#futurepower

I have good news and I have bad news. So, this week has been one of the most difficult weeks of the semester for me. Between midterms and the stress of trying to move this project along, my batteries are in desperate need recharging.  The doom and gloom of it is this, and I will be quite frank with you, I am not happy at all with the current status of the project. I have only completed two shots so far, and I feel a significant portion of my production time has been spent unnecessarily, trying to make progress working with a completely outdated technique in paper animation. It has worked for me in the past, but circumstances were different. I had less classes then, and I presumed a semester would be plenty of time for this project. I admit I was wrong, but I have grown more as a result of it now I think, as an animator, than ever before. 

So here’s the good news: as I mentioned earlier this week, I’ve moved to digital animation, and I have shelled out a lot of money and energy trying to upgrade and learn the latest software as fast as possible. I have always considered myself to have a little engineering blood in me, and I think it shows now with the method I have devised. In the span of less than a day, I have managed to compensate for, and surpass, an entire week’s worth of paper animation frames which I had to toss out in making this transition, mostly for aesthetic reasons. This is my first completed clip with the new animation method: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jOviP5j6kpf4m6BpknWWuk6sPo0lGdCJ/view?usp=sharing

All eyes will be on this week’s COP21 climate talks, which are poised to shape global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and implement more renewable energy. However, if things don’t go smoothly and leaders don’t make aggressive commitments to curb global warming, the world will continue to suffer the consequences of unchecked climate change. No pressure, right?

Unfortunately, that worst case scenario is very much a possibility; even more disheartening is the fact that America may be one of the biggest hindrances to negotiations. After all, this wouldn’t be the first time that America derailed climate conferences with its lack of committal to creating stringent international regulations.

In 1997, Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol, which formally compelled signatory nations to reduce carbon emissions. However, Congress refused to ratify the treaty, thus freeing the US from an obligation to pursue GHG reductions; likewise, another major carbon producer, China, did not make any binding commitments. The recalcitrance of America and China to join in the fight against global warming had dire impacts, as the burgeoning emissions of those two countries alone were enough to overpower the reduction efforts made by other countries.

In 2009, the discussions held in Copenhagen resulted in similar disappointment and frustration. Yet again countries attempted to create a global agreement to curb emissions and protect our planet from the ravages of climate change. Yet again developing countries fumed over the reluctance of industrialized nations to set more meaningful GHG reduction goals.

It’s really no surprise that many of the heads-of-state headed to COP21 are wary of America’s commitment, given our government’s unimpressive pattern of behavior at these summits. Just recently, President Hollande of France said that “if the [COP21] agreement is not legally binding, there is no agreement.” Meanwhile, John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, has cautioned that a binding treaty is not likely. Admittedly, his reservations stem from a fear of our Republican-controlled Congress blocking any formal agreements, as with the Kyoto Protocol, and not from ideological objection to the talks. Obama will (hopefully) be pushing hard for ambitious goals that America can unofficially strive for, thereby circumventing Congress’ interference.

However, the fact that the US president, one of the most powerful men in the world, has to search for loopholes just to help protect our country and our planet from global warming speaks volumes about the state of America. Congress is meant to be an embodiment of the will of the people. So why is it even a worry that our representatives will prevent COP21 from implementing the carbon-cutting measures that the world so desperately needs, when 72% of polled Americans support an international climate change agreement? The answer is that American citizens are apathetic.

Another example of the majority perspective among Americans

We complain about the ineffectiveness and injustice of our government’s actions and policies, yet we seldom do anything to make a change in the system. It is too late to start influencing the outcome of the Paris talks, but it is never too late to start raising our voices in favor of a more just future. If the majority of Congressmen have repeatedly demonstrated that they are not concerned about the devastating consequences of climate change, then it’s time for us to replace them with people who will actually fight for our values and our safety. We have that power. It’s time for us to use it.

