Campus Green Builder

By Dan Abrams, former Second Nature Intern and former Communications Coordinator for Students for a Just and Stable Future

For most of us, we do not get the choice of what powers our homes. Every day as people live, eat, and sleep in their homes, they are involuntarily harming the environment by pouring carbon in the atmosphere by the ton. Because of our lack of choice, it leaves us subject to the only option: fossil fuels. And if we do get choices, the choice is not what power, but whose power, and we overwhelmingly choose the cheapest. We are forced into this conundrum and we have no easy way to get out.

In the fall of 2009 college students from across the state began doing something mostly unheard of: taking responsibility for our actions and creating change. Hundreds of students and community members mobilized in fall of 2009 and spring 2010 from as far as Amherst College to Harvard University to refuse to sleep in homes powered by dirty electricity, until the government has a plan in place to power them by clean electricity. They did this under the organization of The Leadership Campaign, a project of Students for a Just and Stable Future.

Every day Monday- Saturday we slept out on sites at over 25 campuses and community sites throughout the state. On Sundays, participants traveled to The Boston Common to rally and sleep out. Every Monday morning we lobbied the state legislature with our bill that will repower the state with 100% clean electricity in ten years.

In December 2009 we introduced a bill that will create a taskforce designed to develop ways to get Massachusetts to 100% clean electricity by 2020. It was introduced into the House and Senate with 17 co-sponsors. At the time of writing, it is held up in the rules committee due to complications.

The campaigned certainly sparked a movement. Over 200 people were issued citations by the Boston Police department for tresspassing on the Common after hours. We received over 100 media hits including three in the Boston Globe. We had special guests Bill McKibben (renowned environmentalist and writer) and James Hansen (climate scientist at NASA) attend our rallies and sleep out with us. We met with Governor Patrick to declare our position. We have even grown outside of Massachusetts - we have SJSF chapters in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Now is the time to solve global climate disruption. We cannot afford to wait any longer for serious solutions before consequences are irreversible. We must hold our politicians accountable for creating the necessary legislation to get us out of this mess. This will only be possible with serious solutions like 100% clean electricity in ten years. We cannot just reduce our dependence on fossil fuels; we must end it. Indeed, it will be hard. Companies will drag their feet kicking and screaming. But we need a clean energy revolution and no revolution is easy. I know for certain that I do not want to have to look in my kids' eyes and tell them, "I'm sorry. I should have tried harder."

We will be launching another campaign very soon. We hope to take our successes from last year and grow to be even bigger and better. We will not rest until our elected officials make climate change policy their top priority.

 To see a slideshow of pictures from The Leadership Campaign, click here.