Smart Grid to Battery Storage:

These were among the topics deliberated by 45 national workforce and education thought leaders who convened this week at the Pew Conference Center in Washington, DC for “Sustainability Skills Matter,” a meeting hosted by the Greenforce Initiative, a joint-program of the National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Ecology Program and Jobs for the Future with support from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation.  The meeting was co-sponsored by the American Association of Community College’s SEED Center and the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS).

“We are seeing a shift in the economy,” observed Kevin Coyle, vice president for education and training at the National Wildlife Federation, but it is in its infancy; we need to be prepared across multiple sectors and our leaders need to be educated.  A smarter grid is one example: $150 billion per year is lost on power outages across the grid.  Battery storage, transportation- will also change soon.”

Brenda Dan-Messier, assistant secretary United States Department of Education, noted that efforts such as this convening help the US ”implement President Obama’s inaugural statement that, ‘We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.”‘

Linking Colleges and Strengthening Credentials:

“Connecting community colleges via public transport to the local town or city would be a key way to reduce CO2 emissions and congestion,” explained architect and transportation planner, Susan Herre. ”It would also introduce young people early on to the walk-transit lifestyle, making them more discerning consumers of neighborhood types as they choose where to work and live after graduation.”

To effectively advance projects like these along with students’ skill sets, Jane Weissman, president and CEO of the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), encouraged community colleges to offer industry-vetted credentials.

State and System-wide Skills Evaluation:

In addition to offering credentials in specialized industries, Rob Holsten, dean of continuing education and sustainability at Wilson Community College in North Carolina, described the “system-wide curriculum review process undertaken in North Carolina to better align education across multiple disciplines with today’s economy, including adding employer competencies and creating a common core for all technical programs.”

Workforce Priorities for Sustainability Emerge:

Employers, industry association, higher education and ngo leaders from agriculture, renewable energy, manufacturing and transportation sectors, developed more than 150 ideas in nine categories, including ways to deepen engagement with employers, support community college capacity, link the classroom to real-world project experience, increase awareness to expand demand for sustainability skills and improve labor market information.

Eight key recommendations emerged through an on-line comment, prioritization and voting system administered by FacilitatePro.  Among these were:

1. Engaging leading employers to better inform community and other colleges about the sustainability skills they value and want.
2. Integrating sustainability skills into every career pathway.
3. Providing more paid internship programs, mentoring and apprenticeships and other “hands on” training opportunities for students so they can demonstrate skills, knowledge and abilities.
4. Using campus-based projects as an opportunity to teach real-world application of sustainability skills for students.
5. Exploring opportunities to help businesses make their operations more sustainable and linking education and training around sustainability skills to this.
6. Working with economic development groups to identify sustainability skills needed by new potential employers in a region.
7. Connecting sustainability skills to existing state efforts to recruit manufacturing employers and connecting community colleges to these employers for skills development and work experience or employment opportunities, and
8. Identifying industries with an aging workforce and encouraging them to protect the future competitiveness of their industry by partnering with colleges to redesign and redeliver more effective training program (noting the example of PG&E in CA providing internships and apprenticeships together with 27 community colleges.)

“Ultimately, with the help of our community colleges and employers,” said Coyle, “values and attitudes will change and we will have a kinder, gentler and cleaner world.”

On the 19th of February, the Student Environmental Association (SEA) led an on campus march at the University of South Florida (USF) to rally for environmentally friendly legislative change. Protesters united and called for the enactment of laws that were both relevant to climate change and consistent on addressing the issue. Students brought positive energy, large signs, and loud voices in order to get this point across, chanting “No coal / No oil / We don’t want our world to boil!,” and “Hey hey / ho ho / Keystone Pipeline’s got to go!,” as well as my personal favorite: “Hey, Obama! We don’t want no climate drama!”

