Introducing the newest class of the Greenpeace Semester!

They hail from many different places: Tennessee, California, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, and Envigado, Colombia.  They have joined Greenpeace for the next five weeks in Washington D.C. to learn many of the important skills of environmental activism to take back to their respective communities. They’ll be participating in workshops, skills trainings, and traveling for a week to get experience campaigning on an environmental issue.

Stay tuned and follow their adventures on Twitter, on Tumblr, or future posts here.

Welcome Stephanie, Angie, Melissa, Alex, Ben, Vinnie, Mackenzie, and Jackie!

The Greenpeace Semester is still accepting applications for our second summer term and fall term.  If you’d like to apply, click here.

This blog was written by Emily Blase, a Greenpeace Semester student with the spring 2013 class.

I’m walking away from the Greenpeace Semester program saddened to say goodbye, but empowered by all the skills now under my belt. The program aims at giving students an in-depth understanding of environmental campaigning and strategy, organizing, messaging, and non-violent direct action, a peaceful tactic to protect our natural ecosystems.. Through the course of this program, we’ve had the chance to talk to many of the people at Greenpeace working directly on environmental issues. In March, our class traveled to Raleigh, North Carolina to help with a campaign that Greenpeace is running against Duke Energy, the nation’s largest utility company and gobbler of dirty energy including coal and nukes. You can see all the action from our trip on our Tumblr.

We also take a few days during the semester to actually witness what’s at stake if we don’t work hard for environmental protection. We spent a week in Florida to bear witness to active environmental destruction affecting our ecosystems now. Earlier in the semester, Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner John Hocevar talked to our class about coral bleaching, but I never thought I’d have a chance to witness it firsthand. This was an experience that will definitely be sticking with us for the rest of our lives, and a great reminder of what we’re fighting for.

Greenpeace Semester students snorkeling in the Dry Tortugas

Snorkeling in the Dry Tortugas is what really brought everything home for me. Fortunately for us, we didn’t see any pirates while we were there, but we did run into a lot of destroyed natural treasures. Coral bleaching is a huge problem Florida, and many of their reefs have suffered as a result. So while snorkeling and gazing upon what looked like a normal ocean floor, we were in fact looking at the skeletons of countless numbers of dead pieces of coral. Without coral reef of course, we lose entire ecosystems.

But all is not lost. While snorkeling I came across a piece of brain coral that was bleached on one side, and living on the other. There is still time to protect our still-living coral, our oceans, and in fact the entire planet, but we need to take action to do so.

The Greenpeace Semester also got to spend time in Key West while in Florida. Key West is a beautiful island paradise, with a strong sense of community that was clear to see, and a treat to get to be a part of, if only for a few days. Unfortunately, their island paradise could be underwater due to sea level rise from global warming within our children’s lifetimes.

So yes, there was a slightly negative cast on the trip, seeing paradise slowly being poisoned – mostly because of problems associated with global warming and human impact. However, going to Florida and connecting with my fellow Greenpeace Semester students was also invigorating. We do have very real problems facing our natural world today, and mine is without doubt the generation that will face them. The Greenpeace Semester is making its effort to equip young people to stand up effectively for the planet.

Completing this Semester has taught me so many facets of running a successful campaign, and shown me that it is possible to win when you’re on the right side.

Does a semester with Greenpeace sound perfect for you right now? Apply today! Your future needs you.

Too old for a semester with Greenpeace? Start protecting our oceans now! By setting aside marine reserves, we can save global oceans.

Willie Soon in a heated moment. Madison, WI (click to watch)

Last week, students in Wisconsin and Michigan stepped up to such an opportunity when CFACT Campus, the student arm of a well-known cabal of fossil fuel apologists, hosted climate change denier Willie Soon at several campus events around the country.

Dr. Willie Soon is a Smithsonian Institution astrophysicist paid by Charles Koch, ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute and coal utility Southern Company to write papers dismissing climate change, publish op-eds saying coal pollution won’t affect our health, refute the seriousness of ocean acidification, and apparently anything else he can be paid to deny. Dr. Soon has misrepresented himself by repeatedly claiming affiliation with Harvard University and using his credentials as an astrophysicist to make people believe he’s a climate expert, and he shows no sign of stopping. Indeed, he told students in Madison, ”I am as as qualified as anyone on the planet on this topic.”

