Mozambique 2008: Two boys displaced by the flooding shelter at Baue Resettlement Centre in Mutarara District, in Tete Province.
UNICEF/NYHQ2008-0042/Delvigne-Jean
More than 12,000 students from 50 states in America travelled across the United States for the second Power Shift conference, a massive youth discussion on confronting climate change.
The devoted students aimed to take on Capitol Hill, Washington DC by urging for a greener economy and for direct action to be taken.
Despite the heavy snowfall, students prepared to take the capitol by storm and had scheduled over 350 meetings, with many stating they will settle for nothing less than a complete climate change policy shift in Washington.
“Being here makes me feel like being much more active,” said Ashley Fallon, 20, a marketing student from Loyola College in Maryland. She said that she experienced an environmental culture shock returning to the United States after studying in London, where she found people much more aware of environmental and climate change issues. “Power Shift has been a really eye-opening experience.”
Energy Action, an organisation of 50 environmental groups, organised the Power Shift weekend conference and lobby day. The students hoped to network with other students, gather information and plan how to bring environmental change back to their campuses and home towns.
Capitol Power Plant, a small facility that fuels the capitol, has been the centre of many complaints for many years by the local community. Residents have protested about the 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants that settle on their neighbourhoods in Capitol Hill.
“People in D.C. have been fighting against the power plant for years; it is very dirty and located in a poor neighbourhood. They haven’t had much success until now,” said Adrian Wilson, a San Francisco-based environmental organiser.
The students’ demands included immediately cutting carbon emissions and they stopped at nothing to achieve their goal. More than 2,500 students registered to shut down the Capitol Power Plant and attempted to block the entrances of the power plant.
“This action is not just about this power plant, it is about the 600 coal-fired power plants across the Untied States,” Wilson said. “This action is going to be a great first step because it will help us expand the small army of direct action activists who are trained and experienced and who are willing to put their bodies in the way of the coal industry. It will be this way until every coal power plant is off-line in the United States.”