Climate Positive

We can be climate positive. As carbon based lifeforms, we can breath, eat and sleep without contributing to the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. As people who can think, we can improve on that.

There are lots of amazing marvels of the human-created world, from production facilities to micro-chips to the cell phone, and all of these pale in comparison to the complexity and resilience and efficiency of natural systems. Should we feel bad about this? No! We can be excited about the possibilities contained in this revelation.

Factories pouring out smoke from manufacturing processes? Lets improve them to the point that they produce more, using less energy, and use the savings from those improvements to install wind, solar, geo-thermal, bio-mass and hydro. Homes leaking heat and sapping electricity? Save home-owners money by working together to retrofit homes, save money and re-invest in their own future.

I'm excited. I see a world of opportunities for growth and amazingness and pride in the ingenuity of people everywhere. We are only beginning.

Affirmative World View

The affirmative world view

The affirmative world view is a certain way of envisioning the world that causes it to become like the vision. If a critical mass of people share a certain set of assumptions and goals for a person's role in the world, then they will live as if such a world exists. Living as if something exists can be a force, pro actively developing its own reality.

In the abstract, this is a pretty far-fetched idea. A bit of metaphysical nonsense which might be true and might not, but we have more important and relevant things to think about. I want to propose a case study; a set of assumptions and commonly held beliefs which started out only being held by a few but ended up driving the change and creating the conditions for this world view to become predominant. What began as a few people holding a vague belief, but still acting as if it were real, affirmed that such a world was eventually possible.

The case study is, of course, modern capitalism. What started as a vague notion in the seventeenth century that division of labor, economies of scale, investment of capital and of course, individuals making economic decisions in their own self-interest was a rational way to run the world, became the norm. What did those early capitalists think about? Was it how to someday run a multi-national corporation? No, they thought about how to grow from an individual into a factory, into a company into larger manifestations of this new kind of system all stemming from the agent and the idea.

Today we live in a world that has been actively re-envisioned by millions of capitalists to the point that it is established almost everywhere. We are so far into it that we forget it rests on some very fragile assumptions. We forget money is really just trust in institutions which are really just made up of people. We forget that our consumer purchases contribute to the wellbeing of millions of people all over the world, (as well as the inequality and ecological difficulties they experience.) We also forget that money is an end in itself for many people, (although it doesn't have to be.) These assumptions are held widely enough to create and perpetuate capitalism.

Many ideas are dismissed because 'people don't think that way' or 'the world doesn't work that way'. For most of them this is true, they won't work and this isn't a rallying cry for every 3am genius on the internet. But an idea that works, a set of assumptions that makes a lot of sense, a world view that encompasses enough hope and opportunity and meaning and foundation will reshape the world as soon as we start living in affirmation of that vague notion.

My notion is a belief in people. I believe in people's minds, I believe in people's motivations and I believe in people's ability to realize their dreams. I believe in people's ability to make responsible choices about their future and the world if only they are given an opportunity to make that choice. I believe in our need to connect spiritually with each other once we know that is necessary and wonderful. I believe in our pride and self-confidence if that can be also open and humble and free from attack or fear. I believe in people's ability to organize themselves if they have a sense of their own power. I believe we will direct our life energy towards the greater good if we do not constantly see the meaningless allure of endless consumption and status symbols. I believe self-interest is the same thing as community interest if we believe it to be so.

When Smith described the division of labor as the driver of economic development, industry had barely scratched the surface of how specialized and productive labor could be. Once industry knew that this was the key to unlocking the productive power of their factories, it became obsessed with analyzing every detail of how tasks were divided. Entire realms of profit were discovered in the tiniest corrections of understanding a movement or a piece. Some early capitalists were like explorers on epic journeys towards greater efficiency. They believed the key to unlocking productive power lay in the details of the actions of production and they were right, and they affirmed that the world worked in such a way, that the world would become organized around such principles.

In order to believe in people, we must recognize that the value is only the name on the door. The much greater question that we will explore and struggle with and reshape and develop is how to believe in people. We too must embark on epic journey's towards new and exotic looking ways of believing in ourselves, our friends and our networks. These journey's are so exciting because they are often venturing into the unknown, and we might encounter very real and threatening dangers along the way. And yet we will keep exploring because we will also start bring back wildly effective and exciting things. We will also keep exploring because we have affirmed that the driving force, the energy of the world we want to live in is here, waiting for us to find it.

