This Saturday at over 700 locations across the country people are joining hands against offshore drilling. Oil has been gushing into the Gulf for over 60 days, it's time to take our stand!
 
Despite the spill, every year we give Big Oil $10 billion in handouts. That money should be directed towards clean energy investments that can move us beyond oil and provide a needed economic boost to the Gulf.
 

Today is an exciting day - we have a new website!

This site has been a long time in the making. Thanks to everyone who provided thoughts and ideas for what we've created. The site has been intentionally designed so that we can expand on it, adding new features and content, so please continue to contribute as we move forward!

Please take some time to check out the site, and send along any feedback.  A couple of things to be sure not to miss:

In the past two weeks, hundreds of communities had discussions and took action to begin to define our decade with clean energy.

This post comes from Erika Zarowin and the Ohio Student Environmental Coalition.

Over the next six weeks, the Ohio Student Environmental Coalition and young people across the state of Ohio, will be working to “make green a primary color.” We are working to define our decade by putting energy and climate concerns in the middle of the political discussion, and by building support for a clean energy economy that can solve our economic and environmental crises.

The discussions about how to Define Our Decade are taking off in communities around the country. The Weeks of Action are coming up in 2 weeks, but already young people are having discussions about how they want to define their decade, and taking action to make it happen; this past week dozens of young people turned out at a student-called hearing at Michigan State University.  While preparing for the hearing, they had a discussion about what they want to see in the next decade, and then the next day hit the streets calling for MSU to be powered by 100% clean energy by 2020.

All of this comes at a time when the U.S. Senate continues to try to figure out how to proceed with climate and energy legislation. In a Sunday op-ed penned by Thomas Friedman titled “How the G.O.P. Goes Green,” one of the leading figures in crafting legislation, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina acknowledged that he is inspired to take up climate and energy legislation because of young people on college campuses. Graham correctly points out that young voters are driven by deeply-held environmental values, and more lawmakers would be wise to wake up to this, but Graham’s solutions of nuclear and offshore oil-drilling are both counter to our values and economic interests. Every dollar spent on the dirty energy economy, is a dollar that could have created more jobs in the clean energy economy we must create. That’s why in the coming month it’s essential that we, as the Millennial Generation, further define what our vision for a clean energy economy really is.

Already dozens of events are being hosted around the country that will help us do just that. Check out the event registration page for the full listing and see a couple of highlights below:

• At Pennsylvania State University they’ll be constructing the “Foundation of Our Future,” a big art installation that students can write about there demands for clean energy on.
• An open-mic at Murray State Univ (KY) for people to share poetry and vision for the decade!
• Define Our Decade Vermont Kick-off!  On the heels of the Vermont Yankee Nuke Plant decision, and two-years before it’s close date, students at Middlebury College are going to launch their initiative to get a statewide commitment for 100% clean energy!
• Events across the Buckeye State to support Power Vote Ohio in Making Green a Primary Color – they want clean energy candidates to define their future!
   

This post comes from Pittsburgh Student Environmental Coalition and Sasha Shyduroff of the Sierra Student Coalition.

Pittsburgh youth aren’t waiting to kick-off their Define Our Decade efforts.  They launched it this past week with “Rustbelt Renewal: a town hall forum on the promise of a clean energy future.” More than eighty young people and community members engaged with a distinguished panel on the issues of climate legislation and building a clean energy economy.   The four panelists were Congressman Mike Doyle; Patrick McMahon President of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85; Dr. Constantine Samaras of Carnegie Mellon University and RAND Corporation; and Bob Wallace, director of Penn State University’s BioBridge Program.

The panelists touched on the important of educating the masses, changing mindsets around energy usage, and how creating clean energy jobs could boost the local economy. Congressman Doyle explained how “the US will benefit from a green revolution,” and spoke about Pittsburgh’s importance as a hub for the new clean energy economy saying, “there doesn’t have to be a trade-off between a healthy environment and a good economy,” because clean energy jobs are just “good business sense.” The sentiment shared by all panelist was that even if we’re wrong about anthropogenic climate change, we’ll still have made the best economy in the world.

Angela Wiley, a student organizer at Chatham University remarked, “tonight, there was space for education, discourse, and political action — this needs to happen consistently if climate legislation is to be revived in the Senate to support what local governments and independent groups are already trying to accomplish with respect to a clean energy economy.”

Congressman Doyle went as far as to say that “we need a swell of grassroots support” and encouraged to keep the action going and build the dialogue in our communities. That’s exactly what the Pittsburgh Student Environmental Coalition, a new network of  local campuses and other area youth, did by hosting the forum. Forums like these, and hundreds of Define Our Decade events next month across the nation, will make climate and energy part of a real conversation, taking it from a transient topic in the media, to real solutions in our communities.

This Live Blog is cross-posted from ItsGettingHotinHere.org.  Make sure to check it out there to see all the updates and read the 250 comments!

1:54 More to come – don’t think that this is the end of us.  Over 150 people watching live stream.  Thousands of people know what’s going on. Thanks everyone for joining us, please continue to leave comments below.  Gotta run before I get swept away!

I thought you all would like to see this great post from Leslie at CCAN (below) about high schoolers in MD rapidly respoinding and expressing their support for Tuvalu.  We are in the midst of compiling all of the rapid response action, and will have more to share, but this is a great start (haven't reported yet? Do it here!)! 

On the eve of the Copenhagen climate negotiations, as our movement shifts into high gear to get a global deal (and a fair, ambitious, and binding one at that!), I wanted to chronicle and reflect on some of the grassroots action that has been going on (lots of it in just the past week!).

There have been a ton of great posts reflecting on the White House Youth Clean Energy Forum.  One thing that came out of each was how our local leadership both made the meeting possible, and made the meeting successful.  Without the thousands of young people calling on Obama for his leadership, and calling very specifically for a meeting with youth leaders, the meeting never would have happened.  Once in the room, the 150 young leaders from diverse backgrounds had a ton of experience and insight to offer, and were able to demonstrate that there truly is grassroots leadership across the country.  We had campus leaders from dozens of states, community organizers on the frontlines of stopping mountaintop removal mining, field organizers setting up innovative programs to fuel green jobs training with home weatherization, and clean energy entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.

And while we had this impressive cross-section of voices in DC, the action was still happening across the country (and abroad!):

• Young people working with the Maryland Student Climate Coalition and Chesapeake Climate Action Network led a No Coal Rally in Baltimore to oppose proposed transmission lines from West Virginia into their state.  What would be carried on those transmissions lines?  You guessed it, coal power.  Check out this great video they produced and keep a special eye out for youth voices Zainab and Zoe.
   
• Students from across Connecticut hit up the office of Senator Lieberman this past Friday to deliver two very important messages: as a chief architect of climate legislation, he must ensure that the authority of the EPA is not gutted and that his state maintains clean and healthy air, and that our targets and timelines must be in-line with what science demands and lead us to 350 ppm.  Check out their boldness in the above video.
   
• At University of Missouri, students wasted no time in protesting anti-climate statements by their President Gary Forsee, immediately taking to the streets calling for clean energy and their President to not issue statements not reflective of the students or university. Chants of "Forsee has no foresight" could be heard around campus!

• And this is only the beginning: Kentucky Students held a coordinated day of action to move their campuses beyond coal, the Leadership Campaign continues to build in Massachussets, young people in the NW aren't letting up against natural gas - this is the story of our movement: ever expanding, relentless, and everywhere.