Remember the smell of burning fall leaves wafting through the air? Good memories, indeed, but best that they remain just memories. Burning leaves is bad news.

This practice is now illegal — or at least highly discouraged — in most areas. Burning leaves releases airborne particulates like dust and soot, mold, and other allergens that were tamped down with rain and decomposition. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): "the total health, financial, and environmental costs of leaf-burning can be quite high. These costs include higher incidences of health problems and increased heath care costs; forest fires and property loss and need for increased fire protection; and the clean-up costs associated with soiling of personal property.": So basically, burning leaves is an environmental no-no...

Climate change is our generation’s civil rights movement,”� says Brianna Cayo Cotter, communications director for the Energy Action Coalition, swilling from a tall cup of coffee. Cotter talked fast and raked her fingers through her thick, wavy hair, staring intently, as though she’d been on a steady diet of nothing but caffeine for the last few days. This was PowerShift 2007, held at the University of Maryland, the largest gathering of college students ever assembled to fight climate change, a weekend of non-stop workshops and speakers and rallies brought together by Energy Action staff. The previous week, the group’s server had crashed as college students across the nation logged on to register. On Halloween night, they hit 5,500 registrants, sending up a cheer in Energy Action offices. Cotter was literally buzzing with enthusiasm. “We’re at a crucial moment in history,”� she said. “Climate change is an issue that’s already impacting us, from the destruction of the Appalachian Mountains to the wildfires in California. We get that the resource wars and super storms are connected. And we get that the steps taken today will end up being the future for tomorrow.”

Shifting the Power

Surrounded by foldout tables topped with organic T-shirts, cloth bags, environmental magazines and activist pamphlets, the Energy Action crew had created its own environmental how-to Mecca. Students roamed the halls clutching containers of coffee and complementary tote bags, migrating to one of hundreds of workshops that happened simultaneously and around the clock across the UM campus, on everything from radical lobbying to art and activism to communicating a winning message and running an energy-efficiency campaign in your house of worship.

The workshops were followed by the largest youth lobbying effort ever assembled in Washington to stop global warming. In addition to more than 300 individual meetings with Congressional leaders, youth climate spokesperson Billy Parish, cofounder of the Energy Action Coalition, was one of several environmentalists who testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. The hearing had some 2,000 people in attendance. It was followed by a boisterous rally outside on the lawn...