Today, the Senate failed yet again to bring forward a comprehensive climate and clean energy bill. Could what’s missing be a healthy sense of competition?
Let's hark back to President Obama's words from Oct 23rd, 2008:
“From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to produce and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy.”
If you want to win the greatest race of our time, you don't look at the chalk board, study every play, and then say, "Let's just throw in the towel & see if we can make it back here again next year." No, you go all out and inspire your team to win, you rally bleachers full of millions of fans, and you give it every last drop of sweat you've got.
It's in that spirit, that our crew at 350.org just released a new video to jump-start the Great Power Race, a clean energy competition between students in China, India and the US. The campaign's goal is to push the US and the two other biggest polluters to stop backing down, and to start racing towards climate solutions.
Almost 500 campuses have already registered at GreatPowerRace.org, with India leading the Race with 215 campuses signed up, China in second place with 173, and the US trailing with 104.
Right now students in each country are racing to sign up as many campuses as possible before the competition officially launches in September. Then, campus groups in America, China, and India will compete to implement their clean energy projects.
Projects are likely to include installing extra bike racks, putting up solar panels on dorms, growing organic gardens, encouraging a campus president to sign on to a climate pact, and all the other kinds of solutions college kids can dream of.
The Great Power Race campaign will make sure politicians get the message by keeping them updated on the Race standings and inviting them to come visit campus projects during the 10/10/10 Global Work Party, a global day of events to celebrate climate solutions. Over 1,200 events are already signed up for that day.
"We know what the future can and should look like. We know how to get there." Tod Brilliant just wrote. "The 10-10-10 Global Work Party has the potential to be Day One of that transition. Beyond shovels in soil, we can use it to start the political transformations needed right now all over the world. New blood, new values, new determination to do right by this planet."
Just because our politicians failed to ante up, doesn't mean our planet's not calling game time.
We'll see you at the starting line -- in thousands of campuses & communities, in every corner of the world.