Are you rallying in D.C. right now for the Power Shift 2011? You're NOT? Well, lucky for you we've been posting highlights over the weekend. Here's what you missed, you poor sap:
- Former White House advisor Van Jones wants to hold both parties to high standards, but he's not sure they'll live up to it. Luckily, the kids are all right. "While they're stuck on stupid in D.C., your generation is rising," he told young activists in his address. Jones, derided by Tea Party asshats as some kind of terrifying liberal Black Panther commie, hit hard on the idea of environmental safety as an American value: "Don't you believe in liberty? Shouldn't we have the right as Americans to be energy producers? Shouldn't we have the right and liberty to be free from energy companies who dictate how much we pay, what air we breathe?"
- Bill McKibben of 350.org warned activists they'd have to fight hard against "money pollution." "We cannot stop their money, but we can strip them of their credibility," he said of today's protest at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He also mocked the Chamber's legal brief saying that humans should just adapt to climate change: "I don't even really know what that means, alter your physiology. Grow gills? I don't know. But I can tell you this. I am too old to change my physiology and you all are too good looking."
- Obama actually showed up to talk to youth leaders of the Energy Action Coalition. "I hear you're angry with me," he said. And how. Glenn Hurowitz had predicted that Obama would skip Power Shift because he's "Snuffleupagus" for the environment — an imaginary friend who disappears when you need him. So he was surprised, though not completely satisfied, by Barackalupagus' appearance.
