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NEWS & LETTERS, February 2008 - March 2008Climate teach-insMemphis, Tenn.--The climate change movement burst onto the scene in the last two years and catapulted a marginal issue into the political spotlight, forcing over 20% of U.S colleges and universities to sign pacts to promote carbon neutrality. Today, unlike past years, every major Presidential candidate is mentioning and endorsing an aggressive plan--supported by almost all climate scientists, who see it as the baseline for mitigating the worst effects of global warming--to reduce carbon use 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. This change was largely accomplished by the development of a broad-based student-led movement that include the 1Sky campaign, the Powershift 2007 Conference, and 1,900 Climate Change Teach-ins on Jan. 31. The 1Sky campaign's agenda is 1) the creation of a 5 million-strong Clean Energy Job Corps; 2) the reduction of greenhouse gases to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050; and 3) a moratorium on new coal plants and divestment from fossil fuel and highway subsidies. While not revolutionary, the agenda is more aggressive and broader in scope than mainstream environmentalism, which has been hesitant to take the petro-chemical industrial complex head on and has totally ignored workers working in polluting industries. At the University of Memphis (U of M) Teach-in, over 40 students and professors attended, first hearing Democratic Representative Steve Cohen. Following his party leaders Cohen might go along with the Green Corps or carbon reduction goals, but not eliminate subsidies for petro-chemical and highway consortiums. The next speakers were Allan Lummus, Adjunct Professor of Sociology at U of M, and Caledonia Allen from the U of M Environmental Action Club. Allan said that the success of climate change as a public/political issue is largely due to the student-led movement that brought it to light; and that it has the potential to change the direction of the less radical environmental movement because of its inclusion of environmental justice and economic justice concerns. He concluded with a quote from Frederick Douglass: "'Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.' Demand your dreams. Demand that we all live up to them. Demand it now." Caledonia reported the student success in creating a green fee ($10 from their student fees) to go to sustainability issues on campus. U of M now has $200,000 waiting to be disbursed. There are more imaginative ways to use those green fees, that over 500 campuses now possess, to reshape campuses. In the process of working them out, we might get a glimpse of what a new, more sustainable world might look like; one that is not only ecologically sustainable, but that is humanly sustainable as well. That kind of vision could help propel a true revolution. --Environmental Justice Activist |
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