Posted by Jamie in Climate Change, Green Opinions | 0 Comments
Too cool for coal: America’s youth fired up in protest against coal
Warning: strip_tags() expects parameter 1 to be string, array given in /home/propelea/public_html/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 631
America’s youth want to be heard: They are just too cool for coal. From the World Wide Web to the streets, they are demonstrating it.
From the Internet
America’s Internet-savvy youth are using the World Wide Web to spread their opposition to dirty coal in the fastest way possible.
This campaign tactic has now leveled off the odds of the anti-coal movement in America with the well-budgeted PR campaigns of American corporations that insist on ‘clean coal.’ The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity has unleashed millions of dollars for online advertising in order to persuade Americans that “clean coal” is the best answer to global warming, and it is planning a $20 million online push this year.
However, when you type “clean coal,” you get links from primarily anti-coal websites, progressive climate blogs and discussions.
According to Richard Graves, the director of Fired Up Media, the youth have taken advantage of their knowledge of complex algorithms that make up Google’s PageRank system. They are able to get their climate blogs, terms and content to get “ranked” very high. This increases the “importance” of the phrases, tags, headlines and corresponding sites used. The more that they digg and cite each other, the more powerful their online presence becomes. They use internal list serves to share information and maintain unity, and Twitter and instant messaging applications send alerts down with fiber-optic speed and a tree-phone’s urgency.
To the streets
Political commentators have noted the sharp reaction from the youth on the issue of climate change and the anti-coal advocacies. The first quarter of 2009 saw increasing numbers of high school and college students participate in climate change direct actions including rallies, concerts and strikes to demand sustainable action from the government.
On March 2, 2009, over 12,000 college and high school students traveled across the country for the 2nd Power Shift conference, a meeting-of-the-mind for students focused on taking leadership roles in dealing with climate change. In a matter of three days, students were able to participate in activities that dealt with various themes like direct action and uranium mining, the histories of coal power, grassroots organizing, anti-oppression workshops, and media and leadership training.
During the April Fools’ celebration, youth all over America made it loud and clear that they are ‘too cool for coal’. A Monster Mash and a mass bike ride were among the activities organized by Bowling Green, Kentucky students.
In addition, residents of Berkeley, California and several Tempe, Arizona students got on their bikes in an act depicting their “reclaiming of the streets” from car-driving individuals.
Related Posts