In both Madison, Wisconsin and East Lansing, Michigan, Dr. Soon was caught with his pants down. As the Michigan State News documented in its article and accompanying audio interview, Soon claims that all the scientists around the world who study and recognize the seriousness of climate change are motivated by money, yet somehow his funding from coal and oil companies for his extremely marginalized viewpoints doesn’t matter.

Here is the dialog with Willie Soon at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with direct links to key clips below:

1) Willie Soon insinuates ExxonMobil will no longer fund him (emphasis added):

“I have been receiving money from whoever that wants to give me money. I write my scientific proposal. I have received money from ExxonMobil, but ExxonMobil will no longer give me any money for a long time. American Petroleum Institute, anything you wish for, from Southern Company, from all these companies. I write proposal and let them judge whether they will fund me or not, always for a very small amount. If they choose to fund me, I’m happy to receive it.” Click to watch (starts @ 1:52).

2) Dr. Soon stands behind his attempts to discredit the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change with help from ExxonMobil lobbyists:

“I was trying to bring down IPCC–is that what you imply?! [...] Let it be known that I do not like IPCC, because IPCC does not stand for science, it is corrupting science.” Click to watch (starts @ 3:32).

After a question referencing emails with ExxonMobil lobbyists to undermine climate research at the United Nations before it even hit publication, Dr. Soon quickly loses his cool over his record of global warming denial, peppering the student with mild insults before owning up to his actions.

3) Dr. Soon thanks anyone who uses petroleum products or electricity from coal for supporting his work:

“I really want to thank her, because she’s receiving the electricity used for her house, she’s driving cars, she’s doing all of these things because you are funding me. It’s not an oil or coal company. They are a company that provides a service to humanity–to people who want to use electricity.” Click to watch (starts @ 5:14)

Anyone looking at Southern Company‘s record of pollution and political interference would be skeptical about its commitment to serve humanity. Soon continues with an aggressive rant claiming that the student isn’t qualified to question his fossil fuel payments until she stops driving, using electricity, and wearing nylon.

4) Willie Soon states “I don’t like to claim that I am an expert on anything,“ despite listing himself as an “expert in mercury and public health” for a discredited Wall Street Journal op-ed dismissing health concerns over mercury pollution from coal plants. Soon invented similar credentials for another opinion piece in the Washington Times, before he swapped back to being a 22-year veteran of “researching the relationship of solar radiation and the Earth’s climate,” research Dr. Soon did on the dime of oil and coal companies.

Basically, Willie Soon is an expert in whatever problems vested industries will pay him to deny. Michigan State students note how Willie Soon now refutes research indicating adverse impacts from ocean acidification, a global crisis that is married to climate change (both problems stem from humans burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere).

That’s effed up. This man makes a career lying to the public, not to mention our lawmakers, about some of the most serious issues of our time. Climate change is already contributing to the deaths of 400,000 people each year and costing global GDP about $1.2 trillion, according to a report commissioned by multiple nations. 98% of actual climate scientists (a distinction Dr. Willie Soon does not earn) agree that global warming is real and primarily drive by humans burning fossil fuels like coal and oil.

Not only has Dr. Soon lied to us and our lawmakers about the seriousness of global warming–he even lied directly to Congress in 2003 about his sources of funding at a time when he was promoting his study funded by the American Petroleum Institute, the $200 million/year oil and gas lobbying group. The Guardian wrote last year:

“In 2003 Soon said at a US senate hearing that he had “not knowingly been hired by, nor employed by, nor received grants from any organisation that had taken advocacy positions with respect to the Kyoto Protocol or the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.”

This is why it’s crucial to demand accountability of people like Willie Soon. He is a public relations tool of oil and coal companies, and as a scientist attempting to publish in fields well outside of his expertise, that oil and coal money is crucial to recognize.

