10:30pm Friday

The opening night of Powershift '09 featured a long line-up of speakers.  From the second row (yes, we were very proud of this) we heard:

Van Jones - founder of Green for All and author of The Green Collar Economy
Lisa Jackson - EPA's Administrator
Ken Salazar - Secretary of the Interior
Rocky Anderson - former mayor of Salt Lake City
Majora Carter - founder of Sustainable South Bronx
Clayton Thomas-Muller - activist for Indigenous rights and environmental justice
Gillian Caldwell - Campaign Director of 1Sky
Billy Parish - co-founder of the Energy Action Coalition
(for full bios, visit: http://www.powershift09.org/conference/speakers)

Overall, I was very impressed with both representatives' of the Obama team's speeches.  They both appeared so humbled to be speaking in front of a large group of energied youth, and yet the audience was humbled to be able to hear from them.  Lisa Jackson, the first African American administrator of the EPA, had this message, among many others, to send to us, "science has been resurrected."  She called on America's youth to help build the new administration.  Ken Salazar told a wonderful story.  He grew up without electricity or a telephone and was raised by two parents that were not able to go to college - and now he is the Secretary of the Interior.  He taught us that it was Nixon that actually coined the term, "energy independence," but he also reminded us that several decades have passed without reaching it. 

I must say, I hope that we are inspiring these administrators as much as they are inspiring us.  Here are a few quotes that I wrote down from a few of tonight's speeches:

"You are all agents of change." - Ken Salazar
"I want you all to be nothing less than remarkable." - Majora Carter (a really amazing speaker, by the way, if you haven't heard her already)
"Oppression is as bad for the oppressor as it for the oppressed." - Majora Carter
"Let us work together to make wind and not war.." - Clayton Thomas-Muller
"Let us take the torch of responsibility.  Let us recognize that it is our job to [shift the power]. Let it be known that we are up to the task." - Rocky Anderson
[The time has come for you to cease using technology as toys and use it as a tool] - Van Jones
"We have to create a green economy that Dr. King would be proud of." - Van Jones
"This country will never be more idealistic than you are." - Van Jones
"This movement also has to include the coal miners." - Van Jones
"We could have clean coal, and we could have unicorns pull our cars for us." - Van Jones (one of my favorite quotes of the night)

Another fun event of the evening that I can't leave out - Mr. Anderson led us in chanting, "no coal is clean coal" so that the legislators a few blocks away could hear us.

And it's only the opening night!!  The meat of the conference (or should I say the tofu) hasn't even begun.