(Uli’s story of communicating with the elected politicians in her state has totally inspired me to reach out to mine. Maybe a future challenge could be participating in democracy? Image by dbking via flickr. -ed)

Mass Power Shift was a climate change conference in Boston last weekend put on by a number of mainly student organizations. They did an impressive job pulling together a logistically very complex event in only four months.

The weekend was packed—with lots of Speakers (John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz-Kerry were the most famous, but the whole line up was very diverse and impressive: Miss Rhode Island, Claire Allen, State Senator Marc Pachico and on and on); about 30 workshops on different aspects of Global Warming and Activism, from networking on the web to green roofs to spiral dynamics, you name it; panel discussions; regional community break-out sessions; entertainment; a march and fair; and, as the culmination and maybe most important part—lobbying in the State House for the State Congress to pass the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) on Monday morning.

This legislation has already passed the Senate in MA, and our goal was to urge as many of the representatives as possible in person, to pass it in this legislative session. We were aiming for a firm commitment to do whatever they could to make this happen, and there is a follow up plan in place. The GWSA demands a reduction of greenhouse emissions of 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Now that seems not even going to be enough according to the latest science, but—one step at a time.

It was all new to me, as well as most of the other 50 or so ‘lobbyists,’ but we practised our meetings with experts in advance. In the first real meeting, I was nervous never the less. We worked in small groups or pairs and I think we all felt strengthened by this. The first reperesentative we met, Antonio Cabral, had agreed to a set appointment, asked us into his meeting room and said “Okay, talk to me!” He has already proposed a rail system around Boston funded by a pollution tax on cars. Another, Anthony Verga, came from a background of fishery and appreciated the sentiment that environmentalism has so far been a white middle class affair and the move out of that bubble.

It is good to get to get to know the people in the legislature. As much as they might be just a small part of the picture, they do hold power, and to speak with them about their own concerns about this issue is both humanizing and enlightening. One very impressive, absolutely non-pretentious and deeply caring man was Senator Pachico—he spent a lot of time with the participants of the conference. First and foremost was the “human connection”! Almost everyone, aides and representatives alike, was incredibly gracious and interested and some said that this kind of event carries a lot of weight in their mind. Meeting real people with real stories makes them feel supported, too, as they are up against a multitude of interests.

It was a powerful opportunity to begin to build relationships with people we have so many ideas about.

And then we will see—let’s hope the act will get passed and MA will emerge as a leader in Climate Action as it could and should be. Mass Power shift and the organisations involved in this event are definitely not going to stop. If you want to take more action right now, you can go for it here:

http://www.350.org/4/

http://www.1sky.org

http://www.itsgettinghotinhere.org