Mike Tidewell is founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), and an author. His newest book, focusing on Katrina and global warming, is titledThe Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities.

Mike started his talk expressing his excitement in the change he has seen in our collective zeitgeist
that has occurred in relationship to climate change: more and more conferences focused on sustainability (Powershift, Smart and Sustainable, etc ) and more national focus generally on global warming. Author Bill McKibben says Katrina opened the door and Al Gore walked through it. There is much more focus on these issues now than ever and it is vitally important. Throughout his talk, Mike emphasized the need for action now and the immediacy of building a clean energy movement.

Mike didn't start his career as an advocate for environmental change. He started as a journalist covering issues that ran the gamut (and he was well into his career when he made the switch from journalist to organizer). After reading Bill McKibben's The End of Nature and armed with the increasing knowledge of the potential for climate catastrophe and the need to act now, Mike changed his life (went vegetarian, installed solar pv, biomass stove for heating etc) and in the Spring of 2001 vowed to devote the rest of his life's work to helping be a positive force in fighting global warming. He founded CCAN to help fight global warming near his home in Maryland (also focusing on Virginia and Washington, D.C).

Mike illustrated how we are seeing global warming play out in many different ways: ice sheets melting and insurance rates for coastal communities going up. He said that what we need right now is a social and political clean energy movement that snaps like the climate has the potential to do. We can help become our own positive feedback loop (campuses can pass clean energy policies that can then influence state clean energy policies that can then influence federal clean energy policies). Mike said he is personally inspired to see students and campuses leading the way and taking the climate change issue on as their movement. It is necessary and inspiring.

Mike also stated that we all know that we have a moral and social imperative to take personal, voluntary steps to lessen our impact. We must remember and be careful however, that while we individually follow the "top ten ways to go green" and other voluntary steps we must hold corporations and governments accountable (see his feature article from Grist.org "Consider Using the N-Word Less") What we desperately need is the passage of laws . We are a nation of laws and we cannot rely on voluntary initiatives alone. Federal caps and taxes on carbon emissions are absolutely necessary if we are to solve the issue of global warming. Mike implored  all of us to continue to put pressure on our legislators and demand strong federal action.

His talk was refreshing, passionate and an important call to action. It was also an important reminder to me that the problems we are facing are not insurmountable but will require sacrifice and lots of work. Get to it!