community when we have to explain who we are and why we have such a unique name. On the other hand, TNG is a strong identity on campus already, and we definitely didn't want to change that.

Thus, we arrive at Thursday Night Grassroots. Comments are welcome, but it looks like the name will slowly come into usage. Unfortunately, I can't change the name of the facebook group without having to create a new one. That might be around for a while.

A Greener Eph: Localize it!

Local economies are sweet. I've been biking three miles out to a farm one morning a week to harvest vegetables. I get paid in produce. I don't consume fossil fuels, I get freakin' sweet tasting food, and I get to know a farmer who has a 35 year living relationship with this place.

Zoe and Farmer Bill peeling squash in the barn

Normally I don't get too worked up about food. If it tastes good, sweet, if not, then I eat it anyway because I'm hungry. But this food really tastes good! Maybe it has something to do with picking it myself and knowing where it comes from? Any psychology majors out there want to comment?

Normally this blog does not advocate personal reduction in carbon footprints. It is more important to lobby your senator or organize a political event than bring a cloth bag to the store. I'm sorry, but there are enough people out there encouraging personal savings and that's only half the equation. The other half gets left out because its harder, because its bolder, because it is less tangible and feels less self-righteous. We will never have a sustainable society without a much more active and political citizenry.

BUT... It feels really damn good to work on the farm. Maybe its partly mental health, maybe its a meditative kind of manual labor that helps me think. Or maybe there's some deeper instinct within us that needs to be close to where our food comes from, that feels the things we pick, the landscape we live in, the cycles of weather and the fresh air.

After Thursday Night Group gatherings, working on the farm is often my most satisfying time of the week. That's a pretty good reason to do it. A carbon-free source of food is a nice bonus.

A Greener Eph: Powershift and Step it UP

A day is looming on the near horizon of the climate movement. November 3rd will be the biggest day of action we have ever seen, but it will be big because we will be split.

Step it UP Berkshires is going to be held at some combination of Jiminy Peak and Williams. Powershift , the first ever national youth climate conference is at the University of MD for that weekend.

I had a lot of trouble deciding what to do about this weekend, since both are really awesome. But now that Thursday Night Group has swelled to a much larger membership, we see a much stronger group, one that can split its energies into making two events happen. I don't think it will be that hard to get 15 students down to MD for a long weekend (Friday morning to Monday night), and still have enough organizers and interested students in town to get a big turnout for Step it up.

So Williams is sending a team to Powershift.

A Greener Eph: Leadership

Group centered leaders facilitate social movements. But who are they? In some ways they are merely receptors of all the external demands that a group of people makes, but even by receiving that energy they are doing a rare thing. By being open to ideas, to whims, to insights and to diversity of background and thought, a group centered leader is a focal point around which restless energy can be organized and turned into motion.

I came across a conception of leadership very different from the one we usually think of. Sociologist Kai Erikson writes about the a terrible coal mining catastrophe in Buffalo Creek, West Virginia. In 1972 a poorly made slurry damn broke at the head of a 17 mile creek on which 5,000 people lived, mostly coal miners and their families. Roughly 125 people lost their lives and 4,000 residents were left at least temporarily homeless. Understanding why this catastrophe was not avoided means delving into the community of Buffalo Creek as it existed before the slurry dam broke.

The community was described as very tight knit, with family and neighborly ties running deeper than anything most of us know in our transient and wired lives. Why didn't the community rally behind the men who knew something was wrong? Social norms pressured many residents not to 'rise above the rest', not to name oneself as somehow different from one's neighbors, not to have audacity. Although 'individuality' is one of the most common traits ascribed to people from Buffalo Creek by outsiders, traits commonly seen as 'individualistic', or internally generated, really result from restrictive social roles. While a father is often seen as unquestioned head of his family, he isn't entirely acting on 'his own whim', he is also answering an external demand of a role to fill. None of these supposedly individualistic and free thinking men stepped up to show leadership outside of social norms.

Only after the disaster did some leaders start to show themselves, but at the utmost reluctance. Erikson quotes George Santayana:

Perhaps in the flight of birds...the leader was not really a bold spirit trusting to his own initiative and hypnotizing the flock to follow him in his deliberate gyrations. Perhaps the leader was the blindest, the most dependent of the swarm, pecked in to taking wing before the others and then pressed and chased and driven by a thousand hissing cries and fierce glances whipping him on. Perhaps those majestic sweeps of his, and those sudden drops and turns which seemed so joyously capricious, were really helpless effects, desperate escapes, in an induced somnambulism and universal persecution. Well, this sort of servitude was envied by all the world; at least it was a crowned slavery, and not intolerable. Why not gladly be the creature of universal will, and taste in oneself the quintessence of a general life. After all, there might be nothing to choose between seeming to command and seeming to obey...

The leader is revered for taking this sacrifice upon herself, and the group responds. However, after the initial thrust is made, and it is so very difficult to make, the burden can be shared. Ella Baker informs us of this imperative as no one else can:

“I have always thought that what is needed is not the development of people who are interested in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in others.”

A leader serves the demands of the group by encouraging more leaders.

Is it possible that effective campus leaders are merely conceding to the pecking and hissing cries of those around them? Is it possible that instead of deciding to lead community members into becoming a goal-oriented activist group, and pouring their hearts into the service of that group, they are merely answering and offering themselves up to the whims of the crowd that wants something too vague to name themselves?

Saul Alinsky tells the organizer to give people a sense of their own power, create concrete and meaningful changes in people's lives,and change the balance of power. College students are seeking a sense of their own power everywhere, but in so many cases we do not know what that kind of power actually means. As youth preparing to enter the adult world, we're trying to put ourselves into meaningful positions in that world. But what about the second principle?

