Yesterday, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar formally announced the creation of an Office of Youth within the Interior Department to create and manage programs that are intended to get youth working outside again.

“The new office will build our programs, expand opportunities for young people, teach them to hunt and fish, and help us coordinate our efforts across the bureaus,” Secretary Salazar said.

It is hoped that these programs will introduce youth from all backgrounds to America's national parks and forests, instilling an ethic of nature conservation and volunteerism, as well as creating new opportunities for employment. Salazar, who headed a similar youth program in Colorado, says, "Still today, I hear from the kids who went through that program –- many tell me they would never have gone to college, let alone landed a job in natural resource stewardship, if it were not for that program."

Heather White, Director of Education Advocacy for National Wildlife Federation, notes that this kind of program will address a vital need to connect kids and families to nature. "In the past 20 years, time spent in the outdoors by youth has been cut in half. Meanwhile, the average 8 to 14 year old spends 6.5 hours a day plugged into some type of electronic media," she says. "Engaging youth outside is important to our public health, our economy, and the future of conservation."

Image credit: stock.xchng/markvanpay

One of the first sessions at this year’s Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference gave community colleges a starring role in preparing students for jobs in a greener economy.

Keith Ratcliff of the Central Piedmont Community College Center for Sustainability began by asking, “Don’t we want our students to learn a skill, to be able to get a job? My son is in college now, and when I ask the school what kind of job he’s going to be able to get, how much money he might make, they don’t have any idea. Think about it, they don’t know what my son’s job prospects will be.”

In the next ten years, Ratcliff said, 75% of American jobs will require a two-year degree. This fits with other studies that claim much of the projected demand in green-collar jobs will be in middle-skilled occupations: those that require some education beyond high school, but not a Bachelor’s degree. The fact that community colleges fit right in this spot, said Ratcliff, is an untapped opportunity. “People are so interested in this issue. After a talk I gave to a bunch of sales and marketing people, many of whom were losing their jobs, they were so excited that they came down to campus and signed up for our training program,” he said. “I’m not making that up.”

Central Piedmont Community College has indeed seen a hike in applicants for the new Associate’s degree program in sustainable technology, which offers students the choice of an emphasis in alternative energy, environmental engineering, sustainable manufacturing, or green building.

Most importantly, said Ratcliff, schools shouldn’t train people for jobs that don’t exist. “When we were launching this program, what I had to do was call over 130 companies, find the right person, tell them about the program, and ask if they would have a need for these students in two years. And these companies told us that they could see that need coming up.” (A recent WorldChanging article shows how some schools have partnered with local workforce boards to do similar research on green employment opportunities.)

The greatest demands in North Carolina, where CPCC is located, are expected to be in research and development, biotech, manufacturing of clean energy components and equipment, clean energy distribution, and construction and maintenance, many of which can be embedded into existing programs at community colleges. “A green engineer or green architect can be trained within the program that already exists, with a few changes,” finished Ratcliff. “You don’t start from ground zero—a person is already an engineer, or a plumber, or an electrician.”

We’re blogging the Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference at University of Maryland today and tomorrow. If you were in any of the sessions, share your notes in the comments.

A new amendment to the 2009 energy bill is designed to fund job training at community colleges in renewable and alternative energy fields.

This amendment, sponsored by Senator Wyden (D-Ore.) would authorize $500 million ($100 million per year for five years) to ensure that workers are ready to create, install and maintain wind, solar, biomass and geothermal projects. Once passed, the bill authorizes the Department of Energy to fund programs at 1,200 American community colleges, with half of the funds going towards schools who already have strong programs in place. 

A letter sent on Monday by National Wildlife Federation to Senators Bingaman and Murkowski, Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, supported the inclusion of provisions for community colleges and stated, "This amendment would establish a community college-based training and education program for sustainable and alternative energy technologies such as wind energy technicians, energy auditors, geothermal energy technicians, and energy efficient construction."

Organizations such as NWF and the American Association of Community Colleges also point out that this amended bill supports education and training for workers in sustainable agriculture and farming. Recent articles in ClimateEdu and the Chronicle of Higher Education have explored the issue of teaching sustainable agriculture, but focused on liberal arts schools like Warren Wilson College and the University of Montana. Community colleges have largely stayed out of the farming arena (Central Carolina Community College being one of a few notable exceptions), but may soon be able to take advantage of federal funds for such projects.

