Tag Archives: student organizing

Hear from a student activist: “We are fighting for our existence”

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Below is a blog from Greenpeace student leader Chellsee Lee following the #fowardonclimate rally in washington, dc on president’s day weekend, originally posted to WeArePowerShift.org

 

Hip Hop Caucus CEO Reverand Yearwood compared the environmental movement to the civil rights movement. The difference he said, was that they were fighting for their rights, and we are fighting for our existence.

As I stood next to 45,000 other people all lost in thought I was finally able to formulate the words that have hung on the tip of my tongue for so long. The reason I am fighting for clean energy, the reason I am in and out of meetings with staff and faculty, the reason I am empowering individuals, the reason I am making sacrifices everyday is because the actions we take as a university directly impact those living next to a pipeline, drinking contaminated ground water, breathing in the ashes of our mistakes. The money our university gives to big coal companies directly affects the communities that struggle every day, often times forcing themselves to work in the same coal plants that are giving their families cancer. The reason I am fighting against dirty energy and dirty money is because my family was victim to this climate oppression. As we breathed the industrial fumes of our fate we were the victims of the decisions of the people with opportunity and privilege. Continue reading →

Leaving on a jet plane for a life-changing experience

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When I got on the plane to DC to start my Greenpeace Semester adventure, I remember how excited I was about the idea of living in a big city for a while and maybe expanding my grasp on what the environmental movement was all about; I really had no idea how much the Greenpeace Semester (called the Greenpeace Organizing Term back in my day) would change my life.

I know it may sound cliche but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that doing the Greenpeace Semester was the single most important thing I’ve ever done. Learning to climb, traveling across and/or out of the country, and meeting Greenpeace campaigners (people whose names I’d become so familiar with from the inundation of emails about signing this petition or what have you) were the superficial highlights I had been anticipating before actually starting the Semester. But what I gained from it was so much more substantial; learning how to run a real effective meeting on my campus, feeling confident being interviewed by a local news station, gaining skills to efficiently build a group or organization, knowing when and how to use non-violent direct action, drafting campaign plans, powermapping, learning what powermapping even was, and recognizing that I, that we, have the power to take on corporate injustices and truly create a safer, cleaner, greener world. Continue reading →

Greenpeace Semester: Meet the Fall 2012 class

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     Meet Ellen, Karina, Hannah, Kris, Kaitlynd, Paulina, Drew, and Rachel.  They are the class this fall for the Greenpeace Semester, Greenpeace’s activist training program for young leaders.

They come from many different places, from Tennessee to Ohio to Oregon to Baja, Mexico. They are all united in their passion and commitment to being part of the solution to the world’s environmental problems, to challenging themselves to learn some of the fundamental skills of activism and then bring their new knowledge back to their communities.

And boy, are they ready.

Says Ellen, “A semester with Greenpeace will give me an inside look at what to prepare for in terms of my future career. I want to save forests, end nuclear power, protect endangered animals, reduce our carbon footprint, advocate sustainability, rid the world of toxic chemicals, and put an end to global warming!”

Stay tuned for more about this class; they’ll be doing great things this fall.

Want to join the Greenpeace Semester?  Applications are being accepted for spring – apply early to receive $100 off tuition.

Greenpeace Semester Students Draw Inspiration from Ohio Activist

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Ohio activist Elisa Young, center, talks with Greenpeace Semester students, including author Miles Goodrich (in red hat) during the students' trip to moblize Cincinnati residents against Duke Energy's proposed rate hikes.

 

Written by Miles Goodrich, Greenpeace Semester Summer 2012

Because students proved a critical force in sustaining the social movements of the last century, Greenpeace has developed its own semester long program – the Greenpeace Semester – to train young adults in mobilizing for the environment.  Each semester, students go on a trip to work on a critical environmental issue with Greenpeace.

This session, our class went to Cincinnati to protest Duke Energy’s rate hikes, which the company proposed soon after the city switched to renewable energy credits after a successful grassroots organizing campaign to stop buying power from Duke – a move which cost that company close to 100 million dollars.  Despite being dropped in Cincinnati, Duke still owns that cities grid and is working to charge residents more to use it in and attempt to make up for that lost revenue.

On the drive out there, we stopped outside the dilapidated town of Cheshire, Ohio to speak with local anti-fracking and coal activist Elisa Young.  At first glance, Elisa’s warm smile suggests she’s a kindly neighborhood everywoman.  And indeed she acts with the sweet disposition of a grandmother—offering the fifteen students of the semester both homemade salsa to eat and homemade rocking chairs to relax in—but her warmth only extends so far.  To local fracking companies, Elisa is the worst kind of neighbor: a nosy citizen meddling in corporate affairs by demanding transparency regarding the supposedly public exploits of businesses.  “When they’re essentially writing the laws,” said Elisa of the energy companies with enormous influence over local governments, “you have to do your best to keep them honest.”

Despite her dedication to taking on a powerful industry, Elisa is a reluctant activist.  She survived the same cancer that claimed the lives of many of her friends and family—innocent casualties of the poisonous coal plants that have desecrated her ancestral home.  Elisa has experienced firsthand the damage the fossil fuel industry wreaks.  She knows what she is up against, but that does not stop her from doing her best to protect her homeland.

Elisa’s best work consists of trawling through hundreds of pages of obscure legal language and navigating her way around corporate bureaucracy—all in the name of staying an informed citizen.  “She was so inspiring as a grassroots organizer,” student Mackenzie Greisser said of Elisa, “fighting such a difficult fight for so long, but with success.”

Rather than chaining herself to every fracking well in Ohio (“I would do it if I thought it was how we’d win”), Elisa prefers to take on the industry by forcing them to abide by the law: registering the correct permits, filling out the proper paperwork.  Through this citizen-empowerment activism, Elisa has made a name for herself as the persistent, annoying gadfly, always double-checking the reports that energy companies file.  She understands the importance of participating in democracy beyond voting every four years.

Though Elisa stayed behind in Cheshire as we moved on to Cincinnati, we all took a bit of her and her citizen-hero mentality with us to the city council on Tuesday during a public hearing on the issue of allowing fracking waste to be stored within the city limits. We witnessed plenty of Elisa-like gumption and conviction among the nearly twenty citizens who all called upon the council to ban injection wells—sites where fracking waste is forced into the earth.  Echoing Elisa’s story, Mackenzie described how her family’s susceptibility to cancer makes the toxic byproducts of fracking a disturbing means of energy acquisition.  “Elisa fighting for her hometown inspired me to fight for mine by standing up against fracking,” Mackenzie said, “and the council thanked me for being an active student.”

So as much as anything, the Greenpeace Semester’s trip to Cincinnati to mobilize support against Duke Energy’s rate hikes is an experiment in democracy: government by the people.  And not corporate people, but living, breathing people who fight for their right to live on stable earth and breathe clean air.  People with the tenacity of Elisa Young and the drive of Mackenzie Greisser.  People who still believe in democracy.

This blog was written by me, Miles Goodrich – Greenpeace Semester student.  You can read more about my class trip experience here: renewthefuture.tumblr.com and go to www.quitcoal.org to learn more.

Twitter: @GPSemester

Facebook: Greenpeace Student Network

Petition: https://secure3.convio.net/gpeace/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1023