Many (but not all) college students live some of the most comfortable lives in the world. We have every want near at hand, from food to friends, to fun. We have a purpose and rhythm to our days, and we have the optimism of being at the beginning of life and largely untested. What sort of meaningful and tangible improvement in our fellow students' lives can we possibly hope to achieve? We can offer them a medium to express their passion, their sincere hope for a better world.

School creates a world where work, studying, skills and sometimes even ideas are important. But for some students, for the ones that are potential activists, the ones who want something more, class and activities can be frustratingly tedious. Some students start to realize that many professors do not share our vision of a better world, do not confront the connection between talking and doing. These students are on the cusp of allowing themselves to be thrust into leadership.

First and foremost, effective student leaders, group centered leaders care about the world that fellow students want to see. They are at the whims of that vision. That is how a leader creates a community where passion and vision are important. That is a meaningful change in students lives. Lets keep building groups where students passion for a just, peaceful and sustainable world is our guide.

References:
1. George Santayana, The Last Puritan, pp. 128-129
2. Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
3. Clayborne Carson, In Struggle
4. Kai Erikson, Everything in its Path
5. Baker, Developing Community Leadership, pp 347, quoted in Charles Payne, I've got the Light of Freedom.

Note: This essay is the first of a six part exploration into campus organizing. The study will focus on applying organizing theory and experience to the day-to-day challenges of building the youth climate movement at Williams College, in Berkshire County and in the state of Massachusetts.

A Greener Eph: North Adams Hearing

Today Williams students turned out in force to support Senator Pacheco's Global Warming Solutions Act. Along with Senator Downing (dem - Berkshires), the senator is touring the state to hear testimony from community and business leaders on what should go into the bill.

35 Williams students made the trek across the great divide, the 4 miles from Williamstown to North Adams. Thursday Night Group showed its incredible capacity and skills in getting such a high turnout to an event this far away in the middle of a school day. Generally, the students who attended were really excited at being so close to real political work and hearing the discussion on the issue.

In addition to a high turnout, the hearing was also exciting for me because I suddenly became motivated to address the senators. During the final minutes of the hearing, I got up to the mic and asked the senators to include the words, "Green Jobs Training Program" in the legislation. He said he definitely would. This is partly a mimicking of how Van Jones got similar language into Nancy Pelosi's bill this summer. I felt like an imitator, but an imitator of the most amazing person I know of.

Today was also important for network building, making contacts with students at MCLA, state environmental leaders and staff members of the senate committee on global warming. All in all, a pretty great day.

A Greener Eph: MYCA

On Sunday four Williams students and one Mt. Greylock student attended the kick-off summit of Massachusetts Youth Climate Action, or MYCA.

I worked with five other SSC people to get this conference to happen, and it turned out to be a huge success. Instead of a conference to come share skills and get inspired from speeches, this was a conference for planning. Our 7 hour marathon meeting resulted in an amazing campaign plan and an organizational structure. We're off and rolling.

We decided on a campaign goal of passing the Global Warming Solutions act with language about Green Jobs and No New Coal. After that, we move on to bigger things.

Sasha, Adam, Adriann, Davy and I drove in a college Prius all the way there, listening to Regina Spektor. Driving home, still listening to Regina Spector, we were all bubbling from excitement from the conference. How crazy is it for 40 students to get together in a room somewhere and decide to shape the way we deal with global warming in our state.

Getting home was punctuated by a jump in the Green river, of course, before heading off to the inevitable stack of emails and homework. Ah, Williams.

A Greener Eph: $5 Million from Zilkha

To the Williams Community,

I am very pleased to announce the next important step in our effort to make College operations environmentally sustainable — the launching of a center to lead those initiatives, funded by a wonderfully generous gift of $5 million from Selim Zilkha, Class of 1946. full text

So starts a letter to the campus from president Morty. What does $5 million mean for the campus?

The Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives will work with students, faculty, and staff to incorporate principles of sustainability into the fabric of campus life — in learning, in our purchasing and operations, in capital projects, and in the daily routines of us all. It will lead the development and management of a strategic plan for sustainability to include energy management and greenhouse gas emissions reductions, waste management, environment-friendly development and purchasing, and student involvement and education. This work will complement the already strong academic programs of our longstanding Center for Environmental Studies.

The money goes to the endowment, which means we can spend about 5% annually - $250,000. Presumably this money is not to be used for actual upgrades, renovations or physical improvements, but instead fund staff and programs.

Implications: The college needs to hire more people to work in this office. The hiring cap, which has prevented any number of departments from expanding, will obviously need to be bent here. If we're talking about staff, $250,000 works out to a lot of people, especially if some of those people are low-paid student interns.

'Learning, purchasing and operations, [and] capital projects' are really important. Will this mean we can offer more course that teach students how to be successful leaders in a world that is dealing with climate change? Purchasing and operations will surely result in campus policy, and we can help in writing that policy. Roosevelt institution anyone? Capital projects means working with the trustees, big donors, and mostly the long-term planning committees like the CPR. This office will certainly be represented on those.

'Development and management of a strategic plan for sustainability.' Yes, and its long overdue if you ask me.

Without this office, we're already doing pretty well. We've made good strides in dining services operations, energy use in dorms and our construction practices. We should count these as successes, but with success we must expand the scope of our goals. A gigantic contribution to Williams' carbon footprint is the air-travel that is done by classes, students on vacation or going/coming home, and all the travel required to operate a board of directors, send people to national conferences, etc. If we want to make headlines (the school doesn't, the students do), then we should begin to address these much more challenging goals.

Or are we only going to set targets that are low but achievable?

A Greener Eph: Group Centered Leaders (draft)

Group centered leaders facilitate social movements. In some ways they are merely receptors of all the external demands that a group of people makes, but even by receiving that energy they are doing a rare thing. By being open to ideas, to whims, to insights and to diversity, a group centered leader creates a group and gives the group a focal point which can then be pushed.

