Students action plan at Power Shift Indiana

Carmel, IN – Yesterday and today, more than 100 students from campuses around Indiana came together to get educated, network, and train to take action on climate change. 

A highlight of the summit included an energetic and inspiring keynote from Jessy Tolkan, the Executive Director of Energy Action Coalition.  “Some of our friends out there are making this an issue about something happening in Washington D.C.  They’re making this about another battle between Democrats and Republicans.  But it’s not about politics.  It’s about Indiana,” Tolkan said.

Tolkan spoke during a Saturday mid-day rally, firing up the many young people to return to their campuses and fight for an economy that will provide good jobs when the students graduate from school.  “We have the biggest opportunity that any generation has ever had. . . We have the opportunity to completely transform our economy.  We have the opportunity to build millions of pathways out of poverty through clean energy jobs. We have an opportunity to redefine America’s role in the world.”

Tolkan was joined at the rally by Carmel Mayor James Brainard who spoke to Power Shift attendees about the progress that Carmel, who placed first in the Climate Protection Awards from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, has made in addressing climate change and renewable energy.  Brainard, the four-term Republican Mayor of Carmel, stressed that climate change is not a liberal or conservative issue, but a universal fact that requires people to step up and speak out against the naysayers.

Fred Hillenbrand, a student at Vincennes University, attended the national Power Shift ’09 summit in Washington D.C. last March.  “I got involved in the Power Shift Summits because I have a passion for protecting our Earth.  We’ve made mistakes in the past when it comes to the type of energy we have been producing.  We didn’t know better at first, but we know better now, and owe it to ours and future generations to fix it now.  My generation, we are the Power Shift the world’s been waiting for.”

Chevroen Washington, a freshman at Indiana University in Bloomington, is working to retire the coal plant on IU’s campus.   “I joined the Beyond Coal campaign on IU’s campus because I felt like it was the best way to get involved with something important.  This is my home for the next four years and I want to work as hard as I can to improve our campus environment.” 

Saturday evening included a call-in to Senators Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar from summit participants to stress the importance of their support for strong climate legislation passing through the Senate.

The summit continued into Sunday with a morning planning session during which students discussed ideas for climate action on their campuses and generated campaign plans for the next several months.  It also included a letter writing session in which all the participants wrote individual letters to their senators, a tactic that was emphasized during the summit as one of the best ways to make opinions known to elected officials.

Power Shift Indiana is one of a dozen state summits taking place this fall throughout the United States and Canada to demonstrate the need for strong, bold climate legislation leading up to the United Nations Climate Change summit in Copenhagen this December.