At US Climate Plan, we are working to activate the millennial generation's passive support for government action on the unfolding climate crisis to build public pressure for policy changes that match the scale of the challenge. Learn more about our mission, our work and our team on our website (and don’t forget to subscribe to us while you’re there!).

Over 20 youth and students from Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and other states, under the banner of #MidwestUnrest, were just arrested in front of Secretary of State John Kerry’s home in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC for protesting the Alberta Clipper tar sands pipeline. The pipeline was quietly approved by the State Department via a backdoor deal which allowed the massive project, which would transport quantities of oil comparable to the Keystone XL pipeline through Minnesota, to forego an environmental review.

After trying to petition the State Department, rally support from other politicians, and other attempts to engage with the political process, these young constituents had enough enough of their cries for justice being ignored. In response, they issued a call to action — a call to escalate — and they hopped on buses to Washington, D.C. to bring their message to Secretary John Kerry’s front door. 

Knowing about the action in advance, the police set up barricades in front of the house...but that didn’t stop these young people:

A crowd of DC allies came out to support the activists and let Secretary Kerry know that we are all paying attention to his State Department’s backdoor deals:

Eventually the police began moving in, but the crowd kept singing and chanting:

In the end, it became clear that—chained together like a human pipeline— these youth would not be moved. So after over 4 hours in front of the Kerry’s home, police moved in to arrest them.

Still, their message was heard, and this is just the beginning. 

Secretary Kerry knows the threat that climate change poses to our future, and he himself committed civil disobedience in his youth as a part of the Vietnam war movement, standing up for what he believed was right. Young people will not sit idly by while our future is sold away to those wishing to make a quick profit. We are asking Secretary Kerry to stand with us. While our leaders may prefer silence or empty words over action, we are rising up. We are unstoppable, because we know that another world is possible.

You can join us in organizing together for a just clean energy future at: http://bit.ly/FUTUREPOWER

Since spring we’ve been working on a Future Power campaign with members of the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition, an organization of university students working to activate youth for action on climate justice.

Right now, they have a campaign plan, they have passion, and they have a dream of 100% renewable energy for Virginia. But they need your support to move forward.

Here’s a message from Laura and Rabib, who are crowdfunding their work with us as Future Power Fellows this summer:

This past school year, Virginia students have taken valuable time from their studies to organize for climate justice. We've achieved such feats as a 300-student strategic conference, a courageous 21-day sit-in for divestment, and a 333 mile bike ride against the dirty, gas-carrying Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Despite this incredible progress, we risk losing momentum that we’ve gained during summer break. U.S. Climate Plan has teamed up with VSEC to empower the youth voice and provide us with the tools to keep up the heat through the summer.

We need your help. Please consider donating to the Future Power Virginia Fellowship so that we can continue to push for a more sustainable Virginia.

Laura Cross, VSEC Council Representative

Rabib Hasan, VSEC Coalition Chair

We’re beyond excited to be working with Laura and Rabib this summer as they push back against Dominion Power's outsized political influence in their state to demand a clean energy future.

Watch here to learn more about the Future Power Virginia work you can support today.

Dominion donated to every single politician currently in Virginia’s legislature. That’s powerful. We think young people’s voices and stories can be even more powerful. If you agree, we hope you'll donate to the Future Power Virginia Fellowship today.

This morning I was able to swing by the National Press Club, a Washington, DC fixture that hosts high-profile press releases where the walls are plastered with autographs on pictures of famous faces.

I was there for a presentation and panel discussion on the policies the U.S. needs to adopt to meet and exceed its 2025 emissions target. The event was hosted by the World Resources Institute, who produced the research document, “Delivering on the U.S. Climate Commitment: A 10-Point Plan Toward a Low-Carbon Future.”

The research itself is fascinating, both for the ambitious policies it embraces and for the questions it raises about our ability to meet our Intended Nationally Determined Contributions. (Panel member Rick Duke, from the White House, was asked repeatedly exactly how the U.S. intended to reach its commitment.)