I came across a conception of leadership very different from the one we usually think of, but it really struck me. The book is written by a sociologist, Kai Erikson, about the coal mining catastrophe in Buffalo Creek in 1972. A critical piece of understanding why this catastrophe was not avoided meant delving into the community as it existed before the slurry dam broke.

The community was described as very tight knit, with family and neighborly ties running deeper than anything most of us know in our transient and wired lives. How then, did the community not rally behind the men who knew something was wrong? There was intense pressure from social norms not to 'rise above the rest', not to name oneself as somehow different from one's neighbors, not to have audacity. It seems odd that 'individuality' is one of the most common traits ascribed to people from Buffalo Creek, but the author points out that things commonly seen as individualistic. A father as being unquestioned head of his family does not necessarily mean he is acting on his own whim so much as answering an outer demand of a role to fill. With social norms like these, leadership can only mean answering to outer demands in a reluctant manner.

The Erikson quotes George Santayana:

Perhaps in the flight of birds...the leader was not really a bold spirit trusting to his own initiative and hypnotizing the flock to follow him in his deliberate gyrations. Perhaps the leader was the blindest, the most dependent of the swarm, pecked in to taking wing before the others and then pressed and chased and driven by a thousand hissing cries and fierce glances whipping him on. Perhaps those majestic sweeps of his, and those sudden drops and turns which seemed so joyously capricious, were really helpless effects, desperate escapes, in an induced somnambulism and universal persecution. Well, this sort of servitude was envied by all the world; at least it was a crowned slavery, and not intolerable. Why not gladly be the creature of universal will, and taste in oneself the quintessence of a general life. After all, there might be nothing to choose between seeming to command and seeming to obey...

Is it possible that campus leaders are merely obeying the pecking and hissing cries of those around them? Is it possible that instead of deciding as an individual to build an activist group, and pour their hearts into that group, they are merely answering and offering ourselves up to the whim's of the crowd?

Every time a fellow student tells me about an idea for a project, I get excited. Sure, they're not all good projects, let alone great ones, but they are not asking me about a specific project, they are asking for confirmation of a role in their community which is rarely offered. The role of their passion. When a person goes from feeling like their contribution is unwelcome, to feeling like they can make things better, then they join the real community. It is our job to make sure they have a community to join.

Saul Alinsky tells the organizer to give people a sense of their own power, create concrete and meaningful changes in people's lives,and change the balance of power. College students are seeking a sense of their own power everywhere, but in so many cases we do not know what that kind of power actually means. Youth are positioned to seek a change in the balance of power, even when we don't know what we mean by power, and because we are seeking to break into the world of adults who have power.

While the above two points deserve a lot more attention, I think the second point is most worth expanding. College students live some of the most comfortable lives possible. We have every want near at hand, from food to friends, to fun. We have a purpose to our days (class and maybe sports), and we have the optimism of being at the beginning of life and largely untested. What sort of meaningful and tangible improvement in our fellow students' lives can we possibly hope to achieve? We can offer them a confirmation. School creates a world where your work, your studying, your skills and sometimes even your ideas are important. Student leaders can create a world where your passion and vision is important. That is a meaningful change in students lives, and we can only create this community with group centered leaders.

References:
1. George Santayana, The Last Puritan (NY Scribner's, 1936), pp. 128-129
2. Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
3. Clayborne Carson, In Struggle
4. Kai Erikson, Everything in its path

Note: This essay is the first of a six part series I am writing this semester for an independent study. The study will focus on applying organizing theory and experience to the day-to-day challenges of building the youth climate movement a Williams College, in Berkshire County and the state of Massachusetts.

TNG - what does fighting global warming mean?

Note: This post is originally posted on Ephblog.com, hence the David Kane references. Sorry for the length

92 people attended the first gathering of Thursday Night Group this week. 23 people participated in our overnight leadership retreat to set the agenda and goals for the year. This isn't the kind of activism we've seen at Williams in the recent past (DK, I'm counting on you to prove me wrong here somehow.)

Why is our group so energized this year, and where is all of this going to lead?

1. The college has made a commitment which is starting to filter down through all levels of our community. My econ professor uses climate change regularly as an example of a market externality. The Bell Book was revised, telling all frosh to bring CFLs and not fridges. Security purchased a hybrid patrol vehicle, which uses 1/2 the gas of the other cars, even though its a Highlander. Thanks in part to the dedicated efforts of Karen Merrill, Stephanie Boyd and Steve Klass, change is happening.

2. A national movement is building. Led by amazing organizations like the Energy Action Coalition (link) and dedicated student leaders across the country, the tide is riding high for innovative grassroots activists. The science is getting clearer, the media are coming around and even white house science advisers admit the future looks hotter (link).

3. An amazing team of student leaders are starting to figure out what makes a good group work. Previous environmental efforts have focused on raising awareness, increasing recycling, inviting speakers to campus and talking about solutions. We acknowledge the importance of such activities, but point out that this approach lacks some key elements. It doesn't use people's strengths. Williams students are ambitious and talented people who are capable of very hard work and high quality output. We put people to work. Success leads to more success. TNG achieves results which are meaningful, sometimes tangible, and exciting. The climate action plan predates TNG, but with the recent combination of TNG and Greensense into one, we count that. Lightbulbs might not be as important as trustees private jets, but they are extremely tangible, give us facetime with lots of people and involve students directly in solutions. These things build the group. We take projects seriously and hold people accountable for their responsibilities. In my mind there shouldn't be too many differences between a well run corporation and well run activist group.

Our group philosophy is to constantly increase the size, depth and capacity of our group, by running successful and meaningful campaigns. I think its working.