However, such a day is still far off. The New York Times reports that the bill is still in early drafting stages, and due to the inclusion of mandatory limits on carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade market, lacks Republican support.

Our own Xarissa Holdaway has a story at WorldChanging that describes how some California community colleges are experimenting with green-collar training programs.

In many regions, early reports suggest there are not enough workers to meet demand for wind, solar and geothermal projects, while some states find the opposite: that there are more trained professionals than there are jobs. A report from the National Council on Workforce Education states,

"[M]any jobs that are currently, or predicted to be, in demand are ‘middle-skilled’ jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree. It is important to note that although there will be a growing number of new green occupations requiring new knowledge, skills, and abilities, it is expected that the majority will be transformed from existing jobs, requiring a redefinition of skill sets, methods, and occupational profiles."

To more accurately predict when and where workers will be required, not to mention training these workers, she reports that community colleges are turning to local organizations and pioneering a new collaborative model that can "respond to trends in clean and green technology." One such project, the New Energy Workforce (NEW) Initiative, a partnership between Bay Area community colleges and regional workforce investment boards, is able to conduct courses, research employment opportunities, and share successful curricula between schools. 

Kitty O'Doherty, convener of the NEW project, says, "This is a call for new levels of collaboration. We convened the Workforce Investment Boards and the colleges in our region in February, and both groups are extremely committed. They [WIBs] are going to have the funding to place people in these jobs, and we're going to have the training. The common mission of preparing individuals for meaningful careers and creating a well-qualified workforce for our region is a very compelling motivator."

The final event of Power Shift, which took place on a snowy, below-freezing day in Washington, DC, drew thousands of students to the Capitol for pre-scheduled visits to members of Congress.

Christopher Applegate, a Missouri transplant now attending the University of Oklahoma, said that his state has been underrepresented, so he came with a group of ten people to speak with Senator Coburn and Senator Inhofe.

"The biggest issue we’re facing is that they’re trying to get some nuclear energy and some coal plants put up, but Oklahoma already has 708 MW of wind energy and another 126 going on the grid this year, so we're looking for ways to transition to more of that," said Applegate. "Oklahoma has already voted down one coal plant and through grassroots organizing we got rid of another one." He noted that the University of Oklahoma has announced that it will be completely powered by wind energy by 2013.

Lindsay Randall, a graduate of Purchase College in NY who now works as the school's Environmental and Sustainability Coordinator, said, "“It’s incredible, there are 12,000 people here at Power Shift, and that’s just the people who could afford tickets, who could take the time off school. It’s just a fraction of the people who wanted to be here."

The 11 students who came with Randall, most in environmental studies, art and business, went to a meeting with Senator Gillibrand's environmental staffer, Ben Rosenbaum. "When she was Congresswomen, she was a co-sponsor of the state climate act, so we look forward to working with her. I think she’ll be supportive, and that we’re going to be able to make some good progress with her," she said.

Purchase College, a signatory of the President's Climate Commitment, recently completed its greenhous gas inventory. "We're looking at reductions right now," said Randall. "The students are going to be more involved. They learned skills here to organize on campus, and we’re going to do a lot more activism and awareness of federal legislation. We have a really strong non-violent action group on campus, and they’re going to do more."

After the rally and visits were over, many left not for home, but for a protest that ended up at the Capitol coal plant. Carrying signs advocating everything from a no-coal economy to green jobs, students from Power Shift joined groups from Greenpeace, the Chesapeake Climate Action network and other organizations. As they walked, the group of more than 2,500 protestors passed a rival protest from coal supporters that had attracted fewer than 20 people.

Several days earlier, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had announced that the U.S. Capitol Power Plant would be switched to burn only natural gas, a transition that will require significant retrofitting to the equipment that produces 35% of the plant's output from coal. No timeline for this transition has been determined.

During lunch on Saturday, I went from table to table to ask groups of students why they had come to Power Shift and what they were hoping to gain.