Moving away from the explicit questions of the research document, here are some of the interesting takeaways for those who couldn’t be there:

Key Point #1: Economic growth and environmental protection don’t just coexist—they flourish together.

We’ve defended environmental protections against people who say they hurt the economy for a long time. At this point, we’re almost hardwired to assume that being green is mutually exclusive with making green. You could sense the caution when presenter and researcher Karl Hausker of WRI reported that “We can maintain economic growth” alongside climate action.

It is time to put to bed the wrongheaded idea that environment and economy are mutually exclusive. They are not—and, in fact, they’re becoming intertwined. Richard Kauffman, Chairman of Energy and Finance for Governor Cuomo in New York, stated “We are on a path that is neither environmentally nor economically stable.” Kauffman focused on smart grids as one area where infrastructure investment can serve goals in both sectors.

To his right sat Johnson Controls lobbyist Mark Wagner, whose very presence testifies to the fact that there are businesses interested in tackling climate change. One audience member asked a question about jobs, and the panelists jockeyed to express their ebullience over green jobs, which White House representative Rick Duke numbered easily “in the tens of thousands.”

Last year CO2 emissions flatlined while the economy grew. That should be the new norm. 

Key Point #2: The states matter. A lot.

The only point of pessimism came when someone insisted on asking a question no one wants to answer: “What are the prospects for legislative action on climate before 2016?” The panelists all leaned back from their microphones.

The scene in Congress, as we all know, is not favorable for passing the kind of comprehensive national climate legislation we need. The 10-point plan advanced today by WRI relies heavily on existing executive authority and expansion of programs like SNAP, CAFE, and the like, but without a change in our elected representation, the federal government is hamstrung on climate.

That’s where the states come in. As Kauffman put it, referencing Justice Brandeis, states are “the laboratories of democracy,” and we are about to need those laboratories to produce a lot of innovation. The 1.11(d) provision of the Clean Power Plan puts the onus on states to devise their own plans, but panelists spoke up to say that this flexibility was a boon, not a burden.

This is part of why U.S. Climate Plan is excited to opportunistically focus on state-level policy. Both of our current flagship programs work at the state level, either by coordinating state-level carbon pricing campaigns or by cultivating youth climate advocacy through Future Power.

Key Point #3: None of this is news.

You’d think that, since we were at the National Press Club, we’d be hearing news. While the release of WRI’s research is noteworthy, it isn’t news. In fact, it hits on many of the same policy suggestions laid out in our Plan, published two years ago, including cracking down on methane leakage while pricing carbon emissions and pursuing aggressive efficiency goals. If we already know what needs to be done, why haven’t we done it?

Paradoxically, just at the moment when climate action is least likely, at least in Congress, “Poll after poll shows Americans want strong climate action,” as reported by Rick Duke. So the problem isn’t public support.

Nor is technology. “The problem here is not technology,” Kauffman said as he discussed the plethora of available smart grid hardware that is yet to be found in the US. Renewable energy innovations are occurring left and right as the industry matures.

Friend,

Climate change is an absurdly big issue, one that literally encompasses our earth. So I try to think big—it’s the only way to wrap my head around the enormity of what’s at stake. But to remake our whole energy economy, we have to start somewhere. For us, that’s in Virginia.

Virginia’s elected leaders have made a lot of noise about tackling climate change, but their policies hardly reflect the urgency of the climate crisis. Our analysis shows Virginia has enough wind and solar capacity to power itself, and polling shows that 88% of Virginians wants clean, renewable energy. Instead of focusing on clean energy, though, Virginia’s leaders are taking energy policy tips from Virginia’s number one polluter, opening the state up to offshore oil drilling and building natural gas pipelines through people’s backyards.

For all of these reasons,This semester, we’ve been helping the students of the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition challenge the Old Dominion to do better on climate issues. Through workshops and trainings, we’re empowering youth to envision a path to a 21st-century energy economy, as well as equipping them with the resources to organize around those visions.

