Collegiate Times

Tech students pledge that they will Power Vote, a Power Shift initiative where voters promise to cast their vote based on acandidate's stand on environmental issues.

A yearly student-led environmental sustainability initiative culminated with the Virginia Power Shift convention this weekend at Virginia Tech. Students across the state converged at Tech's inaugural year as host campus.

"That's one of the biggest things. Most important thing is we're bringing everyone here," said Jackie Pontius, president of the Environmental Coalition and senior environmental policy and planning major. "It's been organized by students for students and also for community members."

Issues addressed included sustainability, global warming and clean energy initiatives, as organized and outlined with ideas for solutions by several keynote speakers and informational workshops.

All weekend students had their choice of more than 40 workshops varying from seven different themes of training. Workshops ranged from grassroots empowerment through art to bike maintenance 101.

"It's our first experience with it but the lineup of workshop topics was great," said Anthony Flaccavento, presenter of a workshop titled, "Fighting climate change through organic farming and local commerce." His class provided a short introduction on how people can use their food habits -- what they buy and what they eat -- to help fight climate change and help build up the local economy.

"The students that came to my first session were very knowledgeable and enthusiastic," he said.

The Sustainable Fair took place in Squires Old Dominion Room on Saturday. Some organizations presenting were the Beehive Collective, an all-volunteer nonprofit graphics collective based in Eastern Maine; SEEDS, a local Blacksburg nonprofit organization that teaches about sustainability and the environment; and also DC Students for a Democratic Society, an action-oriented student and youth power network that is looking to bring democratic values to campuses.

Speakers gave presentations illustrating their stories on environmental activism and talking about the possibility of a sustainable Commonwealth.

Dave Norris, mayor of Charlottesville, gave a presentation titled "Green Citizens, Green Cities" that showed how, through supporting local renewable energy projects and providing stronger incentives for energy efficient practices, he was able to help make a cleaner, healthier community.

Two panels took place on Saturday, including  the Snowball Effect Panel, which featured four students who spoke about how they worked toward change on their campus.

"The snowball effect is the process of students procuring power on campus starting with an idea, an action, and really leveraging resources on campus through their administration and other sources to really make change," said Rachel Barge, project director for Campus in Power.

The Climate and Energy Solutions for the Commonwealth Panel addressed energy issues and how Virginia can move away from oil and coal to rely on wind and solar energy.

"Virginia is rated 38th of all the states dedicating themselves to energy efficiency," said John Randolph, program chair of the School of Urban Affairs and Planning and professor of environmental planning. "We need to push the envelope. The Virginia energy plan is probably the wimpiest energy plan you've ever seen."

The featured keynote speaker was James Hansen, famed NASA Climatologist and Al Gore's science adviser. On Saturday evening, Hansen gave a talk addressing global warming.

 "The truth is we have reached a point of a planetary emergency. It's very hard for people to recognize that," Hansen said. "The global warming at this point is small, but the actual situation is because of inertia in the climate system, we've only observed a fraction of the warming that's caused by gases in the atmosphere."

Mike Tidwell, the founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, was another speaker.

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