Think Big

If you take a group of a couple dozen motivated, forward thinking and skilled people, and trace the connections that are within 2 degrees of separation, there are thousands of amazing people. My friend Zo Tobi refers to this as the tribe. I don't have a name for it, but its clear that I can have an instant bond with any number of these thousands of people.

We have the internet to thank, and we have the amazing work of the Sierra Student Coalition and the rest of the climate movement, and we have our college networks. We have the connections to translate an amazing idea into action in a matter of months. In the book Fight Global Warming Now, the crew points out that sometimes organizing an action in a few weeks is better than a few months because it just flows and happens. And with the internet, we don't have to. (I don't just mean the internet, but rather the innovative tools that we're constantly developing and the skills to use them.) Ideas spread fast, the people who can contribute the most have nothing holding them back to contributing, and the people who wouldn't have heard about it hear about it.

Step it Up was organized in 10 weeks last spring. The marchs to Re-Enegize NH and IA were done in a summer. Power Shift came together in a few months, and over 75% of the students signed up in the last 2 weeks. We're learning how to use the internet better, and we haven't even scratched the surface.

What does that mean? WE NEED TO THINK BIGGER. We are no longer held back by the scale of action that's possible. Instead, we are only held back by the scope of our imaginations. I'm challenging us to think bigger than we've ever thought before, bigger than we're comfortable doing.

From dawn till dusk

To say that yesterday was a full day of discussing climate change is an understatement. We started over coffee and bagels in the morning and finished on the bus, riding home from the bar at 1:00 in the morning.

Its healthy to connect with people over our cause, to share our energy and feel it reflected back at us. I think back to times that I've felt like the lone wolf, valiantly struggling against overwhelming odds, and that just doesn't seem as healthy. Instead, groups like this, gatherings of like minds in the growing movement are showing us that we are not alone in this struggle. Indeed, the team we're trying to create for change is so vast that we might never be alone.

[posts are scattered because of the busy day, but I'm trying to add little updates of the exciting things going on]

Slots vs. networks

There's an issue that we face in building a coalition of students for change: do you give people a defined role or do you encourage them to come up with their own ideas and how to implement them? In other words, is it more important to create open space or find slots to put people?

Here at the January Institute in MN this thought came up this morning. Clearly, some people really thrive on thinking of crazy, big ideas and then figuring out independently how to make it work. Often thought of as leaders, these people abhor top-down structure and thrive on open environments of possibility. Then there are those people who really want to help out but have no idea what to do. They might be new to the climate movement, and they might be new to taking positive, proactive action of any kind. They usually want to be told what to do, at first. They are looking for slots to fit themselves into.

Recognize this dichotomy? If so, if you're like me and struggle with the best model of involving people of all temperments and skill levels, then you think about this a lot. Here's a different way to think about it: we're all in a group or space or community, but some people have a lot more connections than other people. If you have lots of connections, then you have a good sense of your place and role, and therefore usually a good sense of what type of action you can take that will be effective. On the other hand, if you're new to a group than you will have very few connections and be looking to see how you fit in. That often ends up being to seek a role, but really we should think about it as seeking connections.

Connections are shared passions, recognition of skills, shared insights or maybe just a buddy. Either way, the group defines the niche of the individual as the individual explores the group socially. Its not up to the leader to assign roles or slots, but rather up to the group to reach out and form connections with its members. This makes the group deeper, it makes the group stronger, and if people are connected and welcomed, they will come back, which makes the group bigger.

As we try to build the coalition that will create a just, sustainable and healthy society, we need to remember it means developing connections constantly.

Environmentalism: what does it all mean?

Some of you know that I'm currently travelling to Minnesota for the January Climate Institute, a small conference of student leaders designed to push the bounds of how we see ourselves and the climate movement.

Of all the big, hanging issues out there, the one at the top of the list might be the term 'environmentalism' itself, and all the identities and connotations that tag along. I'm not fan of the term and rarely consider myself an environmentalist, but my reasons for doing so are often inarticulate or boring. Still, I feel it more and more strongly, the need to break free from the values and identity that is ascribed to us so that we can focus on the possibilities the future holds.

Here's a piece of recommended reading: The Failure of Environmentalism: Hurricane Katrina It seems to lack an ending, but other than that it really cuts to the root of why environmentalism is simply an inadequate term and philosophy.

