Over 300 young people and students showed up at Lansing last weekend for Power Shift Michigan, an event intended to give activists, students, and community members a chance to take action on climate issues. Power Shift events are also taking place in other states this fall, such as Virginia and Missouri, all following up from the national Power Shift conference and rally that took place at the beginning of the year and brought more than 12,000 young people to the U.S. Capitol.

During a rally on Sunday, October 11th, Michigan students marched to the state capitol, carrying banners which said, “Senators Stabenow and Levin: We Want Bold Climate Action Now” and “Michigan wants Green Jobs Now.” Participants also signed hundreds of post cards and wrote letters to the two Senators, telling them that the youth of Michigan want strong, comprehensive climate legislation in 2009.

Not content with carrying signs, students also incorporated community service projects into the weekend's activities: 

• A bike co-op was started for the City of Lansing: two days after the conference the Power Shift committee was told that people have already begun to use the co-op for alternative transportation methods
• An urban garden was planted that the Michigan State University students will help maintain
• GreenNation was launched to address social equity through the green movement

Power Shift Michigan was covered by The Collegiate, Central Michigan Life, BusinessLansing, The State News, WLNS, and The Detroit News. The Power Shift Michigan site also has video uploads and blog entries about the event. 

Responsibility is in the air at this weekend’s Bioneers conference. The attendees are, by and large, concerned about the impact they and their organizations exert on a stressed planet, and perhaps no one feels more culpable than teachers and education leaders.

During yesterday’s Education for Action session, Jim Baizer, science policy advisor at Arizona State University, said, “We work at institutes that are creating future leaders. They are coming up with economies that crash and lose $13 trillion. We are responsible for all these people and all these ideas.”

If higher education’s job is to prepare students for the world ahead, panelists and speakers seemed to suggest, it has so far failed to meet the challenge.

But no one is giving up. Tony Cortese, founder and president of Second Nature, said, “This is the first time in higher education that I’ve seen people saying that we need to be the first to try something and figure it out, rather than wait around and see who else can work it out first. Of course, sometimes when we try to solve a problem, we cause worse problems, because we think too much in the short-term. What we need to do is get people to look at multiple consequences, in an interdisciplinary and long-term way.”

The all-day session included workshop time for small groups, in which 70 or so faculty, administrators and students broke out to devise solutions on their specific campuses, or tell stories of projects that had already demonstrated success. One standout was UC-Santa Cruz, which has been pioneering a project that gets students to spend a semester researching a solution to a problem in their community and presenting the results to university staff.

Crystal Durham, executive director of the California student Sustainability Coalition, said, “We’ve probably saved millions of dollars in consulting fees by using the curriculum. Students run a research-based class that solves a problem. For example, they might say they want more recycling on campus. So they spend a semester working to understand how the local waste management system works, bringing in someone to talk, finding out how the university could make this happen, then at the end of the semester they present their results.” The class gives students real work to do that not only prepares them for their careers and incorporates environmental literacy into the curriculum, but also moves the school towards climate neutrality.

This is the most immediate way to influence students, said participants: the college must walk the walk toward climate-neutrality and involve youth in the process. Most attendees were already familiar with the President’s Climate Commitment, either because their school had signed, or because they were campaigning to get their president on board. More than 650 college presidents have signed, out of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S.

The importance of the Commitment, said Cortese, is that it moves beyond the historical segregation of environmental studies from the rest of the university: “When universities have done environmental work historically, what they’ve done is create environmental studies departments, which reach 5% of the students, and create more specialists. What’s great about the PCC is that it moves beyond these models.”

For everyone in the room, moving their institutions towards climate neutrality was a priority. Amber Katherine, a professor of philosophy at Santa Monica College, made the point that schools can no longer ignore the urgency of rising greenhouse gas emissions and increasing water, food, and resource scarcities. “What must we do at one minute to midnight?” she asked. “There is no time left, and excuses aren’t acceptable.”

