News

Swarthmore to double its Power Shift attendance

In print | February 26, 2009

This Friday, Feb. 27, over 10,000 young people will gather in Washington, D.C. for Power Shift ’09, a four-day summit on environmental issues. Upwards of 30 Swarthmore students will be attending, doubling their appearance at Power Shift ’07. The event will culminate with a lobby day on March 2, during which participants will challenge politicians on Capitol Hill to take more serious action to address climate change, clean energy and sustainability issues before President Obama’s critical first 100 days in office come to a close.

In addition to being a tool for political change, Power Shift is designed to inspire those not deeply involved with environmental issues to take greater steps towards contributing to those efforts, and to nourish the convictions, endeavors and aspirations of those already dedicated to environmental action. While the program welcomes high school and college attendees as well as professionals under the age of 35, college students will make up the majority of the participants.

“We came back so excited and rejuvenated, and we had so many ideas of where to go from there,” said Kavita Hardy ’09 in reference to her experience at Power Shift ’07. “Environmentalism is very near and dear to me, it’s the way that I see the world. That’s why it was so amazing to go there and find all these facets of it that I didn’t know existed.”

Workshops and panels during the first three days will address topics ranging from green jobs to the restoration of the gulf coast to environmentalism in the media.

A variety of politicians, including Nancy Pelosi, will be speaking at the event. Santogold and The
Roots will both be performing there. Power Shift has chosen Van Jones, an advocate for environmental justice, green jobs and human rights, as the keynote speaker, much to the excitement of Swarthmore participants this year. “He’s an environmental icon,” said Blaine O’Neill ’11, Co-President of Earthlust and Power Shift ’07 and ’09 attendee. This will be a return visit for Jones, who also spoke at Power Shift ’07.

Van Jones and his work seem to be of vital interest for those who are attending Power Shift this year and who attended it in the past. “The environmental justice group on campus really got its footing from that conference [at Power Shift ’07],” Hardy said. O’Neill echoed Hardy’s sentiments, citing Van Jones’s speech at Power Shift ’07 as the origin of his concern for environmental justice issues. “Van Jones is leading that whole movement, and it’s going to be big,” he said. The keynote speaker’s additional focus on green jobs is one of the topics drawing Zein Nakhoda ’12, co-organizer of Swarthmore’s involvement in the summit, to this year’s Power Shift. Nakhoda believes that Jones can contradict the “old school thinking that sustainability measures cost money, and that they run antithetical to restructuring an economy.”

Members of Earthlust hope that those attending Power Shift this year will return with a new zest and a new set of ideas for environmental action on and off campus, especially after the success of Power Shift ’07.

“They have a lot of good workshops about leadership training,” said Elizabeth Crampton ’09, who attended Power Shift ’07 and will be at Power Shift again this year. “I definitely think I picked up some tips in terms of some neat ideas for new publicity tactics, and got some more theory behind some of the structures that I had been using previously in order to advertise, in order to get people to come to events, in order to plan events and target specific groups of people.” In addition, Crampton stated her personal goal to learn more about “the practical logistics of retro-fitting buildings” to make them more environmentally friendly, information that can hopefully be applied to projects on campus.

Next Monday will be the largest lobby day on climate and energy in the history of our nation. Over 300 meetings have been arranged with members of Congress on that day.

“They promised Obama’s administration that they were going to get at least ten thousand students on the Capitol lawn and they’ve done that,” O’Neill said. “We’re basically flooding Washington, D.C. with a bunch of really energetic, loud, young people who are sick of bureaucracy and want environmental legislation now.” This flood will be accompanied by a thousand-strong march led by Capitol Climate Action as an act of civil disobedience at the coal-powered Capitol Power Plant.

“It’s really nice to network and talk with students in your position, some of who’ve had more accommodating administrations or more success on their campuses,” O’Neill said. “Bouncing ideas off of each other, you realize how exciting it is to be part of what will be the progressive movement of the twenty-first century.”