Whether too scientific, too technical or too policy focused, leading environmental thinkers are discovering the fact that global climate change, as an issue, is simply too large for the environmental movement alone. Each of these papers advocated for different coalitions to be formed. Shellenberger and Nordhaus advocated for an alliance with labor, like the Apollo Alliance, and subsuming the goals of environmentalism into the larger progressive movement. Professor Dan Esty, from the Yale School of Forestry, in a debate, argued that environmentalism should stop attacking drivers of SUVs, as they are motivated to protect their children’s wellbeing, and instead focus on the parent’s concerns over their children’s future and the consequences of global warming.[xii] Bill Moyers, in an address to environmental journalists, argued that conservative Christians should be swayed to respond to the issue.

When we look at Katrina,

All of these concerns [about what went wrong with Katrina] are valid, but there is a definite disconnect between all the identified problems and those categorized as “environmental.” One major factor that Katrina reveals is how many constituencies and issues are tied up in the response to the climate crisis. Scientists have warned that storms will get more intense, sea levels will rise, and effects as far-ranging as drought to regional cooling might occur. How to protect humanity and the rest of the ecosystem from these impacts is a question that involves the effectiveness of government, the robustness of infrastructure, the level of education of the public, land-use planning, environmental policy, and social justice.

You really need to read the whole thing (its only about 2 pages).

For me, this is yet another way of rephrasing the question that seems to be constantly on my mind: why is it more important to fight climate change than address any number of other human problems? I guarantee you, whatever answer you have to that question is not going to hold up as well as you want it to.

Activist Project

For the winter study class on climate change activism with Wendy Penner, we need to do a weekly activism project. This week, I published a letter to the editor in the North Adams Transcript

Monday, January 7
To the editor:

I applaud Savoy for approving the wind energy project. This is an important step toward fixing climate change and becoming cleanly energy independent.

Thank you, Bonnie Obremski, for keeping us so well informed on these developments. I am also very glad that Tom Decker, who lives near the Searsburg (Vt.) wind farm, wrote a favorable letter for the Savoy project. Sometimes it takes people who have actually lived near them to reassure us they aren't really that bad.

I spoke with a woman whose front porch looks out at the Jiminy Peak turbine. Her first word in describing it was "pretty." Indeed, the fascination and excitement that has greeted the Zephyr at Jiminy is evident all over the mountain.

As we develop more wind in Massachusetts, hopefully we can convince those opposed to it that it isn't so bad. Cape Wind should be approved soon; there's no excuse. On the local front, Williams College has the financial resources and institutional commitment to build its own wind power on the Taconics. We should work to make such a project happen, now that we know the support for wind is growing in our beautiful, green Berkshires.

Morgan Goodwin

Even better than getting it published, my friend Sam who is the chief custodian for Paresky commended me today on the piece. He called out to me and said that he had enjoyed reading it. Not bad for 5 minutes of work and reading the Transcript now and then.

On a different note, I genuinely meant the praise for Bonnie Obramskie. Her reporting has consistently sought out stories on climate change issues in the purple valley. Thank you Bonnie.

The Fierce Urgency of Now

Record voter turnouts in Iowa and New Hampshire. The candidates, republican and democrat alike are speaking the clean energy language. I'm excited. We've never seen a politics like this in our lifetimes, but clearly something is ready to change.

I support Obama. He has a lot to do with the surge of citizenship that we're seeing and I have incredible respect for a well-run campaign that believes in people, that energizes America and responds to what the people want - clean energy legislation. But I'm not going to go work for Obama. I'm not going to get caught up in the excitement too much because the bottom line is that he isn't going to become Al Gore.

Obama is no climate champion, but he is creating the conditions for the success of the movement. The people who work on the Obama campaign are getting a sense of their own power, and they're getting a sense of how to run an organization. The people who volunteer are getting drawn into politics. The buzz means that we can talk politics with people who never would have before. Lets take advantage of our good fortune and press the fight home. We need bad senators out of office and good ones in. We need ambitious state policies. We need to expand our base at the grassroots. We need more people to become excited about the possibilities for change.

Al Gore says that political will is a renewable resource, and that it is non-linear. We're seeing a non-linear progression right now. Things are changing fast. Big organizations and campaigns can't keep up, but little ones can zip right up to the front.

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.