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VSU Students Rally at Capitol
Posted by Alex A. (admin) on Dec 08 2007 at 2:31 PM
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Written by Mike Johnson and Natalie Quinn

Recently thirteen Valdosta State University students attended the
global climate change convergence Power Shift 2007. These students are
members of the campus organization SAVE (Students Against Violating the
Environment) and are actively promoting renewable energy alternatives
at VSU while trying to spread the word about global climate change to
the local, state, regional and national communities.

Power Shift 2007, a four day, entirely student led conference, was held
at the University of Maryland on November 2-5. An estimated 6,000
students from all fifty states and around the world attended this
ground-breaking event which has been described as the largest gathering
ever held to address the problem of climate change.

VSU SAVE member and conference attendee Mandy Hancock supplied this
remark: "This event is the result of years of hard work that students
and youth have put into making their campuses more sustainable.
Student activists realize the importance of organizing and
collaborating at the local level as well as regionally, nationally and
internationally. This conference promoted the development of
state-wide coalitions that could work together for national action.
Our own state network, Georgia Students for Sustainability, is
currently involved in coordinating a state-wide ‘Green Fee’ campaign to
create a budget so that our publicly-funded institutions have the
resources to move forward on our progressive energy policies."

In addition to extensive training sessions, rallies were held in the
evenings with entertainment and prominent speakers including former EPA
administrator Carol Browner, author and activist Bill McKibben, and
current Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Power Shift 2007 culminated on November 5 with an inspiring rally at
the steps of Capital Hill and a Lobby Day action during which students
spoke with legislators from their own home states. Senators and
Representatives were engaged and asked to support and pass legislation
aimed at immediately addressing the climate crisis. Lawmakers were
reminded that the United States should take the lead and be a guiding
force in finding and promoting solutions to this global problem.

Students lobbying their congressmen addressed three steps they feel are
necessary in order to protect the future of the environment and the
world as a whole. The first step is an immediate reduction in carbon
emissions from coal-fired power plants. Students asked that emissions
be decreased by 2% each year over the next 40 years, with a total
reduction of 80% by the year 2050. Second, legislators were asked to
put forth a moratorium on any new coal-fired power plants; this step
would help in attaining the necessary 2% reduction in emissions. The
third step would be the creation of over 5 million new ‘green’ jobs to
build, implement and install alternative, renewable sources of energy
that would be needed to replace the energy currently being supplied by
the burning of unclean, non-renewable fossil-fuels.

Following the Lobby Day action, the top three Democratic presidential
candidates began to advocate during their campaign speeches a series of
emission-control goals similar to those that students were asking their
legislators to promote.


More information about Power Shift 2007 and what occurred at this
ground-breaking event can be found at http://powershift07.org.

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