Where are we now? Perhaps I should start with a few thoughts on what kinds of global warming solutions we're talking about. I highly recommend this short movie on the NH climate campaign I helped organize this summer. In it, if you're too lazy to watch it, Bill McKibbon says the top three things an ordinary citizen can do to fight climate change are organize politically, organize politically and organize politically. Then you can get around to changing some lightbulbs. Climate solutions are not going to work if they are isolated to the richest 20% of our country. An economy/society/country that is 20% sustainable is always going to be unsustainable. National, mandatory emissions reductions are required, and I can tell you exactly when we'll get those: right after 1/20/2009. But only if we can show (and we will) that the people of this country demand a government that looks out for the wellbeing of its citizens and a market that can internalize its externalities (link)

How do we get there? We build a citizen movement. The college is playing its part (with much room for improvement) by setting an example or at least matching its peer institutions commitments. Consumers are helping a little by buying 'green'. The big action is being done by students and active citizens. A North Adams hearing on Senator Pacheco's global warming legislation (co-organized by TNG), the March to ReEnergize NH and Iowa, Step it UP 2007, Powershift and Focus the Nation (headed by an alumn) are where the real pressure is being placed.

Thursday Night Group is building capacity to make political change. Does Do it in the Dark bring in new leaders, increase our prestige, attract recruits and reward our group for succeeding? Yes. Does visiting area high schools give Williams students a chance to connect with passionate high schoolers, increasing their confidence and investment in our movement? Yes, and it has inspired dozens of high school activists to boot. Is fighting a campaign to reduce trustee flying, which would take elusive targets, be invisible to most of the student body and likely have marginal to partial success be a strategic allocation of our group's resources? Right now, I say no. It is an excellent task for a pundit, and an excellent point to remind us of, but the outrages of David Kane would be a poor meter for writing our campaign goals. That being said, keep hounding the administration. (I'm willing to bet he has more alumni connections than me - I challenge him to reduce trustee flying.) All I'm trying to explain here is why we don't jump on every egregious carbon violation in sight.

We will strive to choose campaigns that have the highest combination of organization building, carbon reduction and political impact. I intend to keep ephblog, and certainly Greener Eph readers updated on what those are and how they're going. Suggestions are welcome, help is even more welcome, constructive criticism is highly encouraged, and good publicity is kinda nice too.

A Greener Eph: Thursday Night Group tonight

Come to the first gathering of Thursday Night Group in Dodd living room at 10:00. Arrive early and meet people. Traditional beverages will be served. We will be introducing the group, discussing pressing issues and setting our major campaigns for the year.

We've all heard of global warming, and we've heard a lot of leaders talk about solutions, but the real solutions are going to come from people like you and me. TNG makes significant changes in the college, the community and beyond that protect and improve the way of life for those already suffering from the climate crisis, and for all those yet to come.

We want to get to know you, to hear your ideas and opinions and your vision of a better world. Some of you are very knowledgeable about the climate, and we can all learn from you. Others are very new to this, and we will help you learn.

An unstable climate will affect the poor and disadvantaged more than the rich and privileged, and so we have a duty to act. The solutions will require people from all walks of life, and so we have a duty to include everyone in what we do. Solving this problem requires economics, biology, engineering, social sciences, psychology and faith.

In 1962, Students for a Democratic society wrote in their manifest: "We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit..." That call to action is returning.

I'll see you in Dodd.

-morgan-
co-chair thursday night group

A Greener Eph: Accountability

Accountability is one of those big, moral words that parents use. It means one is responsible for the effects of one's actions. You have to be responsible. You can't cut corners, you can't get away with things and you can't blame someone else for your mistakes or wrongs.

We don't like being accountable. If we aren't forced to by strong social custom or well-enforced laws, we aren't. Think of how many times we have rolled through a stop sign when we didn't see any other cars, let alone police cars! We might grab a handful of candy from our friend's stash when they're not looking, and the success of illegal file sharing programs attests to our propensity for stealing as long as it doesn't seem like stealing.

It doesn't matter how good a person is, there will always be conflicting pressures and corners to cut and things will not get done as well as they might. The biggest check on this tendency is the reaction our actions might cause. The friend who shouts at you for stealing candy is going to influence your future actions differently than one who doesn't notice, or doesn't say anything. If you ever get caught file-sharing, there's a good chance you'll never do it again, even if the risk isn't any higher than before. Either when confronted with friends who feel wronged, or strangers who can use the law on their side, confronting the negative effects of our actions can be extremely.

Because these negative effects can be so unpleasant, we face a choice. We can either act in a more ethical way, at the risk of being obtuse and exhausting, or we can distance ourselves from the effects of our actions. Downloading a song distances one from the negative social norms (and risks) that taking a CD out of a store does. It also distances one from causing harm to a particular store, and instead broadens the loss out over the industry, making it seem much less serious. We might feel comfortable taking only a small handful of candy because it will either go unnoticed or be easily forgiven, but we would hesitate to take the whole bag for fear of the consequences.

We face consequences from all sorts of actions, large or small. We really don't want to live next to a pig farm, but that won't stop us from eating pork. As long as we don't see the pig farm we don't have to confront the fact that someone lives next to a pig farm. We like to have electricity when we flick the switch, but generators are too noisy (not to mention inefficient), and coal is far too dirty to have in our own city, so cities and energy companies realize they can get more customers if they put the coal plant somewhere else. We are not confronted with the consequences of flicking a light switch, and we are happier that way. There are few fashionable metropolitans who would enjoy their clothing quite as much if they had to walk into the illegal sweatshop downtown to purchase the item. But of course the people in the sweatshop wouldn't be working their (against their will?) if there wasn't a demand for such clothing.

Our economy is very good at helping us stay away from the negative consequences we cause. People make money doing this and people frequently pay for the right to not see the results of their actions. This is not a shocking instance of neglect, or a cry out against some type of injustice. This is something so fundamental to the way our civilization works that it goes beyond questioning. And if we do question it, we are immediately daunted by the task.