Two high school students from Lehman Alternative Community School in Ithaca, NY, were sitting with a friend of theirs who now attends college in Oberlin, OH. Younger than many of the attendees, they were deep in a discussion of the high-speed rail funding in the recently-passed stimulus bill when I interrupted.

At the Lehman school, which brought 16 students to Power Shift, environmental issues are not new. Miroslav Azis, 17, said, "I was at Bioneers By the Bay in October, and I thought it was an amazing experience. My ecology class back at school picked up on this and thought we should go to Power Shift. It’s great to meet people here who are like-minded. We’re still high school students, so we’re drawing a lot from those who are in college, who have already taken economics and other classes, and can talk about it in the workshops."

Lukas Friga, also 17, interjected. "I’m not the most active person in terms of political stuff, but I’m getting a lot out of the workshops that are more about information. I want to go into international relations, so the panels on what’s going to happen at Copenhagen are really interesting to me." He went on to describe other workshops he wanted to attend, most of which were academic in nature, rather than personal. Avis agreed that "there aren't any workshops on how to 'be green.' They're on what issues come up in making green things happen."

When asked what they were planning to take away from the conference, all three said that they hoped they would be better at talking to people who might not be interested in mingling with the environmentalists and social-justice advocates at Power Shift. "This is more of a cultural gathering than anything else," said Friga. "But we need to be able to pull in everyone. Hopefully, we can learn the skills here to go back and talk to the people that don’t want to hug trees. If you say, I know this area is losing jobs, what if you were all to work in x, y, z that’s more sustainable? That’s going to hit a lot more. You don’t want to be a treehugger, you want to be able to say that your ideals have all these logical supports to them, and that’s what we’re here to learn."

Miriam Rothenberg, who attended Lehman last year but now goes to college in Ohio, felt strongly that the impact of Power Shift wouldn't be felt this weekend, but as students dispersed to their separate schools. "There are a lot of people on my campus that are apathetic," she said. "But here I feel like we’re really a force. We have the numbers, and we have the drive, and we have the science to back us up. We all have different backgrounds, but there’s a sense of drawing together to be one unified movement, and then going back out to make all of this happen."

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?"

I'm counting the days until the end of February – and not just because it'll be closer to spring. In a few weeks, I'll be joining 10,000 of my peers at Power Shift 2009 in Washington, DC. -- to talk climate and lobby Congress members to enact the clean energy policies our country needs now.

Environmental conferences take place all the time, but what sets this one apart for me is the chance to see all types of young people with separate interests but a common goal: to take our country's energy economy in a new direction. This year, you'll see high school kids on their gap years and graduate students wrapping up their theses; students from abroad and students who never left the US. They may have different environmental interests, but they all know what's at stake: their futures.



When students gather to discuss global warming at this year's conference on Feb. 27th- March 2, they'll also get a crash course in conservation. They'll discuss how and why some parts of their states are drying, wetlands are shrinking and wildlife species are approaching extinction. They'll strategize on restoring our natural resources for themselves and their children.

Most importantly, they'll be able to pass that knowledge onto their elected officials, urging Congress to make a way for a clean energy economy that they will soon lead – one that will preserve our land and its inhabitants for the future.

Check out the Power Shift blog to hear more about why others are planning on attending --- and keep the momentum going by registering yourself. More students and young people have already committed to attend than Power Shift 2007, and I hope to see you there!

To the surprise of the presenter, Dave Newport of CU-Boulder, this afternoon’s discussion of GHG offsets and Renewable Energy Credits didn’t degenerate into fisticuffs or even a red-faced screaming match. In fact, the discussion was downright welcoming, which is what I’ve come to expect of the attendees of this conference.

Several weeks ago, our feature ClimateEdu article dealt with the different ways that universities and colleges are incorporating renewable energy into their portfolios, whether that’s through installing renewable energy equipment or through purchasing. It’s a touchy issue for most sustainability coordinators, who are intent on conservation, energy efficiency, and on-site generation where possible, but are also coming to terms with the fact that they may not be able to meet their full energy load with such measures. Many schools, in fact, find that they have a large gap to fill, and turn to offset measures to make up the difference. However, the vagaries of the offset and REC market are still not well understood, even by experts, leading to general suspicion and sometimes outright hostility (which is apparently what Dave Newport expected).

