SLEEP OUT

Cold college kids against climate change

By CARA BAYLES

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The student environmentalists of the Leadership Campaign (formerly known as "Mass Power Shift") are littering the city with their impromptu campgrounds. During the week, they sleep in tents on their college campuses, and, since October 24th, they've slept on the Common every Sunday, dragging their sleeping bags and tents up the Hill to lobby legislators on Monday mornings. The students won't sleep in dorms powered by pollutive energy (hence the slumber party), and they're pushing a bill entitled "An Act to Repower Massachusetts," which would mandate the state reduce its electricity emissions by 100 percent come 2020.

They were joined last Sunday by Dr. James Hansen, a NASA scientist, Columbia professor and outspoken climate change activist. "I don't go to every event like this. I was attracted by the comment that maybe Massachusetts could be an example," Hansen said. "I was skeptical as to whether I'd be able to last until the police arrived, but I did!"

According to Leadership Campaign spokesman Dan Abrams, on the 25th, officers issued a verbal warning, and the following week, they went tent by tent issuing citations. Last Monday, police visited them at 1:30am, issuing citations to about 80 protesters, including Hansen.

Officer Jamie Kenneally, spokesperson for the Boston Police Department, says the protestors are trespassing. "There is a curfew on the Common, which kicks in at 11. There is no camping allowed on the Common and people looking to do so do put themselves in a position where they could be arrested. ... It's not an arrest we want to make," Kenneally said. "We respect and encourage anyone's right to protest, provided, of course, they do so legally." Abrams says they're prepared to be arrested.

Last year, lawmakers passed the Global Warming Solutions Act, which set the goal of reducing emissions to 10-25 percent below 1990 levels. The methodology behind this was somewhat random. In May, Joint Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change co-chair Rep. Frank Smizik, D-Brookline, told the Dig, "When we passed the act, we were uncertain what the 1990 level that was the basis of the law was."

Abrams says lawmakers have been receptive to their repowered bill. "We're telling them, 'You guys are great that you passed this Global Warming Solutions Act last year ... congratulations, but it's not good enough,'" Abrams said. "We went in initially thinking, 'Uh oh, they might not like that.' But they seem very supportive of this idea, that 100 percent in 10 years is possible." Nine legislators have signed a letter backing the bill, but students hope to get Gov. Deval Patrick to sponsor it when they meet with him on the 17th.

The bill doesn't delve into specifics of how to wean the state off emissions ... like the Global Warming Solutions Act, it sets up a taskforce with a mandate. Fossil fuels like coal are cheaper than other energy sources, so Hansen recommends raising the price of carbon emissions, pointing to British Columbia, where officials levied a heavy tax on fossil fuel use and gave the revenue back to taxpayers with payroll tax deductions. "Goals are fine, but they're often not met, so you have to actually make the policy changes that are necessary to get the reductions," Hansen says. "Unless you put a price on carbon, you are not going to meet those goals."

The students plan to sleep out until December 7th, the first day of the UN Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. After that, they'll regroup and maybe change tactics before frostbite sets in.