The depth and subtlety of our lack of accountability is not a detriment, but rather precisely the reason why we must confront it. By working accountability into our society and our lives, then we have made a fundamental and radical change. That is why fighting climate change is about even more than the future stability of global civilization. It is about fixing the world around us.

A Greener Eph: Leadership Retreat

24 awesome TNG leaders convened this weekend for our retreat. The torrential downpour and epic thunderstorms didn't stop the sweet bonding and ambitious planning that went on. See below for the agenda if you're curious.

Mostly it was amazing to see all these people from different backgrounds and groups come together and take their first Saturday night back at school to talk about the climate. There's nothing quite like the feeling of launching into something that's bigger than anything we've done before.

Personally, I came away from the weekend exhausted. Trying to make the whole thing happen in addition to giving two trainings (recruitment/leadership dev. and campaign planning) takes a lot out of you.

In other news, it looks like my independent study will be approved. I want to spend one course-load's worth of work this semester working on running TNG better. That means reading up on other movements and issues within our movement, studying organization and recruitment strategies, and then making regular posts on itsgettinghoninhere.org. We'll see how it goes.

Retreat Agenda:
What to bring: sleeping bag, pad, sweatshirt, mug, notebook, toothbrush, enthusiasm!
Optional: snacks to share,

TNG Retreat - Sat. Afternoon?
2:30 pm- check out office and supplies up there a bit, then head out to HMF
4:00 pm - hear from people who worked on cool summer projects
5:30 pm - goals, ground rules
6:00 pm break- dinner
7:00 pm - training: recruitment, leadership development, organizational development
9:00 pm - dessert, - visioning - lets talk about big ideas - what do we want to do this year?

Sunday morning:

8:00 am -wake up/breakfast
9:00 am -training: how to write a campaign plan
10:00 am - What do we need to do, as a group, to achieve our goals? - (positions? structure? recruitment? communication?)
11:30 am - debrief
11:45 am - head back for Greylock Brunch!

A Greener Eph: Recruitment 101

Purple Key Fair

Last night we hauled a cow across campus. More specifically, we teamed up with All Campus Entertainment to haul a cow and the giant light bulb all the way to the Purple Key fair, where freshmen sign up for clubs.

We signed up over 70 new facebook members and collected another 50 or 60 paper sign ups to almost triple the size of our online group. It turns out, handing out free lightbulbs, stickers and standing in the stream of people where you can grab them to talk works pretty well. Lots of positive feedback on using facebook as a group.

Tonight is an acoustic night in Kellogg, to bring the whole community together. This weekend our leadership retreat, and then next Thursday, the moment we've all be waiting for, the first TNG meeting of the year!

A Greener Eph: First Year Orientation

Williams College first years have no excuse not to think deeply about sustainability. They're getting a double dose. First, I jumped up on stage during the wellness talk to try and make a connection between physical wellness and the wellness of our mountain home. I told them that using CFLs is awesome and saves money. I hinted that drinking bottled water was silly because it tastes the same as tap water...you just have to pay for it. If they were brave, they could turn down their heat and find someone to cuddle with to stay warm on those long winter nights. The director of campus safety, our chaplain, our outing club director, our dean of the college and our fire-safety guy all proudly displayed a CUPPS cups and told them to use it.

Now, as 2/3rds of the class does a backpacking trip, they're going to get it again. The WOOLF leaders already teach the principles of Leave No Trace. LNT covers the range of ways hikers can harm the woods around them, from fires and trash to causing erosion and feeding animals. But, they will be asking their first years, are the visible traces the only ones we should be worried about? What about the traces that we can't see but are potentially even more harmful, such as greenhouse gas emissions? If we care so much about LNT on the trail, do we have some responsibility to reduce our 'trace' when we're not on the trail as well?

Its up to the WOOLF leaders now, but if I have any guesses, there will be a lot of deep and heated discussions up in those mountains.

Jiminy Turbine Opened

Hey all,

Jiminy Peak just earned the title of most pro-active ski area (unofficially). Could this be a crack that we could pry open wider to get more wind in the Berkshires? Perhaps possibly some Williams College wind turbines, perhaps? I think that would get us pretty close to our emissions reductions targets...
Anyone interested in getting more involved with what's going on in the area? Just tossing stuff out there...

-morgan-


Jiminy turbine is powered up
By Scott Stafford, Berkshire Eagle Staff
August 16, 2007

HANCOCK — Wind energy is alive and spinning in Berkshire County after yesterday's official turn-on of Zephyr, the 1.5-megawatt, $4 million wind turbine near the summit of Jiminy Peak.

With more than 600 people gathered at the base of the structure, Jiminy Peak President and CEO Brian Fairbank acknowledged the major players in its realization: Sustainable Energy Developments, the firm that brought the turbine parts up the mountain and erected it; the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and Legacy Banks, for arranging the financing; the resort staff who contributed significant efforts to make it all work; and GE Energy, which built the turbine.

Mass Technology Collaborative

Fall '07 Preview

I'm excited for the school year to start. Thursday Night Group is going to be lots and lots of fun. We're going to bring a lot of new students into the group, take on some really big projects, and generally work on turning Williams College into a global warming solution generating machine.

Campaigns: Promoting the local currency, the Berkshares, in the Williamstown/North Adams area, joining a fledgling state network to kick coal out of the state, bringing faculty into the sustainability project through Focus the Nation and encouraging local high school students to become climate activists are just a few of the projects that are lined up. We'll also get our president to sign the Presidents Climate Commitment and have a kick-ass Step it Up 2. We're going to get the college to allow students to propose shareholder resolutions, becoming the first college in history to do so. Of course this is only a brief and incomplete list, mainly because most of the projects we work on aren't going to come from me - they're going to come from you! Yes you, what is it you want to accomplish? What will make Williams more sustainable?