These students have high hopes for the summer and beyond. Beyond working with U.S. Climate Plan to identify leverage points in Virginia’s political climate, they’re even planning a voter registration drive to build the base of Virginia youth climate voters before the 2016 election. They’re ready to confront the climate crisis with the urgency it deserves, by elevating grassroots resistance against the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and demanding an end to new fossil fuel infrastructure.

Simply put, I think these students—and their dreams—are exceptionally deserving of our support, and yours.

This summer is crucial to determining whether Virginia’s students can beat back against the influence of the fossil fuel industry in their state and get Virginia to move into the future. That’s why we’re raising money to support Future Power Fellows to continue organizing this summer. Will you chip in to make it a reality?

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If just 50 people commit to giving $25 a month, we’ll have enough cash on hand to support 3 fellows! Can you commit to a recurring donation today?

Click to chip in $25 a month.

I helped start U.S. Climate Plan in June of 2013 with one simple goal: promoting policy solutions to the climate crisis. Those of us in the climate movement can’t just keep saying “no” to things or batting around buzzwords. We need tangible solutions to rally around, and policies give us that.

We still see a lack of dialogue from elected officials and mainstream advocacy groups on what measures could actually hedge against risking the worst effects of climate change. What’s possible with current politics is insufficient to address the climate crisis, so current politics must change. That’s our goal, and we have a strategy bold enough to meet that challenge.

We started by writing a comprehensive and acclaimed climate plan that, if embraced, would actually put us on track to stabilize the climate (rather than the status quo half-measures that fail to reduce emissions to safe levels).

From there, we started building out advocacy around different planks of that platform, and we’ve made some significant progress:

“Beyond the President’s Plans” → We’ve been tireless advocates behind the scenes, meeting with the EPA for stricter regulations on methane leaks, and because of our work with partners to lobby for attention on the risks of reliance on natural gas, new standards were announced earlier this year.

“Greenhouse Gas Fee” → Last November we organized over 25 events around the country to raise awareness and build political support for the need to price pollution. Now, we convene a network of state campaigns like Oregon Climate and Energize RI and give them support to pass legislation to price carbon in their states.

“Supply Side Fossil Fuel Regulations” → We helped plan and execute a day of emergency action against November’s bill to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. It was defeated in the Senate by only one vote—and, hopefully, will give President Obama political cover to veto the project once and for all.

These represent just a few of our accomplishments as a young organization—but we must do more to change the dialogue around climate policy solutions. Can you help us keep up the fight for the long haul by becoming a monthly sustainer today?

We want to expand and grow our impact. Here’s how you your support can help:

If 100 of our supporters give just $25 a month, we can hire a full-time organizer to help us build out the Future Power Plan, our ambitious nationwide campaign to create demand for bold policy solutions from the ground up. 

50 people giving $25 a month allows us to support summer fellows with the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition to help them build out their Future Power campaign to fight energy giant Dominion Power Company and shift the state to renewables. 

If just 30 people pitch in for $25 a month, we’d have enough resources to beef up the State Carbon Pricing Network and give grassroots campaigns around the country the support they need to pass groundbreaking legislation in their states.

You can become a sustainer at whatever amount you can afford. If everyone who cared about these issues pitched just a little each month, imagine what we could accomplish.

Will you commit to sustaining us with a tax-deductible monthly donation today?

Your support of U.S. Climate Plan will allow us to keep advocating for sensible and ambitious climate policy—both on a national scale with the EPA, Congress, and the White House, and on a local scale with grassroots organizations like the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition and our State Carbon Pricing Network.

While the scope of our activities has expanded since we started out, we still have the same philosophy that sets us apart from our peers: we focus on the policy solutions necessary to address the climate crisis.

We’re in it to win it. Help us get there with your monthly support,

Matt Lichtash

Director of Policy Analysis, U.S. Climate Plan