Southern Energy Network’s Florida Organizer, Jacquie Ayala, speaks to the media at students press conference

As the protesters and cameras crammed into the hallway outside his office, a representative invited us in and offered to meet with us. A dozen student activists poured into the cramped meeting room as we delivered the letter and made our case. Kendall Donahue spoke on behalf of the protesters, telling the representative that Rubio’s constituents were calling for environmental legislative support for President Obama. She asked that Rubio come forth and openly declare climate change as a real and detrimental problem, as well as support Congressional legislative change to help resolve this serious concern.

Student protesters march to Sen. Marco Rubio’s office

From here, protesters marched to the Patel Center, where the National Climate Assessment Town Hall Meeting was taking place. We concluded the march with a few final chants outside the building, as well as a discussion amongst the students about future opportunities of activism. Our successful march and rally that day is just one component of making sure our voices are heard. Many more demonstrations will have to occur for positive change, but we are all for putting that effort out there. We are students. We are activists. We care about our environmental legacy. And that, my friends, is what democracy looks like.

Victoria Griener is a junior at the University of South Florida studying Anthropology and Environmental Policy. She is a tour guide at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, where she educates people about nature conservation in relation to biodiversity loss, and is a member of the school’s  Student Environmental Association (SEA). She hopes to specifically go into the fields of primatology and primate conservation, but the entire field of wildlife protection fascinates her. Victoria has a personal nature photoblog at sunshineraeee.tumblr.com. See more coverage of the student protest in Creative Loafing. 

Hurricane Sandy 2012. NOAA image.

The Importance of Teachable Moments

As educators, we have looked to teachable moments throughout our time in the classroom to effectively communicate our content in real time and help students make connections to their own lives. Examples include, the attacks on the World Trade Center, the declassification of Pluto as a planet, the Gulf oil spill, the election of the first African American president of the United States, the spread of the Influenza A virus H1N1, and the 2012 presidential election.

Waves from Hurricane Sandy batter the Brooklyn coast. NASA photo.

Superstorm Sandy provides teachers the unique opportunity to calm students’ overwhelming fears, concerns, and sadness related to the events that have so greatly impacted the East Coast’s landscape, communities and wildlife.

Teaching students about weather patterns and how changes in our climate system are impacting these natural events will lead to better understanding of our Earth system; and with understanding emotions can be soothed.

Solutions to mitigate impacts

Climate change is and will continue to impact our nation and the world in which we live, therefore, it is important to arm students with actions they can take to feel empowered.

What Can I Do?

• Protect wetlands: they are coastal communities’ first line of defense against extreme weather events.
• Don’t just recycle: work on reducing and reusing too!
• Don’t let energy vampires drive up carbon emissions.
• Drive less, walk and bike more, carpool and commit to drive 10 miles less a week

Educational Resources

Eco-Schools USA is proud to offer educators and their students with a wealth of free resources that include ways to help students cope with catastrophic events, curricular connections, and ways to take real action.

• Eco-Schools USA – Hurricane Sandy
• Generation On
• My Planet, My Part
• NWF – Cool It! Tips for Going Green

Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money and Community in a Changing World is Parish’s new book, released earlier this year. Parish, co-founder of the Energy Action Coalition, and currently working to create solar energy through Solar Mosaic, pushed students in the audience to think critically about why they are doing the work they are doing to create a more sustainable world. Using his key findings from his book, he gave the audience three valuable tools to help us unleash our purpose.

1. Feed Your Purpose! Or more specifically, what is the vision you are trying to create? In all my time attending different summits and conferences, no one has really ever asked me what my purpose was. I thought this was a great way to push the audience (and myself) to question what our vision is.
2. How can you “Build with the Best?”  When trying to make your vision a reality, who are the top 5 people that can help you get there? He urged students to think outside the box and to think “BIG.”
3. What is the Root Problem you are trying to Solve? He wanted to make sure that the audience realized the importance of digging deep to get to the root of the problem.  He gave the example that if Carbon, C02 is the root of our problems- than we need to look at the cause of C02.  He used Bill Gates example of Innovating to Zero  and how it helped him figure out his root problem and ultimately figure out his purpose

Networking Session hosted by NWF Campus Ecology

Across the country, students are working hard to make their campuses and communities sustainable. This summit was a great way for students to learn, share and develop new relationships to push them toward success in their projects and campaigns.To find out more about how the NWF Campus Ecology program has been working for 24 years to assist students, staff and faculty in reaching their campus sustainability goals, visit us at  the CampusEcology.org.