Group: As we accomplish these campaigns and continue to build our reputation as a group that gets stuff done, we're going to grow. Even from the beginning we're going to use our image and our coolness to draw in a large crowd of freshmen eager to save the world, and also a bunch of people who would never consider themselves environmentalists - people who see problems that need fixing, and can see that those solutions will not only make people immediately better off, but also ensure the ability of our civilization to continue beyond the climate crisis. Our group structure, our image and above all, our people, are poised to make this happen.

I've become very involved with the Sierra Student Coalition over the summer and I've learned a lot. First I attended a week long summer program that teaches skills on how to run campaigns on campuses. Then I worked for three weeks on the March to ReEnergize NH before finally attending the week-long national summit of the SSC. It turns out, Williams isn't the only place with sweet climate activists. All that means is we have a lot to do.

So, before we dive into to another year, lets just take a deep breath and think about how sweet this is going to be. New bumper sticker idea: I'd rather be fighting global warming.

See you all soon.

One Week to Go!

This morning I woke up early to go swimming with some fellow ReEnergize NH team members, and then we got right to work in the office for our 10:00 morning meeting. But these morning meetings have a strange habit of getting bigger every day.

A week ago, we had 20 people excitedly dividing up tasks and getting to work. Later in the week we had 25, because a few new volunteers came in to fill our ranks. Today, there were 30 of us. There was energy in the room.

And not just 30 bodies, but 30 of the most motivated and dedicated college and high school kids I've ever met. There's Zo Tobi of Clark University who stayed in the office until after midnight last night emailing and calling every single one of the hundreds of state representatives, asking for endorsements. He actually maxed out his limit of sending 500 emails a day on his gmail account. Then there's Lauren Armstrong from Middlebury, who has called the mayor of Manchester's office over 18 times this summer and finally got him to commit to our march. Lindsay from Middlebury called us last night to say she had just gotten an endorsement from Bode Miller. What?!? Who cares, that's awesome.

In short, this morning I felt like we had achieved critical mass. This juggernaut of climate action has started rolling faster than anyone can control. We're going to put on the largest event for the climate (other than Al Gore's live earth) that the country has ever seen.

And they're definitely going to see it! We had meetings yesterday with some of the state newspapers, and some of the reporters were practically begging to walk with us the whole time! It didn't seem to out of the ordinary to get a call back from Thomas Freidman's office (and then a personal email from him) saying he was very sorry that he couldn't make it, but said we were doing a great thing.

So I'm excited, and I hope you are too. Will you come and join us?

www.climatesummer.org

ReEnergize NH

I'm really excited. For the next two weeks I'm working in Concord, NH to bring the climate crisis to the forefront of the public debate through state-wide grassroots action. And I want your help.

Along with 20 other students in the Sierra Student Coalition, I'm helping to organize a march with thousands of people across the state from Aug 1st-5th.

How can you help? If you are anywhere in the North East, you should consider coming to visit me here. Its a really exciting office, we talk to lots of citizens, and the other kids are really interesting. Its also very easy to only come for a day or two and still help us a lot. Or, we would love to have you attend our march. From August 1st - 5th we'll walk from Nashua to Concord, with music events every night, hundreds to thousands of other people and the eyes of the national media on us. Studies have shown that mass demonstrations and marches are one of the most effective ways to change public opinion and get our leaders' attention. At the very least, talk about what's going on in the movement to your friends.

There has never been a more exciting time to be a citizen concerned with the climate.

Visit our website: http://www.climatesummer.org

After a bit of a Hiatus...

I haven't written here in a while. Many of our projects of the year were concluded, and others didn't seem to offer the allure of interesting things to say in a blog post. I've also been in more of a introspective stretch for the last month, resulting in less activism, but more on that later.

Briefly, movie filming is underway for the funniest thing climate activists have ever seen. No, that's premature. If it comes out the way we have in mind, it will be the funniest thing you've ever seen. Hopefully filming and editing will continue on schedule to be ready to show the incoming freshmen in August.

Speaking of August, much of the activity of TNG and related people has been geared towards setting a good tone. TNG did a survey to see what worked and what didn't work with how we operate. Results were promising, and people want to take on more projects and more responsibility, while keeping the chill, traditional beverage filled meetings. We will get a lot of freshmen - they're going to be blown away by how cool we are. And we'll be doing fun projects right off the bat.

The Bell Book, the resource sent out to all frosh before they come, explains what to bring to school. The incoming dean, our acting sustainability coordinator and other relevant people poured over the book, editing out suggestions to bring fridges, and instead talking about things that you might think you need but really don't.


This month has been introspective. Six weeks ago our beloved friend and fellow climate activists Katie Craig committed suicide after a brief but intense battle with bi-polar. This unexpected tragedy has shaken us all deeply. Katie was deeply committed to saving the world and poured her energy into all sorts of projects to share her passion with the community. For those of us she left behind, it seems clear that she would have wanted us to continue our efforts, and indeed we shall with renewed strength. But through our grief we also gain a deeper understanding for what is really so important about what we do, the friendships and meaning that we generate as peers united in a worthy pursuit. Through this understanding, we cannot get so wrapped up in our work that we lose sight of the beauty in the natural world around us, or so tired that we cease to enjoy ourselves. Katie, you were dear to so many of us and we will carry on in your memory, but most importantly, work hard to remember the incredible person you still are to us.

Partly because of Katie, and partly because of other stresses in school, freshmen advising and student government this spring, I have decided to spend the summer traveling, reading and relaxing. This will take me through New England and possibly eastern Canada. I plan on going to the SSC Sprog training in NH, and possibly spending a little time with them doing Climate Summer, but on the whole, I want to restore the vitality and vision that isn't quite as close to the surface as it could be.