Last night, I attended The Imagen Foundation Awards with Chill Out producer Melinda Esquibel of Mundo Maravilla, director Melissa Balin of the Brookturn Company, and NWF board member Lyvier Conss. (That's them with me and Jose Yenque in the photo at right.) The evening was filled with awards for amazing and talented actors, writers, agents, and a legendary civil rights and social justice leader.

Chill Out was nominated for “Best National Informational Programming” for the positive portrayal of Latinos and Latino culture in the entertainment industry. It's the first webcast to be nominated for this prestigious award, and we were up against four other incredible programs about varying topics. We didn't win, but we were so thrilled to be nominated and attending the ceremony.

A few highlights of the night included meeting Jose Yenque, one of the talented actors featured in the Chill Out webcast. Jose has been a great supporter and was so excited to be a part of our program, as it is such an important issue. We met the beautiful and young actress Caitlin Sanchez, the voice of Dora the Explorer. Tom Cruise surprised everyone by showing up to give one of the awards. Benjamin Bratt, Robert Orci, Jimmy Smits, Judy Reyes, Silvio Horta, Wilmer Valderrama, Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and so many more incredible actors, writers, producers and executives were there.

Of all the amazing women attending the awards, one stood out among the rest—national civil rights leader and humanitarian Dolores Huerta. She was being honored with the 2009 President’s Award for her work in social justice. Dolores has been a leader in the community for 50 years, co-founding the United Farm Workers of America and advocating that people transform their lives by becoming leaders in their own communities. The Dolores Huerta Foundation’s mission is to inspire and organize sustainable communities.

The Imagen Foundation Awards was a great time to celebrate the amazing and creative Latinos in entertainment and in the community, and we were honored to be recognized by an organization that supports the same goals as we do: a fair, diverse society that takes care of its people and environment.

Our Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warming program has been nominated for an award from The Imagen Foundation for its positive portrayals of Latinos and Latino culture in entertainment.  NWF is thrilled to be nominated for this prestigious award! The Chill Out webcast was shown on over 400 college campuses this year and showcased the winning campuses of the Chill Out competition. 

The winning campuses have amazing projects and initiatives on campus to reduce global warming emissions.  The initiatives range from a strong transportation plan to a fuel cell power plant that powers part of the campus. 

The broadcast is narrated by an all-star cast of students, faculty and staff and a broad range of advocates and activists in today’s environmental movement, including: Academy Award-Winning producer Lawrence Bender; actor Courtney Gains ("Sibling Rivalry"); musician and composer Ethan Gold; comedian and host of Planet Green’s "Wa$ted" Annabelle Gurwitch; musician Nick Jago, Actor Efren Ramirez ("Napoleon Dynamite"); actor Alisa Reyes (Nick’s “All That”); Founder and CEO of Karmaloop.com Greg Selkoe; director, screenwriter and actress Angela Shelton; actor and stuntman Isaac Singleton Jr.; producer, first president of eBay and founder of Participant Media Jeff Skoll; Tony-Award-winning poet "Poetri" Smith; actor Douglas Spain (HBO’s "Walkabout"); actor Michael Welch ("Twilight"); actor Jose Yenque ("Traffic"); and actor Shawn-Caulin Young ("Dreams and Shadows"), and music by Austin band The Steps.

Chill Out is a low carbon footprint production, going well beyond the industry’s sustainable filmmaking guidelines, and has been recognized by the Environmental Media Association’s  Green Seal Program for using the film industry’s best environmental practices.

The awards will be presented at a black-tie dinner gala on Friday, August 21^st at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. Check back Friday night to see if we won!

Day two of the Butte annual sustainability conference opened with a special keynote featuring Ken Grossman, Owner and President of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company – a very popular company with the Butte crowd! Grossman, an alumni of Butte, gave an impressive overview of all the sustainability practices in place at the Brewery, such as the recycling or reusing of almost all waste (99% of waste is diverted from the landfill), using motion sensor lights throughout the buildings, a 10,000 plus panel (solar) structure, and a cattle partnership with Chico State University where the cows are fed spent grain, spent yeast, and even spent beer from the brewing process. The Brewery also captures CO₂ emissions, compressing and cleaning them and using the carbon dioxide as fuel in the dispensing process. Sierra Nevada also has two sustainability coordinators to monitor practices and look for new opportunities.

