The weekend of April 4-6, three Whitman students: Gary Wang ’11, Sarah Judkins ’10 and myself/Camila Thorndike ’10: joined 25 youth gathered in the Oregon woods to further plot the course of the Cascade Climate Network (CCN), a youth network for climate change action that spans the Pacific Northwest.
We are guided by the Cascade Climate Declaration, also framed last fall, which states our guiding convictions about the urgency to act now in order to secure the just, prosperous and sustainable future we dream of. The CCN was integral in the successful Cascade Powershift 2008, which 12 Whitman students attended in February.
Created by youth for youth, the CCN is a web of communication and leadership that facilitates the effective collaboration of young activists, students, educational institutions and organizations of all shapes and sizes. Six short months after its inception, the CCN has proven its worth as an indispensable tool in the fight for climate change action. Working within its inclusive and equitable structure, we speak with a unified voice of greater breadth: and together we are being heard.
Twelve colleges and universities from both Oregon and Washington were represented at the Spring Fling by youth with a broad range of activist experience. Even with an entire weekend dedicated to each other, free time and open-space discussions went by the wayside as we bunkered down to hammer out the dirty details of making our vision a sustainable reality. As Nathan Jones of the CCN declared at the retreat’s opening, “the schedule is going to work for us”: and it had to work its tail off!
The weekend consisted of numerous trainings on how to build the emerging youth climate movement, as well as the challenging task of defining the CCN and its future. All attendees expressed wholehearted support for the “horizontal” structure of the CCN, which enables individual empowerment within a non-hierarchal web of names and faces. Ours is a living organization, just as dynamic as the youth who comprise it. At the Spring Fling, we ensured the network’s continued dynamism and rewarding equity.
All attendees contributed to its longevity with creative ideas that reflected their inspiring intelligence, dedication and foresight.
We began with updates from members on actions they had recently taken, which ranged from community-wide rallies to campus wind-turbine plans and photo petitions to halt further fossil fuel developments. The retreat fulfilled one of its main objectives, which was the “recharging” of the activist’s energy: that source of passion that, like any battery, can be exhausted in what is often a hostile world. The intensely-packed days overflowed into late night discussions of the sort that inspire, rejuvenate and reaffirm the principles we hold dear and the drive we all possess to make them a reality.
One of the highlights of the Fling was an anti-oppression training, held in part to stress the importance of justice in the fight against environmental degradation and climate change. It consisted of an eye-opening activity that challenged us to critically consider what privileges and disadvantages have shaped each of us as leaders within the environmental and social movements, including gender, race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and family background. The discussion that ensued was invaluable and created a space in which we could all become more fully human.
It may be stating the obvious, but more noteworthy than our accomplishments and organizational deliberations are the people who comprise the CCN. They are both those at Spring Fling, as well as our friends whose energy and solidarity were constantly invoked and remembered. We continue to grow as more committed, passionate and positive youth are welcomed into the “bicycle wheel” of the network, adding essential spokes to the hub that has already done so much.