With these thoughts, and thinking of Maine and the beauty of the natural world, I leave you with this painting by Katie. I will update this blog infrequently, but hopefully a few times, before resuming more active posting with the start of the school year.

Survey

If you have ever been to a TNG meeting, or thought about going to a TNG meeting, please take our survey.

In other news, the Guster concert was a lot of fun. We sold lots of hats and some T-shirts, including some for the band. The band was cool, holding a town-hall forum and inviting us onto their bio-diesel bus (only 20% bio, 80% diesel, but who's counting?) and hanging out in the Red Herring afterwards. Mark Orlowski was in fine form, discussing the finer points of environmental activism and leveraging the endowment.

Finally, shooting of the, as yet unnamed, movie is progressing well. I have to dress up like Indiana Jones tomorrow. "Why?" you might ask. Well, you'll have to wait to find out.

Lastly, I have a few job opportunities that I'm supposed to pass on. If you're looking for something to do for the summer, I'll forward them to you.

Eph on PBS

Mark Orlowski explains his work on sustainable endowments in an interview with PBS.

Mark is currently touring the country with Guster. The Campus Consciousnes tour will be stopping in the purple valley this Thursday. Members of the band will be at a town hall forum at 2:30 in Brooks-Rogers before the concert to talk about environmental consciousness and giving out backstage passes for the show.

Two words: dead sexy.

Expanding Membership / stats

A Greener Eph is expanding its authorship. In an effort to make this blog a more comprehensive look at what's going on at Williams, I have invited several students to join. I'm also looking for a couple administrators and faculty who would write for us occasionally. If you are interested, please leave a message or send me an email. Blogging has been a great way for me to get my thoughts together, meet people working on similar projects accross the country and get recognition for great things Williams does.

For an update of readership (not that this is too exciting), hits have been steadily increasing. We average over 20 webviews a day, about %30 of those are returning visitors. You can view Technorati ranking here and webstats4u counter here.

Global Warming Rap

There are a lot of songs, raps, skits and clips about global warming these days. If you've visited the Step it Up website, they have dozens of songs composed for the occasion. A youtube search for Al Gore Rap, global warming music, etc. will turn up lots of hits.

Its great that there are so many, we are, after all, Time Magazine's people of the year because of this content. I want to commend the SSC, Step it Up, Energy Action and so many other groups for promoting this media movement. However, with so much stuff out there, how do we separate the wheat from the chaff? Chill-out was an amazing effort to bring the best efforts to the people, but I'd like to post one here that wasn't entered in the contest.

I saw these two high school students when Al Gore spoke in Great Barrington, MA. An audience member asked Gore how we make this issue cool to the next generation (us). Instead of answering, he nearly gave the event organizers heart attacks and invited these two teenagers up on stage. These two kids stole the show. I asked them about producing their act, (and I've heard through the grapevine that Gore is going to pay them to produce it proffessionally), but I found this copy that finally made it online. The quality's not great, so turn up the volume, but its worth it.



Aaron and Conor keep it up. I'm a fan.

Global Warming: A Hot Topic On A COOL Day

News article on the rally.

I am very disapointed to see a lack of a few key elements.

1. There is no photo of the ribbon up the steeple (even among the ones I didn't copy here), arguably the most inventive part of the rally.

2. Hundreds of postcards were signed to congressmen. The entire rally was designed to reach congress, but that aspect seems to be lost in this article.



By Susan Bush - April 14, 2007

Center for International Environment and Resource Policy At Tufts Director William Moomaw [Photo by Sue Bush]

Williamstown - First, one encountered a couldn't-miss-it-with-eyes-closed bright orange timeline measuring the fossil-fuel emission levels between the year 1,000 A.D. and 2007.

The fluorescent tape stretched over the First Congregational Church lawn in a nearly straight line, and then curved sharply and steeply upward toward the church steeple. The sudden jump skyward represented the increase in emissions that began during the beginning of the 20th century.

The stunning illustration was part of a Step It Up day event initiated by environmental activist Bill McKibben. Step It Up events were held nation-wide and several Berkshire region communities hosted global warming/climate change events throughout the day.

Long tables served as information booths for numerous local organizations, including the town Carbon Dioxide Lowering [COOL]Committee, the Hoosic River Watershed Association, the Northeast Organic Farming Association, and the Center for Ecological Technology.

Start Pedaling

Members of a recently formed Mount Greylock Regional High School Youth Environmental Squad attended the rally. MGRHS student and global warming activist Rachel Payne was an event speaker. Squad members Isabel Kaufman and Sam Shuker-Hainer offered their thoughts about the issue and the event.

"There are things that everybody can do [to reduce emissions]," said Kaufman. "Right now, in terms of daily life, I really think that changing light bulbs [from incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs] is the one thing that can easily be done."

Shuker-Hainer noted the crowd size and an absence of bicycles.

"I think the most important thing is not to use cars," he said. "Most of the people here could have ridden a bicycle. When you are just going around town, you can use a bicycle, or walk."

COOL committee member Wendy Penner said that she was delighted with the turnout. By noontime, about 130 people were gathered on the church campus.

"I'm just thrilled that this is happening," she said, as she worked to start a recording of Melissa Etheridge singing "I Need To Wake Up."

"We Need Policies Today"

Town Selectwoman and COOL Committee member Jane Allen [Photo by Sue Bush]

Tufts University Center for International Environment and Resource Policy Director William Moomaw told the crowd that fossil fuel use and its' consequences are responsible for a host of problems, including an increased incidence of asthma in urban children and the inhumane, horrific situation in Darfur.

