My Powershift: a personal account

Day 1, Friday:
Throughout the day, Powershifters bid Middlebury, Vermont adieu and boarded buses to head down the coast.  It was D.C. or bust — and 11 hours later, sitting in gridlock on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and missing Al Gore’s keynote speech, it was almost bust. Luckily, we tumbled off the buses into the Walter E. Washington Convention Center just in time to register and hear Van Jones, famed environmental advocate, speak for a rousing welcome to the capital. The speakers went on, but I left for bed, deliriously tired after the long day on the road.

Day 2, Saturday:
The 10,000-or-so souls reconvened bright and early for the day with triple-shot Venti-sized Starbucks coffees in hand (the mark of becoming a city android for the weekend). The morning was devoted to movement training sessions that covered how to organize and structure an environmental movement in one’s community. At Middlebury, with an organic garden, biomass plant and ultra-vocal Sunday Night Group, it’s hard to remember that not all schools have the same amount of environmental enthusiasm. West Virginia University, for example, is still trying to set up meetings with their president to discuss a carbon neutrality plan. These schools undoubtedly benefited from the training sessions and were able to collect materials and models on how to set up activist groups. The Middlebury contingency, however, might have benefited from more advanced training.
The convention center was just a short walk away to Chinatown, which provided access to enough good ethnic food to satisfy our culture-starved palates for at least another month. After a lunch break, we had three blocks of time to fill with panel, training or workshop sessions of our choice — and we could choose from nearly a hundred options. The sessions discussed everything from fracking (a method of natural gas drilling) to how to succinctly counter-argue the claims of a climate-change-denier.
That night was another gathering at the main stage to listen to a lineup of speakers, both famous and pulled-from-the-crowd. Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), promised to do all she could to advance progress of climate regulations.  Tim de Christopher cautioned the masses to remember the hard truth — we have already gone too far, destroyed too much and our world will never be the same, but he encouraged us to continue the fight. Hands down, the best treat was to see our own Bill McKibben take the stage to eardrum-shattering cheers. We forget how privileged we are here to be able to chat face-to-face with this environmental activism rockstar. Speeches were followed by a concert of several sweet-voiced musicians and an always sweet, longed-for bedtime.

Day 3, Sunday:
More movement training sessions kick-started Sunday and were followed by some downtime. Scores of buzzing students unwound energy and soaked up some sun on the green lawn of the square in front of the convention center.  Most of our group departed on Sunday afternoon, but the ones who were sticking it out until Monday attended a state breakout session with their home state or the always-welcoming Vermont to learn what environmental organizations and programs were happening in that state and how one could get involved.  I stopped by the Vermont room before heading to the West Virginia room to get my name on both sign-up lists and was able to see some troubling differences in state activities. Vermont was as high-energy and well-organized as you would expect with packets for its kids, a comprehensively-built email list and SNG-leaders keeping everything running smoothly.
The West Virginia room, on the other hand, lacked a facilitator or any sort of leadership personages. The miniscule, aimlessly rambling students seemed unable to articulate any movements I would put any confidence into and failed spectacularly to communicate with each other. My heart sank after my home-state breakout and nearly stopped when I attended the consecutive Lobby Day training session in preparation for the lobbying that we would be participating in with our state representative on Monday. Only one other guy and I made up the lobby team for West Virginia, with other states like Iowa boasting at least a twenty-person team, others with much more.  It was disheartening to see how some states really were not up to par in the movement and have even more complex relationships with big energetic and economic problems. West Virginia is so bound up with the coal industry that its two Democratic senators must disregard environmental regulation to support the existing source of economy in the state, and dare not consider alternative energies in the face of the huge coal corporations.

Day 4, Monday:
The last day of Powershift was certainly the best experience of the trip because it was the most deliberate use of our powers as citizens of a democratic government. The participators met in Lafayette Square in front of the White House to march and display support for investment in clean energy and ending coal and oil dependence through passing the Clean Air Act, one of the most effective pieces of legislation for the slowing of emissions and resulting climate change. Being a part of such a huge march on Washington was exciting and empowering. People chanted, “Oh! It’s hot in here, there’s too much carbon in the atmosphere!” and “This is what democracy looks like!” as they marched to the Capitol building to lobby.  The other half of the crowd marched on the Chamber of Commerce to protest corporate handouts.  Stopping traffic, making a scene — it was like getting attention as a two-year-old by having a tantrum, but it was also getting to directly use our first amendment rights. Then we lobbied. This involved meeting with staff members who worked for our representatives in the Senate and the House and, as constituents, asking them to support the Clean Air Act and our climate concerns.  With my little West Virginia voice, I didn’t feel as though I had made a difference, but I did feel like an American, if that makes sense. I would recommend a lobbying experience to everyone, just to put your toe in the torrential waters/sluggish swamp of the process of Congress for a moment. After a whirlwind trip, we booked it to Union Station to catch our bus to return north, pulling into Adirondack Circle at 2 a.m., fully Powershifted, with stories to tell and new thoughts to share.