Powershift

I love photo petitions and PowerShift comes up with another great one for it's new campaign: Smile for 350 Action and Climate Change on Oct. 24. The concept is great because it is more than just writing a note and taking a picture with it. Folks are encouraged to make write-out "350" in some way. In Indialantic, Florida, local organizer Ray is encouraging folks to "Bring natural items from central Florida to create a 350 SOS on the beach at dawn on Oct. 24th. Anything you like, Shells, rocks, sticks, plants, etc."

Photo credit: 350.org

But what is the importance of 350? It has to do with the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, apparently 350 ppm (part per million) is the lowest bound and we're currently at 390 ppm! From TreeHugger.com on the importance of the 350 number:

For one thing, we're already past it, at 390 ppm and rising two ppm annually--that's why the Arctic is melting. For another thing, it means the work nations and individuals must do to reduce their carbon footprints is much larger, and must happen much more swiftly, than we'd believed. Hansen's data shows that as a planet we'd need to get off coal by 2030 in order for the planet's forests and oceans ever to bring atmospheric levels back down below 350--that's the toughest economic and political challenge the earth has ever faced.

But it's not as if we have a choice. The most useful thing about having a number is that it forces us to grow up, to realize that the negotiations that will happen later this fall in Copenhagen aren't really about what we want to do, or what the Chinese want to do, or what Exxon Mobil wants to do. They're about what physics and chemistry want to do: the physical world has set its bottom line at 350, and it's not likely to budge.

More details on the campaign from here including a nice interactive map displaying over 1,000 local events.

How will you show your 350?

Lots of stuff today hitting on the relationship between technology and democracy. Enjoy!

• Sam Stein details the rise of thirteen year old Jonathan Krohn, the latest excuse for the GOP to not have to do anything to court the youth vote. Check him out here.
• Micah Sifry's post on the complexity of user rights on Facebook.
• At tech President, Nancy Scola examines the governing tension inherent in Facebook's relationship with its users and vice versa.
• Adam Green argues that Facebook, in order to become the ultimate organizing tool, needs to eliminate a few self-imposed barriers first. One of those involves the group mass-email policy.
• More Micah: Sifry examines the larger, philosophical questions regarding the 'net's impact on democracy.
• "Youthanized" is a documentary short from Project Youthanize that examines something which we discuss on this blog quite frequently -- the transition from youth-led, street protest-based activism in the 1960s to youth-led, digitally-inspired activism today.
• Glenn Hurowitz's discussion of the Powershift Conference, focusing on one member of a group of young climate activists that Glenn Beck describes as "Hitler youth," Meg Imholt.
• Rock the Vote announces the premiere of Rock the Vote Radio -- a weekly 30 minute, roundtable discussion centered on politics and current affairs, with a rotating panel of young adults. Check it out!
• More testimony to the "parasitic nature" of student loans.
• Rev. Lennox Yearwood sounds a call for action among America's youth, given the increased importance in governance over elections. I wish Tom Friedman sounded more like this.
• Where is Obama's CTO? A Politico article asks the question and searches for the answer.
• Mayor Daley of Chicago has a YouTube channel.

This is a guest post from Nate Lowenthiel, the Executive Director of The Roosevelt Institution, a national, student-run think tank.

Judging from PowerShift ’07, the hippies are back. While panelists are discussing green-collar job growth, messaging and the role of corporate America in combating global warming, attendees are circling up on the grass quads, tossing Frisbees and bemoaning the lack of activism on campus.

As I write this, George Lakoff is running late for my third panel session of the day. With the stage open, a corporate CEO trainer steps up and begins exhorting us to use courage and conviction in our battle for the environment. The room is led deep into meditation, our eyes closed. The trainer repeats “I do not have an internal guidance system.” “I do have an internal guidance system.” On the third “I Do,” we open our eyes, and a collective sigh of relief rises. Everyone looks around and smiles.

When Lakoff finally arrives and starts discussing messaging and the way to build support among conservatives for environemtnal issues, students slowly head to the door. A junior tentatively raises his hand, “I just don’t get it—why don’t they care?”

The Lakoff panel is one of 30 or so concurrent sessions running for three days on end. The conference is fantastically well-organized. Almost 6,000 students made the trek to the University of Maryland from all over the country, and the planners managed to deal with transportation, housing and the 1250-acre maze that is the University of Maryland at College park. This monumental achievement costs hundreds of thousands of dollars donated by foundations, corporations and individuals. The goal is to “create a path for young people to lead” environmental change. There are enough training sessions to educate a small army of activists, with an emphasis on recruitment, value messaging, and coalition building.

The conference is working to foster a new sense of professionalism and creativity in the environmental movement. Many top speakers are from organizations like the Apollo alliance, which works to create a broad-based environmental movement that appeals to working class America through an emphasis on innovation, technology investment and growth.

Unfortunately, most of the attendees are from the outdated save-the-polar-bears school of thought. Complaining about pollution, deforestation the general lack of ecological sensitivity has been the mainstay of the environmental movement for decades, and the newest generation of leaders seems bent embracing this well-beaten, circular path.

Serious change will require a broad-based consensus, one that goes far beyond college campuses and the coasts. And building that consensus will require a sensitivity to the complexity of environmental policy, a frank recognition of the need for trade-offs, and a willingness to work with many diverse groups and coalitions. The conference organizers made a concerted effort to move in this direction. Saturday’s morning sessions included time for “affinity groups” where diverse students could gather together and build communities. Expert discussants are encouraging students to move forward with pragmatic campus reforms. The Energy Action Coalition, who put together the conference, consciously reached out to a wide range of schools, including commuter colleges in the south, community colleges in the south-west, and state schools from around the country.

The tie-dyed filled rooms suggest this effort was largely wasted. The lack of diversity could be read in a number of ways. Perhaps outreach was still limited, or the location in Washington encouraged more Northeasterners. The more likely explanation, however, is also the more depressing one. The environment is still a special-interest issue, one that appeals to relatively narrow electorate. Needless to say, the Phish-show like atmosphere of the conference doesn’t inspire much hope for the future. Perhaps flying in dedicated activists to an environmental lovefest isn’t the most productive step forward.