A second presentation by Dr. Randal Beeman from Bakersfield College, a professor of history, talked about the role of the government in sustainability in history. Dr. Beeman highlighted a couple of ecological crises from the past – the dust bowl and the flooding of the Mississippi and Tennessee river valley in the 30’s. He says the U.S. has always reacted to crisis, instead of preparing for a crisis. The message? Let’s prepare for the warming climate by building a sustainable society –- sustainable homes, campuses and communities with sustainable practices. He emphasized that sustainability, specifically sustainable agriculture, needs to sustain both people and the land and support their regeneration.

Yvonne Christopher, faculty member for construction inspection at Butte College, shared her plans for a 12-building scenario village that will break ground this fall. This village will be built with green features and used for training purposes for local fireman and police, as well as Butte students interested in green building careers and construction.

Butte currently offers courses in energy efficiency and renewable energy, green building technologies and practices, and a green building and LEED certification course.

Kristy Jones is reporting from the 3rd Annual Butte College Sustainability Conference, in Oroville, California.

Butte College’s 3rd annual sustainability conference opened with a welcome from the school’s president, Dr. Diana Van Der Ploeg. Her speech exhorted attendees to remember that sustainability is as much a national security issue as an environmental one, and that the shift is necessary for society.

Speaking to the 250 conference attendees here in Oroville, California, Dr. Ploeg described her work at Butte, managing a 928-acre campus (80 acres is reserved for farm use, and there is also a wildlife refuge) and serving approximately 20,000 students a year. The college, located on a wildlife refuge, is committed to sustainability - it uses LEED metrics in all building projects, is powered by 50 percent renewable energy, and incorporates sustainable practices into many other areas of the campus. Dr. Ploeg drives a Prius to the office every day.

Dr. Ken Meier, Butte’s Vice President of Student Learning & Economic Development, also presented, and touched on Butte’s culture of change that focuses on three primary aspects: social equity, environmental stewardship, and economic development. He says a fourth needs to be added – community. He says the role of the American community college is to work with and engage the community, and to serve as an example. “Sustainability it not possible without community involvement,” he said.

The first day of the conference featured speakers from Ohlone College, the Los Angeles Community College District, San Mateo Community College, Bakersfield College, and Co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Price Dr. Woodrow W. Clark II was the afternoon keynote speaker, presenting “On Climate Change and the Future.” 

One of the favorite presentations came from an Ohlone graduate, currently a student at UC Berkeley, on eco-behavior, hoping to answer the question – what does it take to change people’s behavior? Maria Javier surveyed several groups of students, finding that:

• The environment in which a person grows up seems to have a huge impact on how a person lives as an adult. For example, a student surveyed that grew up in Ohio, in a community that had a strong conservation ethic, was a better steward of the environment as an adult than other students surveyed that grew up in communities without a strong conservation ethic.
• Laziness or perceived threats to “luxury of life” are common reasons why people don’t behave in sustainable ways.
• If behavior is going to change, education is vital, we need government policies that enforce sustainable practices, and economic incentives or disincentives need to be instituted.

Maria also highlighted a site on eco-behavior, Fostering Sustainable Behavior – Community-based Social Marketing, which consists of five resources for those working to foster sustainable behaviors in conservation, energy efficiency, transportation, waste reduction, and water efficiency.

After a day packed full of presentations, attendees had the opportunity to tour the sustainable fields at Lundberg Family Farms.

Kristy Jones is reporting from the 3rd Annual Butte College Sustainability Conference, in Oroville, California.

Power Shift, a conference and lobby event that aimed to bring 10,000 young people to the Capitol to take action on climate change and environmental degradation, took a turn for the socially-aware at last night's opening keynote speeches.

