On April 15-18, over 10,000 sustainably-minded students came together in Washington, D.C. for the largest youth environmental summit in the country, and five of them represented Puget Sound.
The biennial Power Shift summits bring young people from around the country together with the goal of reclaiming democracy from big corporations and moving our nation away from harmful energy practices.
Annie Bigalke, Emerson Sample, Teddi Hamel, Elin Binck and Jeremiah Firman were lucky enough to attend Power Shift 2011, the third and largest Power Shift summit to date.
Power Shift is a product of the Energy Action Coalition, an association of youth-led environmental and social justice groups that support the U.S. youth clean energy movement. The conference “is a mission to recruit 10,000 youth leaders from every walk of life to be on the front lines in the fight for a clean energy future” (powershift2011.org).
More specifically, it gives students and activists a chance to celebrate their grassroots success stories, hear from movement leaders and learn from and teach each others to launch new campaigns.
As a member of Students for a Sustainable Campus (SSC) at Puget Sound, Sample saw Power Shift as an opportunity to strengthen the club.
“SSC is trying to become more of a project-oriented club that will be able to produce events and more concrete differences and one of the main goals of Power Shift is to show students how to organize and come together as part of a movement,” Sample said. “This is an opportunity I would have been silly to pass up.”
But Puget Sound attendees weren’t just there to listen. They also facilitated various “movement building sessions” for other student participants in which they offered training in techniques to organize others and create effective grassroots movements.
In order to prepare for their roles as facilitators, the students took part in a series of four online orientation workshops. These workshops outlined the goals of Power Shift and offered advice on how to best lead the small groups.
Upon their return to campus, the students plan to channel the knowledge and enthusiasm they picked up at the conference toward improving campus sustainability.
Although Puget Sound attendees had planned to personally fund the trip, they were surprised to garner financial support from multiple on and off campus groups.
The Environmental Policy & Decision Making Program offered financial aid, as did the South Sound Policy Institute. They were also supported by ASUPS and the Sustainability Advisory Committee.
In order to acquire funding, the students persuaded their would-be supporters of the benefits of their attendance at the conference. “We explained that it would give us the tools to be better organizers, build a more sustainable campus and represent UPS on a national level,” Bigalke said.
The first Power Shift summit took place in Nov. 2007 at the Univ. of Maryland and drew a crowd of over 6,000 young people. Power Shift 2009 brought twice as many students to D.C., representing every state and Congressional District in the country.
The 2009 summit was so successful it even gained notice from prominent political figures like EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.
This year’s conference included an extensive two-day “boot camp” in which attendees learned the best ways to become active in critical environmental campaigns. Through a series of workshops, students learned the importance of catalyzing a clean energy economy, transforming higher education into a clean energy advocate and campaigning techniques for community environmental rights.
Conference highlights included opening keynote speeches from Al Gore and activist Van Jones on Friday. An environmental film series was ongoing throughout the weekend, as were a number of workshops and panels with leaders from the clean energy movement.
Attendees networked and gained professional insight at the job and organization fair, and rounded out the weekend with closing speeches from EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and 350.org founder Bill McKibben.
On Monday, students were encouraged to gather on the National Mall to protest for clean energy legislation. A lobbying session followed in which students and citizens were able to meet with their respective state representatives and promote environmental legislation.
“I’m hoping that those of us from UPS will be able to bring some of the energy, organization, and motivation from the weekend back to our campus to share with others and make a difference on our campus,” Binck said.
“I am excited to be one of those people who can come back with a whole new perspective on how to build change towards a greener campus.”
[PHOTO COURTESY / POWERSHIFT2011.ORG]
