Hello SEAC,

My name is Andrew and I am excited to join you. I've bounced around the youth climate justice movement for the past two years, mostly working in Michigan to build our state network, the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition. In the MSSC, we define sustainability in terms of economic, social, and environmental conditions, similar, though not as explicit as SEAC's holistic view of the environment. This broad thinking about the "trinity" of sustainability and its link to justice was formative of my work, and I look forward to continuing on this journey with SEAC. To those of you I've worked with in the past, I'm happy to be continuing in this new capacity. To those of you I've not yet met, I look forward to meaningful working relationships and hopefully friendship as well.

Over the past two years, the guiding question in my life has been "How will a sustainable and just society function, and how do we get there?" Joining you as administrative coordinator means it will be my job to ensure you have the resources you need to organize and campaign in your communities - actively opposing the expansion of oppressive and environmentally destructive institutions while creating the institutions that will foster collective liberation and sustainability. For now, my role in the "how do we get there" is being the best supply train I can be. Of course, I'm not going to be the only one working on this. I look forward to developing some awesome grassroots fund raising drives with all of you.

Though fund raising, budget management and other behind the scenes work is my main charge with SEAC, there is much more for me to be excited about. For SEAC, concepts such as solidarity and social and economic justice are not just words. They are integral to our vision and actions. I see this in the Coalition of Immokalee Workers solidarity actions I've been to with SEACers and the developing relationship Michigan SEACers have with the south west Detroit community struggling for environmental justice. In the real world, economic, social and environmental justice are inextricably linked.

If this meme is to spread beyond our movement into our culture at large, SEAC has a lot of work to do. Today a trend that I once would have celebrated concerns me. Largely due to our effective advocacy and high impact culture shifters - such as the pairing of Hurricane Katrina and An Inconvenient Truth - the establishment has embraced the idea of climate change mitigation. But in this idea of climate change mitigation, corporations and governments play a dangerous and perverted game - somehow balancing the impression of doing something now (greenwashing) with future carbon emission reductions in as much as they enhance the longterm strength of the corporate or political body. Social justice, if mentioned is on the margins and anti-oppression is nowhere to be found. Going green and living green are almost hollow terms now. Perhaps this is a strange concern for a climate activist, but I'm worried that as a society we will trap ourselves in the idea of climate change mitigation, reducing, but not solving the carbon problem, and missing the opportunities inherent in bringing about a carbon neutral society. You know, green job pathways out of poverty, no more mountain top removal, transforming ourselves from consumers to creators.

That is why I'm glad to be a part of SEAC. We are embedded in the establishment, but we are actively engaged in its transformation from the bottom up. When others say "wind, solar, wind, solar, wind, solar, renewable yay!" we are the ones who say "wind and solar are great, but what about a just transition to sustainability?" We have a lot of work ahead of us, much much more than could possibly be done in our time in SEAC. What I hope my work supports is the growth of an organization that builds the foundations of a sustainable and just society with its allies. Rock on everyone!