Tom Friedman’s piece in yesterday’s New York Times gets a few things right: Waxman-Markey (ACES) is disappointingly weak thanks to the GOP’s unwillingness to find solutions, we must strengthen and pass it through the Senate, “We The People” owe it to the future to rise up like never before to make this happen.
But he narrows “We The People” to mean We The Young People.

I’ve got news for you Mr. Friedman – young people are rising up like never before to make this happen. We’ve been to DC twice and stormed Capitol Hill with young lobbyists to counter dirty energies hired hacks. We’ve held hundreds of events engaging members of Congress with their constituencies to call for action. We’ve flooded their offices with phone calls and letters. And we’re just getting started.

The youth climate movement deserves at least some of the credit for the passage of ACES – the bill barely made it through, and the youth movement has been pushing on it hard via campaigns like Power Shift and Focus the Nation’s nationwide clean energy town hall.

You say we should get off of facebook and into legislators’ faces, out of the chat rooms and into the cloak rooms. Check and check. We’re in their faces, we’re in the cloakrooms, we’re doing every last thing we can. And by the way, we use the internet to organize real on the ground action – that’s called innovation, something you’re supposed to be a fan of.

Now we’re turning up the heat even further to push Senators to strengthen this bill and make it something we can be proud of. My question to you, Mr. Friedman: When is your generation going to rise up the way we have? You owe it to us, to your kids, and to ours.

Posted in global warming