Quint Newcomer talks to participants about University of Georgia’s Costa Rica projects

The Conference was geared towards kicking off GCSN’s new year and new momentum. The session topics included energy usage amongst campus facilities, curriculum, funding and green fees, and student engagement. In each of these sessions, presentations were made by participants with significant success and experience in these areas. They were able to highlight how they went about executing their projects and how others could do the same. Additionally, there was a presentation from executive board members of the student network, Georgia Youth for Environmental Solutions (GA YES!)

Dennis Kreech, Co-Founder of Southface gives the keynote address at this year’s GCSN conference

Everyone left the conference with new ideas and contacts on how to drive their sustainable agenda on campus such as GA Yes’s invite to students to be part of their action teams promoting sustainable change across GA’s public institutions and resources to do internal campus energy assessments. The steering committee was especially pleased with the great turn-out of students that attended. That has been a struggle of GCSN; to engage students to the point they are not only inspired to change the carbon footprint of their campus, but also impact public campaigns regarding environmental matters state and nationwide.

Green Campus Financing Advances

It was a watershed moment for campus and other sustainability enthusiasts because it illustrated just how far college and university leaders have come since financing tools were limited, when simple payback was the primary measure of the value of campus sustainability projects, and when savings from energy efficiency and conservation projects were generally lost to campuses’ or organizations’ general fund.

Addressing Disincentives to Conservation on Campus

Green revolving loan funds will help correct some of the unnecessary financial disincentives to conserve natural resources, it is expected, while adding a relatively new approach to the financial toolkit. So far, results are promising.
Last year, SEI released the report, Greening the Bottom Line, illustrating how 52 colleges and universities of all types and sizes all across the US are revolving savings from energy efficiency and other green campus efforts back into funds that finance additional conservation initiatives. Green revolving loan funds (GRFs) replenish through savings that are captured and reinvested in additional conservation programs.

Large Financial Returns for Going Green on Campus

Agnes Scott College President Kiss Presents Luncheon Keynote

SEI also found that students, administrators and facilities were about equally likely to serve as the initial promoters and champions of the existing GRFs and that both student fees (generated through referenda in which students vote generate a few dollars per term to campus sustainability activities) and administrative funding played leading roles in starting many of the funds.

“Billion Dollar Challenge” Spurs Progress

Mark Orlowski, founder and Executive Director of SEI, shared with summit attendees that “thirty-five higher education institutions have so far collectively pledged $83 million to their green revolving funds as part of the “Billion Dollar Green Challenge,” a new campaign SEI launched at the AASHE conference in October 2011.”

Among them is Agnes Scott College (my alma mater), which has committed to securing $1 million for its green fund. During her keynote presentation, Agnes Scott College President, Elizabeth Kiss, shared how support from SEI with implementation of a green revolving loan could help colleges advance sustainability objectives, particularly through help from consultation, case studies and tracking software.

GRITS Offers Assistance

SEI representatives demonstrated the new Green Revolving Investment Tracking System (GRITS), which is designed to help manage the many projects involved in green revolving fund, and will be made available to campus members of the “Billion Dollar Challenge.” Background on this campaign, case studies on successful green revolving funds at nine colleges and universities, an implementation guide and an investment primer are available on SEI’s website.

Harvard's Sustainability Director, Heather Henriksen, Describes Green Returns

Additional Articles about Green Campus Financing Tools:

New Financing Tools Help Push for Green Campuses (review of Financing Sustainability on Campus by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, NACUBO)

Reflections on the Financing the Future of Energy Efficiency Summit by sustainability leader, Mitchell Thomashow

Harvard Leads Green Challenge with $12 Million, by Alyza J. Sebenius, quotes Harvard Sustainability Director, Heather Henriksen

(NWF’s Campus Ecology Program proudly joins more than one  dozen organizations in co-sponsoring the Greening the Bottom Line report and in serving on the invitation committee for the Financing the Future of Energy Efficiency Summit. Our work is made possible through generous donations from NWF members, The Kendeda Fund, Bank of America Charitable Foundation, NASA and private donors. NWF’s Campus Ecology Program empowers student leaders to advance sustainability across the higher education curriculum, operations, and wider community.)