Almost 12,000 t-shirted twenty-somethings filed into the hall, sometimes breaking out into spontaneous cheers or songs. About 2,000 more people had registered than Jessy Tolkan and other members of the Energy Action Coalition had hoped, and they filled the room to capacity. Buses were unloading more groups from colleges and youth groups all over the country until just before the session opened. The event is being cited as the largest gathering on climate change and clean energy in the history of the US; more people are in attendance here than were at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali in December 2007.

For a group that considers itself the most tolerant and most diverse environmental movement in the nation, it was no surprise that opening speakers didn't restrict their remarks to increasing atmospheric CO2 or ocean acidification. Instead, Lisa Jackson of the EPA, Ken Salazar of the Department of the Interior, Majora Carter, Mayor Rocky Anderson, Van Jones, Clayton Thomas-Muller and others elaborated on the idea that environmental work cannot be delegated to any one group, nationality or ethnicity.

Majora Carter, an environmental activist from the South Bronx who has spent years on a "Greening the Ghetto' campaign, told stories of the pollution in the neighborhoods where she grew up, and the diabetes, asthma, and other health problems caused by manufacturing and energy plants in the Bronx. "Our pollution-based economy is built on the subsidies on the health of poor people," she said. She urged the audience to put a stop to mountaintop coal removal and other community-harming sources of fuel, to meet opponents with love and companionship, and find safe, fair work for those currently employed in coal or other industries. "Environmental justice," she said, "is civil rights for the 21st century."

Overwhelmingly, the crowd signaled their commitment to working with government and other organizations to find solutions to climate problems. One of the loudest cheers of the night went to Ken Salazar, who promised that the Department of the Interior would "appoint thousands of young people to restore America. We'll have the best youth conservation corp the world has ever seen!"

Van Jones also noted the importance of "adding to the world" rather than taking things out of it. "If all we do is take away the dirty powers in the system and stick a solar panel on it, but don't deal with our water, or the way we treat each other, we'll have biofueled bombers, and be fighting over lithium for the batteries," he said. "We can be locusts or we can be honeybees," he finished. "Will our work be a scourge on this planet or a blessing on this generation?"

Sustainability is rarely defined as a single-entity problem, especially when considering recent economic and political traumas. Gordon Rands of Western Illinois University and Mark Starik of George Washington University argued in one of this morning's sessions that a university's plan for sustainability should be taken far beyond the campus border.

Rands says, "An entity can become sustainable on its own, but it can’t remain that way." He went on to stress that without a larger context and a fully sustainable climate (environmental or cultural), even the most exciting higher education projects will be unsuccessful.

For example, a green business is unlikely to survive without competitors' willingness to make similar efforts, as their lower costs will cause the eco-minded company to fail. A college, even one running on renewable energy and stable supply systems, could find itself an island without the involvement of the surrounding town. Unless the local channels for food, telecommunications, energy, transportation, medical care, housing, and other provisions are as able to weather a crisis as the university itself, a few wind turbines and even carbon-neutrality will be ultimately meaningless.

Rands and Starik propose, instead, that a holistic view of higher education would work on five levels:

--Ecological: Ensure the viability and environmental-friendliness of the waste systems, products, and energy that support the university.

--Individual: Members of the institution must be invested and participating, whether that's through following a recycling policy, making sustainability knowledge an integral part of the curriculum. or inventing new storage technology for a solar array.

--Organizational: Make sure that your partners support your work, eg. forming strong industrial ecology arrangements or working with your local town for commuting programs.

--Political: Engage in political mechanisms, such as lobbying, trade associations, and media organizations to affect policy and public information.

--Socio-cultural: Use the university's stature in its community to increase the involvement of off-campus citizens and create a broad culture of sustainability.

The idea that a university has an obligation to the wider community is not new, but is usually considered in terms of thought leadership -- research and innovation will eventually trickle down to the populace, even if no direct conversation takes place. However, Rands and Starik suggest that the university itself do more to collaborate with its neighbors, making everyone greener in the process.

Rands says, "This is still on a conceptual basis. At WIU, we've made some operations changes, but that's pretty much it so far. The model, however, started with business and could easily be aimed at government as well. It's just a way to think about all of this."

