Dispatches from Climate Struggles in the Southeast

By scott parkin

Students and youth in the southeast are FIRED UP!

I just spent the weekend at Valdosta State University in Georgia with 400+ folks from Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana who want to do something about global warming.

The whole weekend was organized by Valdosta State’s environmental group, SAVE, who put together a great program. It incorporated speakers from the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast’s “environmental sacrifice zone”, the struggle to win (successfully) Florida’s coal moratorium, anti-oppression and skillshares for future struggles.

Like I said youth in the southeast are fired up to take on everything from mountaintop removal to coal-fired power plants to rapidly developing plans for nuclear power. Over the weekend, I facilitated a couple of non-violent direct action trainings to people who were somewhat new to the concept but were excited to learn and experiment with it.

This weekend gave me new inspiration about the future of the climate justice and global warming movements. I think that the mountain destroyers and coal burners should be worried.