NWF Board Member Forges Link

SAIGE 2012 encourages young professionals, copyright Jeff Barehand

Clean Energy, Sustainable Water Top List of Concerns

When asked, “What green campus issues matter to you?” students identified three priority topics: sustainable use of water, clean energy and reducing waste. For each of the three topics, at least one student rated his or her campus as making an excellent effort in that area, allowing students to identify and partner with one another to strengthen projects. We placed ourselves physically along an imaginary “sustainability continuum” to help visualize the status of various efforts, to encourage movement and diversify the workshop format.

The workshop aimed to give SAIGE student leaders a deeper understanding of:

1. The national scope of the higher education for sustainability movement and how Native American young people as well as tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) are leading the movement;
2. Why environmental (or sustainability) education makes a difference in academic success and student well being; and
3. An especially effective approach to peer-to-peer coaching (GROW) that can help identify and further personal and professional goals.

Tribal Colleges and Universities Leading Provide Green Campus Models

Judging from the discussion, most of the student participants were unaware of just how boldly some of their peers are leading.  For example, they learned about clean energy innovation at Blackfeet Community College in Browning, MT, which is generating 50% of its electricity from wind and efforts at College of Menominee Nation, where all students take a course on sustainable development (See: Kuslikis and Beau Mitchell for additional information) as part of their general education requirement and where a position is dedicated to facilitating cross-campus sustainability initiatives.

(A note:  This workshop was an offering of NWF’s Campus Ecology Program which empowers student leaders to green their curricula, campuses and communities).

To all of those who haven’t decided if they are going to the Tar Sands Action on the 6^th at the White House or one of the many solidarity events around the country:

I know some of you are on the fence, but I am excited for the Tar Sands Action on November 6th .  I am excited because we have a chance to say, “There are Americans with a way of life that is slipping, and if they don’t have soil and water you don’t have food.”  I grew up in Wyoming and Colorado where my great grandparents had their homestead, and I have friends and family in three Western states and all over the East Coast who farm and ranch.  As any good farmer or rancher will tell you, soil, water, and weather is all they have going for them; climate change directly threatens their very way of life.  Already, less than 1% of our Citizens can be called farmers, and with global warming influenced droughts, fires, and floods people have been forced to think about moving to the city.  The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline would be a physical scar of what is yet to come.

Growing up in rural places also taught me that the outdoors can save your life, and can provide quiet during even life’s most hectic times.  These spots can be in your back yard, city park, state habitat area, or in a federally protected area. These little places in the middle of nowhere are sacred.  They teem with life delicate and strong, seen and unseen. To some the Pipeline would go through the middle of nowhere with no significant impact on species, but to many of us it is our place to find quite from the chaos, a place where we come to understand the delicate balance of life.

This pipeline is a pin-stroke away from being Obama’s official doctrine of environmental protection.  His real priorities come out when the choice for environmental protection is hard not when it’s convenient.   Sunday is our opportunity to remind Obama of his base’s priorities.  In one year he is up for another highly contested election, and we are looking for the opportunity to be his champion.  November 6th we will be in our communities and in front of The White House, it is our big chance to get Obama’s attention!  If you are on the fence please come and be a champion. What can it hurt?  At the very least you will have the opportunity to network with people who share your priorities and have enough drive to see the importance of showing up!

Power Shift is two months in the past, and I feel it’s a good time to reflect on what the event meant for students from my school, the College of Saint Benedict | Saint John’s University (CSB|SJU). On the whole, Power Shift was successful in many respects. It connected thousands of passionate and powerful young activists, turbocharged our momentum moving forward, and let ring the message that we have a vision for a clean and just future that we are determined to reach. This month, youth leaders across the country are launching projects to build the new economy hands on. It’s definitely worth a look.