We are recapping AASHE: Sustainability on Campus and Beyond as it happens. If you were at the sessions we're covering, weigh in with your comments below. Or see others' blogs, photos and Twitter updates on the AASHE live page.

Today's environmentalism has been called a 'Third Wave.' Unlike the conservation ethic of the early 1900s, or the calls for anti-pollution regulation and the mass nostalgia for a more agrarian past in the 1970s, we are now looking at a fully globalized world, in which the decline of one nation would send shockwaves through the rest of the world, due to our linked economies, limited natural resources and shared climate.

Therefore, says Lester Brown, author of Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, "Sustainable development is not a sexy term, but a sound concept. You hear a lot about a 'more sustainable this,' or a 'less sustainable that.' But the reality is, we're sustainable or we're not. The only way to avoid decline and collapse is a sustainable economy--a sustainable civilization."

The idea was met with cheers from the audience, a group 1,700 strong from universities and colleges all over the country, most of whom have spent years if not decades trying to make their colleges greener, and their students prepared for a world of rapidly shifting priorities and problems.

In fact, Brown went farther than most, calling for emissions reductions of 80% by 2020, a far more ambitious goal than any politician or even most academics have dared. He claims that actions this drastic might be the only way to save Asian glaciers (which provide the irrigation for vast sectors of the world's grain market) and the Greenland ice sheet. In this new environmentalism, action is no longer just about saving polar bears, but about preserving our own global society.

The question of necessity is no longer on the table. And judging by the enthusiasm of the audience, the question of "how," at least when it comes to higher education, will be the meat of the next two days.

We are recapping AASHE: Sustainability on Campus and Beyond as it happens. If you were at the sessions we're covering, weigh in with your comments below. Or see others' blogs, photos and Twitter updates on the AASHE live page.

Hundreds of colleges and universities, schools and businesses all across the world are hosting the National Wildlife Federation’s second annual broadcast, Chill Out: Campus Solutions to Global Warming as part of their series of activities leading up to Earth Day on April 22. The Chill Out competition and awards program continues the National Wildlife Federation’s tradition of recognizing and celebrating innovative solutions to global warming on our nation’s campuses. The inspirational examples illustrate how it is possible to dramatically reduce our use of fossil fuels and human impact on the climate to achieve what the science is necessary: a minimum 2% annual reduction in CO2 emissions.

For example, Butte College in Oroville, California expects to be carbon neutral by 2015 without relying on carbon credits by employing solar panels and fuel cells for energy storage; the University of Missouri has grown by 60% but has reduced energy consumption by 19%; students at the University of Montana have taken 1,000 cars off the road every day through green transportation policies; Cascadia Community College and the University of Washington-Bothel are sequestering carbon dioxide and protecting wildlife through extensive habitat restoration; and students at the Berkshire School in Massachusetts capped carbon emissions and trade allowances among the residences.

As noted by moderator, Andrew Lee, a member of the National Wildlife Federation’s Youth Advisory Council and former Campus Ecology Fellow, “we have a moral responsibility to lead, especially in the US, where we have only about 5% of the world’s population, but use almost 25% of the world’s energy resources. Our colleges and universities are among the wealthiest in the world and are recognizing more and more that our higher education institutions bear a profound responsibility to lead.”

Host sites include colleges and universities, high schools, schools and businesses in the US, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Canada, China, India, Iran and Syria. An additional 150 sites or more are anticipated to host the program in the month of April 2008 and beyond. To date, Chill-Out is the only nationwide program with a global reach that specifically showcases solutions to global warming on US campuses.

Media coverage of the 2008 program includes radio, on-line and print news, blogs and websites. See: AOL Money and Finanance, Chronicle of Higher Education, WBEN 930 AM, Citizen Tribune, Green BayPress Gazette (Wisconsin), Charlotte.com, Climate Change Solutions, Stonyfield Farm. The program is sponsored by Stonyfield Farm, Climate Counts, and the Kendeda Fund. Presenting partners include the National Association of Campus Activities (NACA), the Earth Day Network, and the Energy Action Coalition’s Campus Climate Challenge.

Image by Fritz Myer, all rights reserved.