By Rachel Beaney

Kevin Rudd is following me on Twitter. I followed him and he followed me back. I started laughing, because I thought of the thousands of young people Kevie was following, maybe Twitter was a far better reflection of our demands as a society than elections or anything. He sees the wants, needs and flippancies of thousands of Australians in the snapshot of his tweets.

For the first time in history, young people are more adept in the world than the older generation. We can find information faster, more effectively and more reliably than our parents. This means we’re more informed of the world, of what we can change and who we can address issues to. We can search google, wikipedia, phone a friend or tweet Kevie – although, Kevie’s response on twitter would just be the efficient 140 characters.
So, despite our illusions, youth are more powerful than ever before. For the first time our voice can be heard.
Everyone’s chucking around these buzzwords, like youthquake, which, honestly, is kind of awesome. Our generation can really make a stand to influence the world – like in the US and Australian elections.

What if we threw ourselves together to make change? To make a stand and make our voices, our concerns heard, in a way unprecedented in Australia? On just one issue?

Some issues are too big for us to change. Climate change, for example, is massive. And, honestly, changing a lightbulb to be more energy efficient feels pretty lame when massive corporations are spewing out a hundred-fold as many emissions in a day.

I got to wondering what we could actually do to create change for our environment. I, for one, was raised on a steady diet of Blinky Bill and Captain Planet, so the environment is actually a massive concern for me. So, I was chatting to some volunteers, Ramya Krishnan and Katherine Tu, from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. It’s big companies who need to change, they said, changing lightbulbs will only do so much.

“A cultural shift begins in the community, where people start expecting better standards from companies.” Ramya explained. “If consumers start asking questions about the environmental standards of companies, they’re forced to change.” Companies are run by consumer sovereignty, she said, and if consumers want change companies must follow suit.

Gen Y is the largest consumer market. If we start asking the companies who create the products from about what they’re doing about Climate Change, they’ll have to make a change.

It’s been a hot summer. Now is the time we notice the massive swings in weather and temperature, and, if you’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth, you’ll know this isn’t just a spike in the earth natural warming and cooling. It’s essential we stand up and make some noise about Climate Change now.

“There’s an urgent need for something like this, making ourselves heard, because the Government is going to the Copenhagen conference.” Ramya explains. The Copenhagen Climate conference, in November, is the establisment of a new climate protocol. In 2012, the Kyoto Protocol to prevent climate changes and global warming runs out. “The international communities are waiting for other countries to take the lead. It can be Australia.”

So you think that writing to politicians and companies isn’t really your thing – but you do want to say that you don’t accept the way our country disregards the importance of paying attention to climate change – and you want to be heard? Well, Ramya told me whispers of a very cool event coming up.

“It’s called Power Shift,” Ramya said, and Katherine, summed it up, grinning: “It’s an historic opportunity to fight for our future.” But, it turns out, this proclamation wasn’t an exaggeration.

Imagine a three day event, where young people from across Australia come together to celebrate, create, dream, learn and act on the future of Climate Change in Australia. It’s packed with gigs and being supported by hot bands like Regurgitator, the Cat Empire, Blue King Brown, Skipping Girl Vinegar, Mr Percival and loads more. There’s a conference for three days, with international speakers, some very cool academics like Tim Flannery, and the weekend is crammed with workshops which share how you can get involved in your local community – how you can make a change and make your voice heard in your local community – whether that’s out West, in your mosque or when you’re online.

There will be people sharing their opinions and experiences of climate change – from academics  and scientists, to a mob from the Pacific Islands sharing the very real impact of climate change in their area.

Power Shift is going to go off in July, from 11th – 13th, in Sydney.

If Kevvie thinks that the short term economy is more important that a sustainable environment – our land, our food, our lives – are more important than climate change, then he’s got another thing coming. Besides, Power Shift features a Green Jobs Fair – for free, so we can check out just how working within an environmentally sustainable economy we’ll not only be boosting jobs, but will be employed in these industries forever.

The Power Shift is when we get together, make some noise and say no – we will not accept the decision of older, disconnected Baby Boomers on our behalf.

This is not just an issue about politics – it’s about our way of life, the future we demand. It’s finding how we fit into the world.

We are autonomous and have the right to speak. So we will speak.

And sing. And dance. And learn. And create. And make change – at Power Shift 2009.