It’s inspiring to see what has come out of Power Shift 2011, and today I want to remember what helped contribute to its success at the level of the college campus. As a NWF student fellow, I organized students at my school, the College of Saint Benedict|Saint John’s University (CSB|SJU) in central Minnesota, around Power Shift. We were successful in raising over $10,000 to send 43 students (13 of whom became facilitators for the movement-building training) to Washington, D.C., for the conference. Here are a few key lessons I learned from the experience.

Really, our work around Power Shift at CSB|SJU started back in September 2010 when we began organizing around sustainability projects on campus through our student Sustainability Alliance. The group is a collection of students with a shared interested in taking concrete actions to create and implement sensible economic, environmental and social initiatives on our campus and in the community. It is defined by students working together to turn their ideas into tangible campus projects (e.g. bottled water ban, recycling, Beyond Coal, administration-student communication) and grew rapidly as students had ownership and could see they were making a difference. When it came time to begin organizing around Power Shift, it was treated as another campus project.

Of course, leadership development is crucial to any cause. I found our model of a decentralized organization–focused more on student projects than the existence of the organization itself–to be especially effective. Our meetings and gatherings were open spaces where any student could bring forward ideas for initiatives and receive support and assistance from other students. I focused on ensuring new leaders had the necessary support to carry their projects forward, but left enough space that the outcome of the project depended on their effort.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After identifying aspects of organizing in which students were either inexperienced or unfamiliar, we held a half-day retreat that featured trainings on those weak points. The retreat helped put everyone on the same page with regard to organizing, and gave students confidence. Part of its success was determining what to hold trainings on democratically, so students had a say in what skills they were improving.

When it came time to gear up for Power Shift, our protocol for organizing was pivotal. I introduced the idea of the conference to the Sustainability Alliance in December before winter break. In January, we created logistics, fundraising, recruitment, and coordinating committees that set about their particular tasks. Within a few weeks, we had over 40 students (from a campus of 3,500) registered for Power Shift, a bus to transport them on, and over $6,000 fundraised to reduce costs to under $100 per student for the weekend. Our recruitment was done almost entirely through word-of-mouth. With at least three people in each committee, and tasks reduced to simple steps, preparation Power Shift did not place a large burden on any one person.

It was a wonderful experience working with and meeting other people from my school simply to gear up around Power Shift. When the conference came, we arrived ready to lead and bring back what we learned. By making Power Shift itself another project in our campus organizing, we gained the momentum needed to continue our leadership development and push towards a cleaner, more sensible world.

Casey Wojtalewicz is a recent graduate of Saint John’s University in Minnesota. As a NWF Campus Ecology Program fellow from fall 2010-spring 2011 and a key member of the College of Saint Benedict|Saint John’s University student Sustainability Alliance, Casey ran enormously successful EAC Power Vote and Power Shift campaigns on the CSB|SJU campuses. He is currently in the Netherlands finishing a human rights fellowship with Humanity in Action, after which he will move to Los Angeles for a six month apprenticeship field organizing with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.

Community-level sustainability discussion leads to White House meeting with President Obama

President Barack Obama drops by a meeting with young leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, June 6, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Recently my community involvement around sustainability principles snowballed into an involvement and experience far greater than I could have imagined.  While in DC as part of the Young Leaders Assembly at the 75th NWF Annual Meeting, I re-connected with one of my oldest friends.  Her profession and connections ultimately led me to host a roundtable discussion in my community loosely centered on challenges faced by young Americans and our solutions to those challenges.

