Watauga Democrat: "Keep Winter Chill" article

https://www.wataugademocrat.com/news/new-collaborative-urges-university-town-to-charge-faster-toward-climate/article_042f4ebd-7b1d-5ba5-a763-d76b58ea7a82.html

"The group held its “Keep Winter Chill” kick off event on Jan. 26, , , Participants in the event paraded from the ASU Plemmons Student Union to the Blowing Rock Road and N.C. 105 intersection — congregating on the sidewalks for a peaceful rally.

“This is a night for celebration,” Blume said. “We’re celebrating that we’re here together, that we’re taking one of many steps toward climate action . . ."

Keep Winter Chill Event

Join the Climate Action Collaborative this Saturday, January 26th for our kick-off event, Keep Winter Chill, to celebrate our current and future successes in climate action and the parts of life that make it worth sustaining. This event creatively coincides with the Winter Chill campus event at the same time and is also a response to the international day of action by Extinction Rebellion.

We will parade through town, gather for a community potluck, and celebrate with live music, art, and festivities. See more details here.

Show up to show off all the energy behind the climate action movement that will propel us onward towards bringing the university to climate neutrality by 2025 and transforming our institutions and communities for a just and sustainable future. All of this is possible with the collective power of people coming together!

Here's a schedule of events. Come to what you can! And be sure to dress warmly if you are parading.

• 4:00 PM - Connect & Energize - Plemmons Student Union, room 169 (parking available on campus) - distribute signs and banners

• 4:15 PM - Parade around Town

• 4:45-5:30 - Demonstrate/celebrate at 321/421/105 intersection

• 6:00 PM - Community Gathering and Potluck - PSU 169

• 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM - “Keep Winter Chill” Celebration & Festivities - PSU 169

The tone of this event is explicitly celebratory. While these times of climate crisis permit all types of emotion- outrage, despair, grief, anger, etc. - we are choosing now to come together to celebrate. We celebrate being at a university that is committed to sustainability and so surely must support our goals for climate neutrality and climate action. We celebrate the momentum around this work that will bring about transformation. We celebrate good community, connection, creativity, and all that makes us worth sustaining.

(And we ask that all signs or messaging that we present at this event align with this tone, refraining from accusatory or demeaning messages.)

Please share this widely, and we look forward to seeing everybody there. Statistics say that there only needs to be 3.5% of a population actively engaged in order to elicit system transformation? So that’s just around 800 people to transform App State. This is do-able and it's necessary. If not now, when? If not us, who?

Creative sign and banner parade prep at 3rd Place on Tuesday.

Please reach out if you have any questions or want to get involved further by contacting climate.action.collaborative@gmail.com.

Links for more information:

• news coverage in Watauga Democrat

• our event Facebook page

• our website

• Extinction Rebellion US website

Save the dates!

The Climate Disobedience Center will offer a weekend workshop in Boone to help prepare us for climate action. Jan 12-13th, location TBA. Space may be limited. RSVP onlineif you can commit to two 5-hr days.

On Saturday, January 26th we’ll have our public kick-off, coinciding with the U.S. Extinction Rebellion. Extinction Rebellion “is an international movement dedicated to raising the alarm about the dire threat of climate change and using mass nonviolent civil disobedience to force governments to take action.” More details soon.

In January and February, we need people to help:

• seek support from the SGA and the faculty and staff senates;

• share the Faculty Pledge;

• get massive buy-in on the Student Pledge committing to ongoing involvement and to holding professors and the administration accountable for preparing us for the broad social, economic, and environmental changes of the climate crisis;

• do targeted outreach through community presentations, and build relationships with social justice organizations that can help ground our movement in intersectional work and mutual support; and

• host radical imagination and visioning workshops to help inform the “creative” side of creative resistance and our manifesto. How will we transform our community, society, and culture for a just and sustainable future?

And in March and April, stay tuned for exciting, major actions both on and off campus!