P ow e r S h i f t 2 0 0 9 : Hack l e y S t ud e n t s I n v e s t i g a t e Su s t a i n ab i l i t y “A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste”
in their finest dress through wind and blowing snow to Congressional offices on the Hill for “Lobby Day.” With our green construction helmets (“Get to Work for Climate Change!”) and fresh from a lengthy day of lobby training the day before, we walked into the offices of Representative John Hall of New York and lobbied one of his staffers, asking if we could count on Congressman Hall’s support in passing important green legislation in the future. His staffer said he would be supporting all that the group was asking for. Following that we walked over to the Senate and did the same as part of a much larger group of more than fifty. The trip culminated in a mass rally on the west lawn of the Capitol. Despite the snow and freezing conditions, the Hackley environmentalists protested and lobbied to the end. On the train on the way back I revisited the original thesis as published in the Power Shift brochure and concluded that I had experienced something with the potential to be truly historic. I had sensed the power of Gandhi’s assertion, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” Our young Hackley environmentalists have been inspired by Power Shift ’09 to embrace the defining challenge of our time right here on our beloved Hilltop, and they are planning to start right away.
— Majora Carter When I first received the official brochure for Power Shift ’09, I paused over the cover for a while. Printed in white bold letters was the phrase: “Historic National Summit.” OK, the English teacher in me thought, that sounds good, but it’s surely hyperbole. I decided to take twelve of Hackley’s finest students from grades 9-12 who are committed to sustainable living as well as two other “green” chaperones to Washington DC to “test the thesis.” Here are just a few samplings of what we discovered on our remarkable journey together. On the first night we walked into the Washington DC convention center to see thousands of young people crowding the halls, planning their itineraries and making their way towards the only room large enough to accommodate everyone for the succession of rousing keynote addresses. Among many things we learned from an incredible array of speakers was that Obama was not just the new President’s name, but these letter also stood for a new acronym, one we should all emulate: Officially Behaving As Magnificent Americans. Clayton Thomas Muller, an activist for indigenous self-determination and environmental justice, asked our students to conceptualize climate change in terms of social inequity, asking us to, “work together to make wind and not war.” The former Mayor of Salt Lake City, Rocky Anderson, followed, citing a national culture of obedience in the U.S. He asked everyone to “shift” from being sheep to “Power Shifting Bulldogs!” Gillian Caldwell, a filmmaker and Campaign Director of 1Sky, cited climate change as the “defining challenge of our generation.” Looking out into the sea of college and high school age cell phone users, Van Jones told the students that each one of them was a “walking technical superpower.” He exhorted young people to cease using iPods and cell phones as toys and to use them as tools. Declaring that “this goes deeper than solar panels,” Van Jones delivered an impassioned speech about the necessity for Americans to abolish “eco-apartheid” and to create a green economy that Dr. King would be proud of. According to him, we must deal with how we consume water and how we treat each other. The whole human family will declare what kind of species we are by the way we handle this global environmental crisis. Over the course of the next two days more speeches followed as well as dozens of creative panel discussions and workshops dedicated to improving the future of the planet. I guess it was when Gus Speth, Dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, stood up in front of about three hundred students packed into a lecture hall and suggested that he would be willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with eco activists half his age in the face of the threat of arrest that I thought maybe the brochure’s working thesis had supporting evidence after all.
— Kevin Rea
The most enjoyable and enriching moments for the three chaperones were watching the young Hackley environmentalists in action. On Monday March 2nd all twelve of them marched 12