Power Vote

I just got back from seven days that reminded me why youth are gonna save the world. I had the privilege of helping train and learn from 200 brilliant young organizers in Minneapolis Minnesota at the Energy Action Coalition Power Vote camp.

It was the most fluid and well organized training I had ever been a part of. More striking than the hard organizing skills, the web2.0 tech saavy, the smart message, strategic approach or visionary ideas, was the overwhelming sense of being called to duty.

It's a sea of green here at Concordia University in St. Paul, Minnesota at the Power Vote training with Wellstone Action. Over 200 students have gathered in their bright green t-shirts, along with a couple dozen Wellstone Action trainers in their Camp Wellstone T's (really more of a dark Kelly green) to get trained on the skills of grassroots organizing.

This week, Al Jazeera's Inside USA traveled to the coal mines of Illinois to look at America's dependence on coal, and the politics behind the fossil fuel. It's evident that just below the surface of this election campaign runs a deep seam of coal. Half of America's electricity is generated by coal; an amount that produces 40 percent of the country's greenhouse gases. Leading climate scientists have called for a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, saying that addressing global warming means addressing America's dependence on coal.

Nearly 100 field staff who will be running Power Vote on behalf of Energy Action Coalition members have descended on St. Paul, Minnesota today to begin a week of training and with the nationally renowned Wellstone Action (www.wellstone.org).

"Energy crisis solved! I’ll see you at the debates, bitches.”

While acknowledging that offshore drilling wouldn't produce a "drop of oil for 10 years", Obama reversed his stance on the controversial issue while speaking in Florida.