Here are some of the best examples of Soon’s pseudo-science paid for by Big Oil and King Coal:

• 2003: An American Petroleum Institute-funded study claiming that the earth’s global temperature hasn’t risen. Three editors of the publishing journal resigned in protest over low scientific standards demonstrated by publishing Soon’s work.
• 2005: A paper mis-attributing arctic temperature changes to solar variability, a thoroughly debunked notion that was funded by the American Petroleum Institute (API).
• 2007: A non-peer-reviewed paper refuting concerns over global warming’s impact on polar bears, funded by API and the Charles G. Koch Foundation.
• 2009: A paper building upon Soon’s 2005 research attempting to claim the sun is mostly responsible for temperature changes. This work was funded by API, ExxonMobil and Southern Company.
• 2013: Soon’s ongoing “research” funding is now hidden through Donors Trust, a network used by the Kochs and other secretive interests who don’t want their financial influence to be traced. Donors Trust is the sole source of almost half of recent budgets for CFACT, which paid for Soon’s campus tour.

Dr. Soon’s work is like a joke, but not the type you’d laugh at. While he cracks these fossil-funded zingers, reputable scientists warn that humanity is running out of time to stop climate change from self-reinforcing to the point that it spirals out of human control. As quoted by the Michigan State News, young conservatives on campus had trouble taking Dr. Willie Soon’s presentation seriously:

“I’m not a science major, but I think (Soon’s presentation) has got valid points, but also other scientists who disagree with him have valid points,” Sobecki said. “I’m not crazy enough to think that six billion people don’t have an effect on climate in the world we live in.”

Science majors attending the MSU event didn’t agree that Soon’s points were particularly valid. See this account from a MSU Greenpeace student activist on PolluterWatch for more details.

A Greenpeace Semester participant reaches the end of her rope during the climb training, which is part of Actions Week.

Greenpeace’s long history of direct action – indeed, a pillar of our philosophy – sometimes involves climbing in order to get to a place in plain view from which we can send a message or stop an environmentally destructive activity from continuing. During Actions Week in the Greenpeace Semester, participants first gain an understanding of non-violent direct action as a core of our philosophy, then spend a day learning some basics of technical climbing as it applies to activism.

The Greenpeace Semester is currently accepting applications for the summer and fall term.  Apply online here.

Greenpeace organizer Becky Ceartas speaks to a crowd in Raleigh, NC protesting Duke Energy's proposed rate increases that would go toward more dirty energy like coal and nuclear power.

Last week the students of the Greenpeace Semester listened to residents of Raleigh, NC as they testified to their Public Utilities Commission about the rate increases that Duke Energy – the electricity company in North Carolina as well as 5 other states – is trying to make them pay on their monthly electric bills. One woman said that she pays as much as $500 every month to make sure that her family’s lights stay on. That means that if Duke Energy gets the increases it wants, her bill will go up by over $50, which she simply can’t afford.

Duke wants to raise those prices just so it can build more dirty coal-burning power plants and unsafe nuclear reactors. Since Duke is the largest electric utility in the US, its plans to burn more coal matters for all of us – coal is the leading cause of global warming in this country. North Carolina residents know that, and want to see Duke make the switch to clean energy. Another man took the stand to point out that Duke’s long term plan has a grand total of 3.5% renewable energy over the next 20 years while there are whole countries that will be going 100% renewable in the same time period.

Those were just two stories among many that were heard from the community that night.

The Greenpeace Semester spent three days  before the hearing knocking on doors, talking to hundreds of Raleigh residents about these rate hikes and inviting them to come out and testify against the proposed increases. Since Duke has a monopoly over selling electricity in both North Carolina and South Carolina, the residents of both states have no choice but to pay increasingly high rates for Duke’s dirty energy. Hearings like this are one of the few chances they have to voice their opinions on whether Duke uses clean or polluting forms of energy.

That is why the Semester chose to spend our spring 2013 campaign trip raising awareness about Duke’s dirty, expensive energy, and encouraging people to take a stand for cleaner, cheaper energy instead. It worked: in just 3 days over 350 people signed a petition against Duke’s rate hikes and several of those people came to the hearing. One memorable conversation was with a man who quickly agreed to sign the petition, telling us as he signed: “I’m so glad you’re out here, people should be outraged about this.”

The trip supported local efforts to fight Duke’s dirty energy and gave the Semester participants a glimpse at organizing: hard work with real rewards in the form of good conversations, awareness raised, petitions signed and delivered, and real people standing up for a cleaner, more affordable future.