Newport used his own campus as an example as he described the pros and cons of purchasing offsets versus RECs. CU-Boulder, which had been purchasing RECs since 2000 (using funds that students voted to add to their semester fees), switched this year to purchasing offsets through the Colorado Carbon Fund. Renewable Energy Credits are simply certificates that assure the purchaser that somewhere, a MWh from renewable sources has been produced and fed into the grid. Newport says, “They have some pros, and that’s why we bought them. But we made a mistake, and we oversold them. We told our president that we’re buying wind power, and then when we tried to explain that there’s no big orange extension cord from a wind turbine to our campus, and that actually we don’t know where that energy went to when it got fed into the grid, we caused a lot of problems. We don’t say that anymore.”

While Newport feels that RECs have had their victories, among them increased market demand for renewable energy and the dismantling of some of the geographical barriers to sustainability, the disadvantages of RECs outweigh the benefits. He lists the public perception of REC’s as a ‘sin tax’, the lack of transparency, a poor sense of closure for buyers, and the lack of added value to the initial investment as cons.

Offsets, by contrast, particularly in the community-based model that CU-Boulder is developing, have the potential to not only reduce emissions, but fuel an ongoing movement.

Newport says, “We are focusing on local projects, and doing some of the labor ourselves. You will be able to ride your bike by and see our solar hot water heaters. We have bilingual students going into low-income neighborhoods to help residents weatherize their homes and save some of the energy costs that are disproportionately heavy on them. We’ll have a biomass plant, and new ways to manage transit. All of these things are creating green jobs, keeping local capital local, and are really good for students. And they’re so visible, we get the confidence from investors to keep doing more. It is about reducing carbon, but it’s just as much about improving people’s lives.”

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.

In the space of an hour, Vandana Shiva, physicist and agricultural activist, managed to connect the oil and human labor inputs required by modern agriculture, the nutritional deficit of monocrops, the dangers of species loss, the moisture depletion of agro-chemically treated fields, the imbalance of grain that goes to factory farms rather than human mouths, obesity and diabetes, US grain subsidies, biofuels, the 160,000 annual suicides of Indian farmers who are finding the monocrop seeds they purchased won't grow, and the mass exodus of families from heritage land. The coherent case that emerged at the end was simple: "We must get people back on the land."

One of several sustainable food experts that have earned attention in recent years, Shiva is in good company. Michael Pollan, Frances Moore Lappe, and even Jane Goodall have spent years studying the American industrial food systems and come to similar conclusions.

While agricultural yields increased dramatically in the mid-1900's, the soil depletion that has resulted makes farmers even more dependent on intensive chemical fertilizer and water inputs. Not only is this problematic for the farmers who are increasingly sensitive to drought and price fluctuation, but fertilizers based on fossil fuels could very soon become impossible to obtain, if declining oil predictions are correct. The answer, says Shiva, is biodiversity. "The delicacy that small-scale farming requires, is the delicacy that encourages biodiversity. And biodiversity makes for healthier food.”

As she spoke, Shiva compared universities—and their status within their communities—to the recent election, making the case that just as President-elect Obama will use his advisors to find solutions to the problems facing the nation, "every campus should make its own transition team for food beyond oil. We can create a food system beyond toxics. Beyond genocide."

In fact, she claimed, food is not only an agricultural issue, but integral to national security and peace. "For me, food is about peace. Peace with nature, peace between communities, and peace with our own bodies. Because we are at war with our bodies now, and food has become ammunition."

She went on to say that universities and colleges, who made major strides in the research that based our current agricultural system on fossil-fuel based fertilizers, have a large share of the responsibility for finding a solution."Campuses have a lot of eaters, and a lot of influence in their community. Wouldn't it be exciting if biology classes planted their own biodiversity plots? Why shouldn't edible schoolyards be on every campus?"

Given the intricacies of the global food system, it's no small demand. Shiva’s final comparison drew a laugh from the audience: “Those guys fiddling with the derivatives that put your economy into this state are like me, they juggle numbers. But wouldn’t it be amazing if they were juggling numbers that would make a better system for us?”

Podcast Interview with Vandana

Vandana Shiva: Why Shouldn't Edible Schoolyards Be On Every Campus?

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.