Recap of yesterday's Youth Clean Energy Forum @ the White House

Yeah! Yesterday's Youth Clean Energy Forum made CNN's list of top political tweets of the week! It's #7!

Here's a summary of the best highlights from the event, that I've come across:

From the Hip Hop Caucus Website:

In the third and final segment of the Clean Energy Economy Stakeholder Briefing with Youth Leaders, top White House staff on clean energy listen to reports back from several breakout sessions focused on improving engagement between the White House and youth leaders. See reports from the breakout sessions here:




To watch the rest of the video footage from the afternoon's events visit the White House video website, here.


Then check out this fantastic blog post written by HeadCount's Executive Director, Andy Bernstein who attended the event.


Here's the post from the US State Department about their attendance at the event.


The write up from the Roosevelt Institute is here. I liked this part:

While there has been expressed disappointment with some of the back and forth between administration officials and forum participants, this event clearly demonstrates the Obama White House’s commitment to engaging with young Americans on the most challenging issues that our country faces today. Never did the Bush White House convene such a summit, and even the Clinton administration rarely provided this kind of access to Cabinet Secretaries, department heads, and other important and trusted advisors to the President.


Here's the report from Tomasso of Campus Progress. I like this part of his post:

We can help free them from the shackles of King Coal. This forum was a great first step and opened the door for more collaboration between the White House and young activists. What it also did was demonstrate that the efforts and tactics we have used up to now have been extremely successful. As Jessy Tolkan (always the rebel rouser) explains, we must ratchet up our energy and our efforts to change the Senate just like we changed the White House.


A summary prepared by two young US Department of Interior staffers who attended the event - Nate Hundt and Jonathan Jourdane.


Also check out the blog post "Youth Climate Movement Grows Up… In a Good Way" written by Morgan, who also attended the event.

Morgan was recently a senior at Williams College. There, he was a Chinese major, student body co-president and one of the leaders of Thursday Night Group, the campus climate action group. Since graduating, Morgan worked on a community energy efficiency campaign in western Mass, co-directed NH SPROG for the SSC and worked on Power Vote in Cleveland for 2 months. He then left for China for 2 months where his interests have been turned to for-profit models of change and specifically solar hot water systems.

To get more updates from Morgan you can follow him on Twitter.

To get more updates from HeadCount you can follow the organization on Twitter.


And in terms of moving forward with the movement, check out this great open letter to John Carson, the field director for the Obama campaign and is now the chief of staff at the Council on Environmental Quality, who moderated the White House event. It was written by Zachary Stark-MacMillan of the Cascade Climate Network.

Also check out Jessy Tolkan's summary of the day's events, here. Her post includes this slideshow, with photos taken by Alec Loorz and Gabe Elsner.