USDA Rural Development Director (WI) Stan Gruszynski and USDA Administrator for Housing and Community Facilities Program Tammy Trevino attend a roundtable discussion at UW River Falls hosted by Ian Johnson, Research Fellow for the St. Croix Institute for Sustainable Community Development, March 12, 2011. (Photo by Jens Gunelson)

Through my now longtime – and often professional – connection to the St. Croix Institute for Sustainable Community Development at the University of Wisconsin River Falls, I facilitated a roundtable discussion at the broad request of President Obama, who gave the directive to his Administration to attend 100 such discussions around the country.  Along with 15 very bright students, the meeting was attended by the USDA Rural Development Director for Wisconsin Stan Gruszynski and the USDA Administrator for Housing and Community Facilities Program Tammy Trevino.  Our topics were broad, but ultimately were tied back to discussions about sustainability.

When the roundtable was finished, I compiled the discussion results, typed a feedback memo to the White House Office of Public Engagement, and submitted it by the requested deadline,  figuring my involvement was mostly over.

I was surprised and delighted, however, when two weeks ago I received an email requesting my presence at the White House to follow up on what I heard and observed as a facilitator.

One week later, back in DC, I found myself at the Secret Service guard house at the northwest entrance to the White House.  After a final check on my personal background, I passed through airport-like security and made my way up the winding sidewalk through the lawn and into the West Wing.

In the Roosevelt Room, the meeting was led by senior White House Staff.  There were 10 other roundtable facilitators present and we dove in to discussion about our various issues.  The conversations in the room were diverse in context, ranging from such topics as sustainability (my own platform) to immigration issues, bullying in schools to LGBT issues, educational opportunities for minorities to poverty.  The participants were from all areas of the country and were from various associations including Universities, Non-profits and NGO’s, even high schools.

Partway through the meeting, President Obama joined our meeting, proceeding around the table to introduce himself to everyone personally.  Moments later, the President of the United States was standing in front of me, shaking my hand and thanking me for coming.

He then sat down at the meeting table and thanked everyone for their own hard work in the various areas they represent; said that our work as leaders in our topics of concern and our communities was exceptionally important to a well functioning country.  He then asked if we had anything pointed we would like to say – a chance that most of us jumped at.

I re-iterated my work as a Research Fellow at the Institute, told him a bit about my intrinsic passion for the natural world, and thanked him for his work on the environmental front.  I told him it was a tough row to hoe, to which he agreed and stated that it is especially tough when some people don’t want to believe in science.  I remarked that we need to choose as a nation whether or not we are going to believe the science and that, if we choose not to, then I’m afraid that America’s best days may be behind us.  I also told him that, as a former Marine, I have a good understanding of how important our national security is and that self-sufficiency in terms of energy, food, water, transportation, housing, etc. are paramount to our own national security.  In what is the most awe-inspiring and surreal moment of my life, President Obama, seated a mere three feet from me directly across the table, looked me in the eye, agreed with my sentiments about security, and thanked me for my service.

In the room, the presence of the President, his top aide Valerie Jarrett, Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Ann Deparle, even former movie star turned political office holder for the White House Kalpen Modi gave it an awe-inspiring sense of power and importance.  To think of the things that have been discussed in that room over the years with numerous Presidents; the people that have sat in the same seat I was in was a surreal and powerful experience that made my heart race and my head swirl.

It was very evident from the attention to our concerns that this meeting was not just for show, but a sincere attempt to bring Young Americans issues directly to the White House and tap into the intellectual capacity of our generation to find real solutions to our concerns.

Having this opportunity and the audience I did is testament to the President’s commitment to the people of the nation and his concern for all our issues.  Perhaps now more than ever, progress in Washington is a slow process, but having been there to discuss the issues raised in the roundtable discussion I facilitated shows first hand his commitment to fostering our generation’s leadership.

While I have returned to Wisconsin, the involvement is not over.  The Office of Public Engagement has been in regular contact since the roundtable discussions began, and there is a continued conversation with all the Young Americans who hosted these discussions in their community.  We have been promised more ‘homework’ in order to continue to engage our communities, address our issues, and keep Washington aware of what is going on around the country.

Ian Johnson lives in Hudson, WI with his family and works as a Research Fellow at the St. Croix Institute for Sustainable Community Development at UW River Falls.  He holds a M.S. in Sustainable Community Development from UW River Falls.