OP-ED PowerShift '09

Author: Jacob Udell

Haven't you heard? You don't need to be a vegan, drive a Prius, or know how to compost to be an environmentalist! Of course, conservation in our daily lifestyle is incredibly valuable. But rather than immediate global warming solutions, things commonly associated with environmentalism currently serve as symbols - symbols which help us drive the global change we need.

At this point, the only way we can possibly mitigate climate change to a safe level is through first national and then international legislation, and it needs to happen fast. Leading climate change scientist Rajendra Pachauri told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that, "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." Read that year again: 2012 - the last year most of us here will graduate.

Influential legislation starts with grassroots political activism, and there is no better chance to do that as a college student than at PowerShift 2009. From Feb. 27 to March 2, thousands of young adults will converge on Washington, D.C. for PowerShift 2009, the second national youth summit committed to solving the climate crisis. Once there, we will be doing everything from lobbying our legislators to participating in workshops and career fairs.

PowerShift '09 is the most important thing you can do this New Year. And it's not like you have to come to Sunday Night Group every week in order to feel like you can be passionate. If you care about international social justice issues, that is more than enough. Global warming has the potential to be the biggest humanitarian crisis in history. It will most devastatingly affect the rural poor, who have the least financial and technical capacity to adapt to its dangers and are most affected by fluctuations in worldwide food supply.

All of us can understand the enormous number of injustices that the human race has committed in our history, and global warming is potentially the worst one yet. With great potential for destruction, however, comes great potential for good. Climate change is our first truly global issue, and its urgency will hopefully force us to transcend our national and cultural differences in order to overcome it.

How do we make sure that we don't read this, lament for a few moments, and then go back to our breakfast? It's easy: commit to going to PowerShift. Let's make sure Middlebury sends well over 100 students, from all over the country and the world. We'll be down in D.C. at the beginning of Barack Obama's presidency, physically taking part in actualizing the change that he has promised. We need members of the College Democrats and College Republicans, the African American Alliance and the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the International Student Organization and the Mountain Club, because this is a crisis that connects us all. Don't miss taking part in shaping our generation's, and the world's, defining issue.