It felt like the 1960s with more hygiene and less drugs. There were about 3,000 of us gathered on the west side lawn of Capitol Hill, all holding signs and wearing green construction hats. We were from all different states, from all different backgrounds, but the one thing we had in common was that we don’t like the direction our world is headed.

We had all just attended a conference called Powershift, the first national youth summit about climate change. There were 6,000 kids at the conference, representing all 50 states and colleges ranging from rural two-year community colleges to ivy league universities.

As members of Campus Climate Challenge, Sarah Judkins and I were there to represent Whitman. After two days of panels, workshops and motivational speeches all relating to climate change, we went to Capitol Hill to lobby our representatives.

After talking to Sen. Patty Murray’s aid, getting a polite dismissal from the office of Congresswoman Cathy McMorris and not having enough time to visit Sen. Maria Cantwell, we headed out the west side lawn for the noon rally.

We picked up signs that said “No New Coal” and “Cut Carbon 80% by 2050.” The signs mirrored two of the requests we had asked our representatives. The third request was represented by the green construction hats we were wearing. The hardhats symbolized the request that we had made to our representatives, a request for five million new green jobs to reduce energy consumption 20 percent by 2015.

It was the third request that filled me with enthusiasm and gave me hope. Green jobs are the answer to the problems of the world.

If that last sentence doesn’t make sense, then you have never heard Van Jones speak. Van Jones is a social and environmental activist from Oakland, Calif., who came up with the idea of green jobs to beat global warming and create pathways out of poverty.

Jones wants training for “green-collar workers” to install millions of solar panels, weatherize homes, build wind-farms and so on. Better yet, these jobs can’t be outsourced as it would be pretty difficult to ship a building to China to weatherize it.

Jones was advocating a new kind of environmentalism, one that doesn’t rely on buying Priuses or shopping at Whole Foods. He said the new environmental movement is doomed to fail if it remains “eco-elitist.”

During the conference, students wearing shirts that said “Green the Ghetto” asked the audience to think hard about where the highest rates of asthma from pollution were as opposed to the parks.
It would be really easy to not care about global warming. It’s overwhelming, depressing and it seems inevitable no matter how bottles I recycle or lights I turn off.

But then I started to think about exactly who will to be affected by rising seas, melting glaciers and spreading deserts. It won’t be the people who can afford higher gas prices or new houses but rather the people to whom the “environment” is not a distant place where they go hiking but rather a crucial part of their day to day life.

Caring about global warming has nothing to do with wanting to “save the world.” The world will do just fine on its own, even if it loses most of its species. It’s humanity that I’m concerned about.