Moomaw is among the authors of a Union of Concerned Scientists and the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment compiled study titled "Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast." He has been quoted as stating that if the Northeast were a nation, it would be the seventh-largest emitter of heat-trapping gasses in the world.

Today, Moomaw told the crowd that "I really like being able to work on the solutions."

"This is not about inventing some science fiction future," Moomaw said. "We need policies today."

Moomaw charged that U.S. power plants are operating less efficiently than those being built in China.

A Three Percent Challenge

The U.S. government is encouraging the nation's power producers to stick with 19th and 20th century strategies and technologies rather than support and reward the use of new, 21st century technologies and developing additional, fossil-fuel weaning strategies.

Change must occur at the federal, state, local, and personal level, Moomaw said. and noted that on the local level, municipal building inspectors could advise people about building "green."

Moomaw said he was "delighted" to learn about Brian Fairbank's plan to erect a wind turbine at Jiminy Peak and plans for construction of a biomass facility in Pittsfield.

The Step It Up goal is an 80 percent reduction in emissions by 2050; to meet that goal, individuals must reduce their household carbon dioxide emissions by three percent, Moomaw said.

What's Done Is Done

Steven Fein, Elizabeth Smith and Wendy Penner [Photo by Sue Bush]

HooRWA Board of Directors Vice-president Lauren Stevens emphasized that the damage already done cannot be reversed. Speaking during an on-site interview, he said that people should be willing to do whatever is necessary to prevent further damage.

"This cannot be reversed," he said. "It can be reduced by taking action now."

Stevens noted the size and diversity of those at the rally.

"This is a big cross-section of people," he said. "I think it will raise awareness. I am particularly interested in the impact [of global warming] on the Hoosic River."

During his remarks, state Rep. Daniel E. Bosley D-North Adams said that individuals such as Moomaw "will lead us out of this."

My Town's Greener Than Your Town

State officials should lead by example, he added, and noted that there are many, many state-owned rooftops that should be hosting photovoltaic panels. Wind turbines should be up and running, Bosley said, although he cautioned that the turbines should not turn from all the mountaintops because the state's beautiful scenery is vital to the residents.

Bosley tossed out the idea that municipalities should be challenging each other to see which community can be the most energy efficient.

Volatile Weather Likely

Several speakers commented on the damp, raw, unseasonably cold chill of the mid-April day. Williams College student Justin Bates, who was a scheduled speaker, said during an interview that initially, global warming is likely to produce weather anomalies that may not always result in heat.

Youth Environmental Squad members Isabel Kaufman and Sam Shuker-Hainer
[Photo by Sue Bush]

"Global warming can make things very volatile," Bates said. "It's safe to say that the weather will be very unpredictable."

Williamstown Proactive With Emission Reduction Strategies

Town Selectwoman and COOL committee member Jane Allen reminded the crowd of town actions taken to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The town's elementary school is designated as a "green building" and students are involved in recycling efforts, she said. Residents who own certain fuel efficient or hybrid vehicles are eligible for excise rebates, and the David and Joyce Milne Public Library hosts photovoltaic panels.

The town's emissions reduction efforts were given tremendous support by Williams College and college president Morton Schapiro earlier this year, when Schapiro announced that the college is striving to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 10 percent by 2020.

State Sen. Benjamin B. Downing, Williams College Chaplain Rev. Richard Spalding, Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser of Congregation Beth Israel in North Adams and Fairbank, who is the CEO of Jiminy Peak, were among the event speakers.

All Life On Earth

First Congregational Church Rev. Carrie Bail welcomed those in attendance.

Global warming is a community issue, a human rights issue, and a justice issue, she said.

"This will impact all life on Earth," Bail said. "This requires immediate
attention because it is the right thing to do."

Susan Bush may be reached via e-mail at
suebush@iberkshires.com or 413-663-3384 exit. 29.

Step it Up!

Step it up was a big success today. Thanks to the community organizers in getting this together. Over 100 people gathered in front of the church to listen to speeches, sign postcards to congressmen and rally for the climate. Over 400 postcards were signed to representatives and senators, which TNG will mail. A wide, orange ribbon hung from the church steeple showing carbon levels in the atmosphere for the last 1000 years. More updates later...

This Week at Williams

Spring is here, even if the weather is making up for January, and the feverish pace of projects has increased.

- Do it in the Dark started this week, complete with a huge banner in Paresky. The contest will run for three weeks, with prizes still in the works but likely to be more creative than previous competitions.

- Step it Up appears to have cold and cloudy weather, but that won't stop plans from going ahead. We are tabling with postcards to congressmen today and tomorrow and we're hoping Saturday goes well.

- Collette and Vickie are tackling an ambitious project to film a movie about Williams sustainability to show to first-years at orientation. I've been told I need to dress up as Al Gore for it, which might require putting on some weight.

- Others are talking about renovating a co-op to be carbon neutral with insulation, heating, appliances, etc. researched and installed by students as a demonstration for the school.

- I visited the Berkshire Youth Conference and led a discussion with 15 high-school students from the county. They impressed me with their views and ideas. I tried to lead them towards a better understanding of using moral incentives vs. economic incentives to encourage environmentalism, how govt. policy can and should influence the market and how to make saving the environment (aka us) cool. They were pretty psyched at that point in the discussion when I passed out Do it in the Dark bumper stickers to all of them. Lastly, I tried to convey how important it was to have a group, to exercise strong leadership and encourage other leaders, because our strength lies in organization, dedication and numbers.

- Next Monday there is a special tour for prospective students on sustainability at Williams that I'm leading with Stephanie Boyd. More on that later.

- Next week we also meet to discuss 'greening the first years' with the deans and campus life. Again, more on that later.

- Guster is coming! Two weeks until we get to meet the band, table at their event and generally enjoy how cool we are.

Spring's exciting, lots to do and lots of energy to do it.