I attended the Power Shift Canada 2009 conference for youth action on climate change last weekend (October 23-26). It was a chaotic weekend full of workshops, keynote speakers, and lobbying. The number of youth attending from all over Canada was inspiring, and I met a lot of fantastic young people! Hope you guys are reading, and thinking about joining OOKPIK, because we’d like to hear about all the great things you are doing and what you think about youth issues…. As for my experience there, it was mixed. I attended several workshops ranging from very interesting to mildly dissapointing. I think on the whole it was well recieved especially by the younger youth (high school students). And I'm not saying at all that it was not a good conference, but I was only dissapointed at attending workshops where no new information was given to me (because of the extensive topics covered in early September for our intern training). I was really impressed to see so many of the youth attending also as workshop facilitators, who were well spoken and had excellent advice to other young people on how to succeed in their activist endevors. A lot of the workshops ended up being more like discussion forums with participants than information sessions, which was interesting, but unexpected.The most interesting and beneficial workshops thatI attended was called “To the Ends of theEarth:Exploring the Effects of Climate Change in Polar Regions.” It was facilitated by representatives from Studentson Iceand provided an good mixture of information, and group discussion as well as some fun. They were engaging and well informed. I was also surprised to find that we had a live skype meeting with “actual young people from the Arctic” to ask our questions of what life is like living in the North, and what issues do they face up there that Southerners don't know about. And I was even more delighted to find that the two Northerners being questioned were my friends and neighbors from APEX! So I went up to the webcam on the pretenses of having a Polar climate question, and said hello to Stacy and Qajaaq.
We also had a few hours dedicated to regional break out sessions, and I was very happy to meet several (very impressive) young people from all across Canada's North (as we are so often lumped together in these kinds of situations). It was amusing to see how many of us had connections of one kind or another. This session as also more ofa discussion forum,but we did have a presentation on the Canadian Youth Delegation to Copenhagen. I amexcited to have met them and hopefully we will be updatedon the outcomes of COP15 by them in the near future. They advocated having “flash mobs” every monday until COP 15 happens at Government buildings and schools to makeCanadian officials take notice that citizens want to see climate action takenin our country. Another suggestion was that we lobby our local provincial and municipal governments, businesses, and community members, to fly the Canadian flag upside down, as that is the international sign of a country in distress. And surely Canada is distressed now more than ever about theclimate crisis.
The 350.ORG campaignwasvery successful on October 24th with over 5200 events happening globally. Although it was a gloomy, wet afternoonin Ottawa, dedicated power shifters made their way to Parlaiment Hill to show their dedication to taking action against climate change. Youth from Nunavutpresentedtthe Declaration of the Young Leaders Summit on Northern Climate Change in Innuvik at the Fill the Hill event, and later presented a copy to Jack Layton at a question and answer session held on Monday, October 26.
I also attended the green jobs symposium, which had a variety of different organizations promoting various ways theyhad or were in the process of making their jobs more “green.” It was interesting to hear about the steel workers union andtheir struggles with having such “dirty jobs.” Their presence andpresentation at the symposium was the most impressive to me,because of the representative's well informed and friendly manner. They were able to answer all my questions with ease. Other stations included a Power Shift twitter station to let the twittering world know what we thought about sustainablility; an Econetwork table,”Stop the Tar Sands” activitsts, and many youth coalitions and organizations.
The most unexpected and exciting things happened on the last day of the conference. You may have read or heard about it in the news, as there was quite a rukus made on lobby day at the Parlaiment building. We met in the morning as scheduled to do a flash mob chant and little dance urging politicians to hear our voices, and went to various press conferences and meetings for the rest of the morning. In the afternoon, we attended a question and answer session with Jack Layton whichwas quite interesting. He answered our questions with ease, and gave us advice on the bestways to lobby politicians (face to faceif you can, and know your facts, don't be intimidated). After the session was over, we were invited to observe question period, and having gone in with a seperate group on passes fromthe NT Memeber of Parliament, Ialong with about 15 other Power Shift participants, were completely taken by surprise when one whole section of the crowd started chanting for Indigenous rights, climatejustice, andthe signing of bill C-311. Question period was momentarily put on hold while the section was cleared of all observers, including an unfortunate elderly couple who I am pretty sure where not involved with the power shift group. I was not at liberty to partake in the chanting, and so remained for the rest of question period, which actually was just more yelling, but from the MP's this time…. And finally I left to seewhat cameof our “radical” friends. Many were still standing on the steps outside discussingwhat happened. As I left, the participants who had been banned were wondering whether they would be allowed back in for the meetings with their MP's. I still am not aware if the meetings ever happened, but it would be a shame it the only actual influence we had a chance of having with ourgovernment officals that day, was cancelledbecause ofthe afternoon's public disturbances.
Overall it was a very interesting experience. I had a good time and met a lot of great new people. I hope that this will encourage more people to get involved with changing on a personal level and where you can, on a larger scale too! “WHEN I SAY CLIMATE YOU SAY JUSTICE! CLIMATE! JUSTICE! CLIMATE! JUSTICE!”