I've been hanging out at the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael this weekend. The peak moment for me was Friday, when Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights kicked off the conference with a moral challenge to the environmental movement to use its growing power to dismantle structures of racial and economic injustice while greening the nation. If you're not familiar with the work of the Ella Baker Center and their work to provide youth of color with skill sets in green technology as a pathway out of poverty, you should check out their site. Van Jones is being honored next Thursday night by the US Green Building Council at their Super Heroes Gala (click here to sign up!) for his work on so-called "Green-Collar Jobs."

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Very nice piece in the New York Times today on Step It Up 2007's National Day of Climate Action Apr. 14 and the general attempt to get lawmakers to take climate change seriously. Step It Up is currently the gargantuan Distributed Event in the DIA universe, closing in on 1,000 separate local actions a month out from the action. (There's a short description of what the Meetup-like tool does on this page.) And the seamless blending of online components with in-the-flesh activities testifies to the capacity for creative activism to inspire passion and get big in a hurry:

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