southern energy network

Cross posted from the Southern Energy Network blog.

I have a very distinct memory from high school the first time I ever thought about what it meant to be an environmentalist. I was staring at a photo of a polar bear in the section about global warming in my textbook, not paying attention to what my teacher was saying but instead focusing on this image in my head that I had seen of thousands of people marching in the streets for the first Earth Day in 1970. I don’t think I really understood what was happening when I first saw the photo, what the march meant or why it was happening, but I know that it stuck with me and that I wanted to be part of something like that one day.

Fast forward to my time at Eckerd College. I was an enthusiastic student, striving to learn the science and ecology of this planet, but not finding much satisfaction in the biology lab or my textbooks. As I learned more and more about the crisis we are facing – climate change, pollution from fossil fuels, and more – I started searching for some way I could do something about it. Luckily for me, I found one of the best opportunities around – Greenpeace’s Change It! program.

Less than 24 hours ago, Shell oil reported an oil sheen in the Gulf about 56 miles south of Louisiana. The sheen is about 10 miles long and 1 mile wide, reports CNN money. Just shy of the two-year anniversary of the BP oil spill, when are we going to say enough is enough?

And in true corporate America fashion, no one is stepping up to take ownership for the spill. We cannot let this continue. We must stand with the Gulf and with its residents! We can no longer sit back and let oil companies continue to degrade and pollute our Gulf's waters. After numerous accidents and disasters, its time we stand up to Big Polluters and protect our precious natural resources.

The Southeast has historically been a launching pad for significant, world-changing social movements. This weekend at the 7th Southeast Student Renewable Energy Conference (SSREC), the power and energy of the more than 400 youth organizers in attendance made it easy to feel that we too are making history. Hosted by the Southern Energy Network, youth from across the Southeast gathered for an incredible weekend full of essential organizing trainings, motivating workshops, and inspirational speakers. Youth in the Southeast are organized, trained, and energized! After this year’s SSREC, they’re turning up the heat to head home and ramp up their campaigns to achieve a 100% clean energy economy.

St. Petersburg, Florida – Over 50 people held a rally at the Progress Energy Building to protest the proposed charges to ratepayers for new nuclear power generation this past Saturday, October 1. The protests called on the Public Service Commission (PSC) to reject the utility’s current request to charge customers up-front for new reactor costs, stop supporting the dying and polluting nuclear industry, and instead to support solar in the Sunshine State. The PSC is currently considering millions of dollars in bill increases for the proposed new nuclear reactors at Progress Energy’s proposed Levy County site and FPL’s Turkey Point nuclear plant, a disastrous move that would jeopardize the safety of the state and put a financial burden on Florida ratepayers.

At the rally, Florida youth from the Florida Youth Environmental Sustainability Coalition (FL YES) and concerned citizens from the Coalition Against Nukes (C.A.N.) participated in a “People’s Hearing” to demand that the Public Service Commission work for people, not polluters, and stop nuclear cost recovery. Because the PSC did not allow for public comment on this very public issue during hearings held in August, Floridians chose to take it into their own hands, and provided a space for the public to comment on their concerns with nuclear cost recovery.