HANDSOME FURS and the youth climate movement

(this image is what comes up when you Google image "save the world," by the way)

Tonight I had dinner with my former intern Dan at the Other Side Cafe, a place that would be one of the best in Boston, if everything there was $2 cheaper. Anyway, we had a blast discussing everything from love to meeting facilitation to the awesomeness that is GOOD magazine. The most recent issue is all about water. There is an article about overfishing and they rep Food and Water Watch in their action section. Seriously though, that magazine is one of the best I've ever seen, in both content and design.

Dan and I were discussing the importance of the Energy Action Coalition in the broader climate movement when we struck gold: why not start our own training program? We were talking about how really, everyone should be pumping money into Energy Action to maintain and expand their training and organizing programs. Powershift rules and there are a lot of schools out there with big potential for climate and sustainability work who just lack the support they need to start a campaign.

I'm thinking back to the living wage campaign at Vanderbilt which finally took off, after 5 years, when students from Georgetown came to share the lessons learned from their successful campaign. While their campaign is remembered for the nine day hunger strike that ultimately won it, the end result came from years of good organizing- recruitment, leadership development, strategic planning and well run meetings. With help from USAS, some of the student leaders from Georgetown joined other living wage activists in traveling around the country to train and assist fledgling campaigns. This was/is known as the Living Wage Action Coalition (LWAC) and it helped us steer the Vanderbilt LIVE campaign in right direction. Within 6 months of their visit we had a strong coalition, an article in the New York Times and a real shot at helping our workers win a living wages.

What we need is a proper LWAC for the climate movement, a resource for emerging student climate groups. If we are really trying to build a movement here, why not train as many people as possible to be as effective as possible? It my understanding that Energy Action used to visit and offer training to their chapters but have stopped, presumably due to funding constraints. Groups like Greenpeace, PIRG, Wellstone and others offer training in group building and grassroots organizing, but there are any existing widely-known programs that are exclusively, or even mostly, students training other students. In the context of the Youth Climate Movement, such a program would ideally be an arm of Energy Action so groups could sign up for trainings while at Powershift.

It doesn't seem like this kind of a program would be terribly difficult to manage. What do you need? A website, phones, Facebook and some funding for travel and 1-2 staff people. No big deal. Brilliant! We're starting tomorrow.

In other news, I recently saw Handsome Furs, Dri and the Cinnamon Band at Great Scott. It was a killer show and one of the few I've been to in some time where I didn't feel really old.

The Furs, a man and wife, are amazing to watch. As they played (guitar and keys/drum machine respectively), they looked at and moved around one another as if they might jump out of their clothes at any moment and start making wild, passionate love on stage. And there was so much straight up rocking out. Beautiful.

Dri was a lot like No Doubt at times, only their blonde lady singer sounded more like the woman from Beach House than Gwen Stefani.

The Cinnamon Band is from Staunton, VA of all places. I've driven through that town a million times on 81. Its alright. Their lead singer has zero stage presence but they're music's got something. The singer's got a 'lil country in him and the drummer plays drums with maracas. I recommend "To Cool You."

I want to start a band called The Youth Climate Movement.