Virginia Powershift 2009 Recap

Virginia Powershift 09 wrapped up a couple of hours ago, and after some good food (Chipotle!) and digesting (no pun intended) everything that happened, I wanted to share some of my thoughts. I'll start with some of the activities of the conference, then move to general observations.

The Petrol-Free Gypsy Carnival Tour: this was incredible! Thanks so much to Nick and Rachel. Over 11 days this past summer, they biked from Harrisonburg to Virginia Beach while making stops along the way to play shows and spread the good word about touring with people power instead of oil power. Oil funds war and other social injustices, as well as contributes to climate change, and so by opting out of oil they chose to support a more noble cause. I have no clue how to pull it off, but don't be surprised to see Dubnium biking around Virginia next summer.

Probably the most surprising thing I learned this weekend was that campaign contributions in Virginia are unlimited. Of course, a quick trip over to the Virginia Public Access Project makes that quite apparent: the largest contribution by an individual to McDonnell's campaign was $125,000, while for Deeds it was $175,000, and both campaigns had multiple organizations which had contributed over $1 million.

But by far the best workshop I attended was the social media workshop hosted by Tom Dawkins, currently of Ashoka. Tom is their "social media guy" and had a lot to say about the strategies and pitfalls of using social media and how it is well suited to activism. One of the best lessons I took away from this workshop was only doing as much as you can be good at; focus on your strengths, yes, but also focus them in a way that's truly effective. Climate change is only one of many issues I care deeply about, so this made me evaluate how effective I was working on multiple issues and projects as opposed to focusing on one or two, but I think that sort of evaluation leaves out the value of community and coalition-building that results (partially) from what I do. And, ultimately, those are two things that can always be added to; after all, "the market for belief is infinite".

Saturday was October 24th, the 350.org international day of action. Ours was one of over 5,300 actions that took place that day, and with participation in over 180 countries, this can be considered the first ever global day of action for anything.

Then, of course, came the keynotes. Mike Tidwell was brilliant as always, vividly describing the shocking effects of climate change already happening while passionately telling us why he fights on every day, and why we should too. Rachel Butler of SustainUS added another number to the mix: 43, as in 43 days (42 now) till the Copenhagen climate conference, 43 days left to get our members of Congress to pass as strong a climate bill as possible, and 43 days left to ensure that Obama will be in Copenhagen, leading the way as the world prepares to deal with the greatest threat to mankind ever known. Jessy Tolkan was very much herself and brought the fire and passion to us straight from Times Square, which 350 had taken over as part of the day of action, and couldn't have done more to get everyone there excited. She brought up one really important point during her speech, one again of numbers, which I'll elaborate on with the rest of this post.

At one point Jessy made a reference to the "60 or 70" people in the room, but in reality at the time there were probably less than 50 people. And that's embarrassing. This event should have easily had a couple hundred people, if not a thousand, but for various reasons didn't. And while I can't speak specifically to the organizing effort by George Mason students or recruiting efforts by other schools, I do have a couple observations to make as to why Virginia Tech, one of the top schools in recruiting for both national Powershifts, showed up with only 6 students.

Quite simply, the problem was us, the experienced Hokie climate activists. We (and I use this term loosely, as I personally did not have much to do with planning) may have thrown a somewhat successful Virginia Powershift last year, but it was our collective attitude that helped kill Powershift this year. We didn't think it was worth our time, we lacked faith in the ability of those organizing, perhaps because of our inflated egos from the long summer months we spent planning as opposed to five short weeks, and overall we didn't care. We didn't care if Powershift succeeded, and maybe even wanted it to fail because we'd be proven right, better, superior to those organizing this one.

Well, sorry guys, but by every standard other than numbers I consider this Powershift a success. Every workshop I attended gave me quality information and networking contacts that I know will continue to help me from this point forward. The small numbers might even have turned out to be a plus for networking because of the informal environment created.

Another point brought up to me at the post-Powershift party last night was that some people felt that they didn't need to attend because they already knew everything. This is the pinnacle of folly, one because you can never know everything, and two because Powershift is about more than just learning. It's about putting that knowledge to work and creating change in our communities and around the world. I know most of us know this already, but it's easy to forget; Powershift is a good reminder of why we're doing what we're doing, how important this is, and how many others are there right alongside us.

So what to do now? I'll reiterate what Rachel Butler said: we have 42 days till Copenhagen to get our political leaders on board. Are you up to the challenge?