Building Political Power

Written by Hannah Bristol, SustainUS Agents of Change Delegate at the COP18 UN Climate Change Conference and student at Middlebury College. Cross-posted from the SustainUS Agents of Change Blog

Will this be your climate legacy? This is the question we ask our leaders as they take part in two weeks of climate negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

In the past year, we’ve seen droughts, floods, wildfires and hurricanes across the globe. We saw Sandy leave a path of destruction up along the coast, from the Caribbean to New York City. We saw heat records shattered, making 2012 the 9th hottest year on record. We saw an unprecedented loss of ice cover on the North Pole. And just this week, a report was released finding the Arctic permafrost is melting even more quickly than predicted, releasing more greenhouse gases.

The world that my generation lives in is shaping up to be dramatically different than the world that humans have inhabited for the last 10,000 years. The world in which we’ve grown up is dramatically different even from the world in which our parents grew up. Climate change is not an issue for future generations. It’s not even just an issue for my generation's children. Climate change is an issue for my generation. We are facing the impacts today.

Jim Rogers, (was the) CEO of Duke Energy, the nation’s largest electric utility, was Wednesday's morning’s keynote speaker at Duke University’s day-long Energy Conference. His talk, “The Future of Energy: How Will Today’s Challenges Shape the Future of the Industry,” focused mostly on natural gas and nuclear, with little attention given to climate or renewable energy -- until we got to Q&A.

N.C. State junior Caroline Hansley asked Rogers a tough question this morning about how he plans to address helping the UNC System meet their climate neutrality goals if Duke isn’t seriously investing in renewable energy.

Rogers of course evaded the question, urging universities to take measures into their own hands, telling campuses they need to become more energy efficient. We agree, this is something universities should prioritize, but no matter how energy efficient a campus becomes, they still have to purchase energy. From there Roger’s began to brag about all of Duke Energy’s risky nuclear power plants. Sorry Jim, but North Carolina is not interested in potential Fukushima situations. Of course, Rogers made sure to avoid the fact that Duke Energy is also turning on coal plants.

Written by: Fiona Gettinger, Fiona is a Sophmore at the Univerisity of New Hampshire majoring in Environmental Conservation Studies, she is also a campus coordinator with the Greenpeace Student Network and the President of the Student Environmental Action Coalition. This post was originally published as an Op-Ed in the "The New Hampshire"

Charles Dickens once described a future of contradictions, writing that, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us...” More than any other era, that time is now. We are off balance at a precipice of inevitable change; we have an ever expanding technological horizon, rapidly diminishing natural resources, an out of control global population and a planet at capacity.

Two months ago, five UNH students met with some of the most senior level administrators of our university to discuss the possibility of divesting the endowment from fossil fuel corporations, and reinvesting in socially and environmentally responsible companies. As we found out, investments are actually made by an external company, Prime Buchholz, and major decisions go through the Foundation’s Board of Directors, and the Investment and Finance Committee. They declined to provide a position or opinion on divestment at the time, however, last week the Student Environmental Action Coalition received the official statement of the UNH Foundation regarding its stance on divestment from fossil fuel companies.

Election season is over, and organizers are finally seeing some blank spaces on their calendars. Even beyond the presidential race, the climate movement has made some real progress. Going forward, how can we convert our momentum into meaningful change? This is a great forum to generate new ideas, and I've got some thoughts to get us started.

First, let's look at where we stand now. As a group, young voters reasserted our power in this election. Despite some predictions, youth turnout was even higher than in 2008, swinging at least eighty electoral votes . Meanwhile, several states chose climate-friendly congresspeople over their anti-environmental opponents.