You Can’t Study If You Have Water Up To Your Knees!

During the 1960’s, millions of young people became active to change the course of this country’s future. Starting with the struggle for Black freedom, continuing to with the fight to end the War in Vietnam, and pushing forward with the Women’s Movement, the Gay Liberation Movement, and various other progressive social movements, the youth of our country found their voice and got worked tirelessly for social change.

But despite a myriad of problems facing our generation – from the War in Iraq, to the genocide in Darfur, to devastated Gulf Coast and possible economic recession – the youth and student movement remains divided, atomized, and visionless. It isn’t that things aren’t going on – they certainly are – but rather that there is a lack of unifying issues, frameworks and visions under which our generation can feel a common purpose.

From this atomization, excitement and passion around such an issue is surfacing: the climate crisis. After decades of piling evidence, the dialog around global warming is finally coming to an end; the Right can’t cover up the facts any more; the jury ain’t out anymore (hasn’t been for a long time), global warming is the result of human interaction with the environment, and if we want to protect the future, we have to act now. Young people have the power and the passion to hold the government accountable to keeping America safe from impending catastrophe.

So how does global warming relate to the war in Iraq, the genocide in Darfar, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the possible recession you ask? Well, because the fight for environmental justice has the potential to unite young Americans across countless boundaries. It has the potential to be a historic catalyst.

The war in Iraq, despite the Bush administration’s 7 year campaign to mislead the American people, is slowly being shown nakedly for what it is: an aggressive and illegal war to control Iraqi oil. Our addiction to fossil fuels – something that can be easily changed by zero-emissions vehicles and investing in green jobs and alternative energy sources – is no excuse for squandering human lives (both American and Iraqi) and wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on war. All of this could have been prevented, and can be brought to a halt, if we mobilize to confront the human causes of global warming and transition to green energy sources.

The genocide in Darfar, is about poverty and disputes between third-world militias, tribes, and Sudan’s government over land and resource scarcity. Resource scarcity, especially in Africa, has only been increased by climate irregularity. Those interested in preventing future genocides and fighting poverty in places like Africa, should take on the battle to fight global warming as a key issue in their political work. Progressives should deepen our analysis of issues in Africa. Less money needed for war, provides more money to develop both programs at home for Americans, and programs abroad to fight poverty, disease, hunger, and allow people to build their own futures.

Hurrican Katrina, and other large super-hurricanes, has many climatologists have pointed out, will only increase in severity and frequency as the globe warms. If the globe warms just a few more degrees, large parts of U.S. coastal cities – and coastal cities all around the world – will be under water. (Its kinda hard to study if you’re up to your knees in water!) It rising water isn’t enough to scare my generation, the effects of these super-hurricanes, combined with rising water levels, should. With the water alone, a good portion of New York City will be underwater. Many scientists have predicted that as the globe continues to warm, the Northeastern United States could be introduced to a new phenomenon: hurricanes reaching northern coastal cities.

In the past several years, tropical storms – much less severe than hurricanes (let alone super-hurricanes) – have flooded many Northern cities such as providence. But with rising water levels, a hurricane in the North would have devastating results. Take New York City again. Where New York Harbor means the ocean, the land forms a right angle. If a high waves or a storm surge from a hurricane hit land making a right angle, often the only place they have to go is up. Imagine a surge of 20, 30, or even 40 or more feet approaching Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Eastern New Jersey. Need I go further?

The intersections between climate change and war, economic damage and poverty are enormous, and could provide a catalyzing issue for a growing and unifying progressive youth movement. Will we be able to channel that energy in productive directions? Recent developments among youth organizations and events suggestions yes. In early November of 2007, over 6,000 youth converged on the Nation’s capitol to demand congress and the executive take historic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and push our nation in a positive direction with “Green Collar Jobs for All” and “Green Pathways Out of Poverty”. The event, called “Power Shift”, brought together students and youth from diverse backgrounds across the nation under a unified demand to take action to stop global warming.

These students educated, built community, took action, lobbied, attended workshops, and listened dozens of speakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D – CA), Representative Ed Markley (D – Mass), and Van Jones of the Green for All. Jones gave a historic talk about need for a united, powerful progressive movement to lead our country in a new direction of change. Many youth representatives that weekend testified before Congress for the need for Congress to take action to cut fossil fuel emissions talking about their families, their lives, and the future of our generation.

The youth pledged to elect a “climate president in 2008” and gave notice that any member of Congress who wasn’t working to protect our future would have to look for a new job, as young voters search for more progressive, more climate friendly representatives.

The intersections between global climate destabilization and virtually every progressive issue only increase daily. Let’s seize the opportunity to use it as a tool to unite our movement, and build a popular movement to save our planet and its people! We don’t have the luxury of time. Second place means parts of New York City and Providence, and half of Florida under water. Second place means a billion climate crisis refugees world wide. Second place means water wars and increase ethnic cleansing and exponentially increasing poverty, disease, and famine. Second place means millions of deaths across the world. Second place means, quite literally, a global meltdown.

Wanna Get Involved? Act now:
Student Environmental Action Coalition - http://www.seac.org
Campus Climate Challenge: http://climatechallenge.org/
Energy Action Coalition: http://www.energyaction.net
It’s Getting Hot In Here: Dispatches from the Youth Climate Movement: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/