Crossposted from WeArePowerShift.org
On April 5-7, the Virginia Alliance for a Cleaner Environment (VACE) and CCAN hosted a leadership summit in Richmond for students from around the state to gather and develop a long-term vision for what a unified climate movement across our campuses looks like in Virginia.
By IJ Chan
JMU students and Harrisonburg residents are joining the national fight against the Keystone XL pipeline.
The 2,147 mile long Keystone XL pipeline currently brings crude oil from Canada to the U.S. Midwest. A 1,700-mile long extension would carry the oil through to Texas. Many people nationwide are concerned that the installation of the pipeline would bring devastation to the environment by severely polluting the air, water and soil with excessive carbon emissions.
The following blog post was originally posted under the title, “dear legislators…” on the ClimateHoward Blog: http://climatehoward.wordpress.com/. It was written by Elisabeth Hoffman.
So, we are taking stock. On the downside: The fracking moratorium legislation for Maryland fell one vote short of getting out of its Senate committee during this General Assembly session.
On the plus side: The Senate committee at least voted. And the vote was sooo close.
And, we are not going away. Or giving up.
That was the message from more than 150 concerned Marylanders at yesterday’s rally in front of the State House in Annapolis. In the pointed words of Mike Tidwell, Chesapeake Climate Action Network’s director, we told legislators: You had better “get to work” to protect communities, the environment and the climate from fracking.
The rally, organized by CCAN, included parents and grandparents, college and high school students and teachers (including a group from Glenelg Country School in Howard County), a couple of babies in backpacks and strollers, nurses and other activists, and Western Maryland residents who live in areas that would be drilled or where natural gas compressor stations are planned.
One of the biggest lessons of the day, though, came from Lois Gibbs, who organized her Love Canal neighbors in the late 1970s when toxic waste buried under their homes and schools started making people sick.
When signs aren’t allowed, demonstrations need permits, and your legislators aren’t hearing what you have to say, sometimes the only thing you can do is dance. And that’s what dozens of students did in Richmond today, as they stormed the State Capitol with a flash mob.
*Cross-posted from We Are Powershift.org*
Virginia students are at it once again! This summer, CCAN’s internship program has expanded to college campuses, and interns are working on the campaign to expose Dominion-Virginia Power all over the state. They are working on a variety of things, including gathering petitions, writing letters to the editor, and building networks of CCAN activities in their communities and on their campuses. The students are excited, because this is the first chance some have had to finally take action on saving the climate. Indeed, this excitement becomes especially relevant when you look at their results. In the last week of June alone, the on-campus team collected over 200 petition signatures asking Dominion to fulfill its clean energy commitments with real, Virginia-made renewable energy.
–Cross-posted at WeArePowershift.org
Last Saturday, 350.org and other similarly-minded groups organized a Climate Impacts Day (climatedots.org), where activists throughout the country “connected the dots” between climate change and its associated impacts. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) coordinated with many of these activists in Maryland and Virginia to facilitate their events. In Virginia, CCAN worked with student groups to highlight important climate sources and impacts on or near their campuses.
-Crossposted at WeArePowershift.org
Students at the College of William and Mary assembled at a Bank of America location in Williamsburg, VA on May 1 to protest the bank’s funding of mountaintop removal. Alongside local activists, the students waved signs and chanted outside the building, while participants with Bank of America cards went inside to close their accounts. A couple members of the group simulateneously handed out fliers at nearby businesses. As the location was along a major thoroughfare, the protesters frequently heard supportive honks from passing cars and observed locals curiously reading their signs. After spending a couple hours spreading awareness, the activists dispersed, pleased with their work and eager to do more.
Cross-posted at WeArePowershift.org
On April 22, 1970, students participated in an massive action declared by Gaylord Nelson, a senator from Wisconsin. Motivated by the recent Santa Barbara oil spill, teach-ins were held at college and university campus across the United States to protest environmental degradation. “Earth Day,” as the event was known, later became a prominent, annual avenue for citizens to discuss important issues affecting both their local communities and the wider world.
-Cross-posted at WeArePowershift.org
-Written by Dakota Thomas, a senior at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, in Wise County, Virginia
One can’t make it ten feet down the street of Wise without seeing a “Friends of Coal” sticker on a bumper or a sign espousing that “We keep the lights on.” And while coal is the driving force behind our economy today, people of the area’s minds are captivated by it as though the coal industry can do no wrong. But the coal industry is above all else a business. They make a profit by developing new, cheaper (read: less human dependent and more robotic) technology, or by securing legislative outcomes that favor them rather than good policy.
For months, students from Maryland universities and high schools have gathered petition signatures, written letters to the editor in their local and school papers, met with their college administrators, and educated their fellow students on offshore wind legislation. And yesterday, all their hard work culminated in a Student Rally and Lobby Day for Offshore Wind.
Students from Prince George’s County, Montgomery County, and the Eastern Shore arrived in Annapolis yesterday morning to sit down with their legislators and talk to them about passing the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act of 2012.
At noon, students from the Maryland Student Climate Coalition (MSCC), representing 12 campuses and 4 high schools, converged onto Lawyer’s Mall to send a message to the Maryland General Assembly that students and universities support offshore wind legislation and want it passed this session. This rally was one of the largest student demonstrations in recent history in Annapolis.