In an interview on with Rachel Maddow yesterday, while explaining (once again) why a snow storm doesn’t disprove climate change, Bill Nye the Science Guy offered a simple explanation for the continuing confusion about the science of global warming: old people.

In his yeas as an educator, Nye says he’s seen a generational gap in the ability to grasp climate change. Unsurprisingly, young people get it.

It’s mostly generational…older people just have a much harder time grasping the idea that you have many billions of people on the planet with a very very thin atmosphere, you’re able to affect its climate…younger people are able to sort of embrace it, understand the evidence and move forward.

This is yet another reason why young people need to make our voice heard on the need for climate action. We can’t rely on our leaders our leaders to recognize the existential threat facing our generation on their own. We have to make them see it, and let them know they can’t put politics ahead of our future.

I’m not dead yet

The conventional wisdom around Washington is that the climate bill is dead. It’s an obituary that’s been written before, but ask anyone in the political establishment and they will tell you that this time it’s for real. Ask any member of the insider DC press corps, they’ll tell you that Scott Brown’s upset Senate victory in the Massachusetts was the final nail in a coffin they have been hammering relentlessly all year.

They are wrong.

Passing comprehensive clean energy and climate reform is not going to be easy, but who ever thought it would be? The death of climate legislation may fit into the standard media narrative and make for a nice story, but it’s not true and here’s a few reasons why:

1. Real Bipartisanship

Unlike the months long health care “negotiations” Max Baucus conducted with hostile Republicans, the Senate climate bill has bipartisan participation from the get go. Conservative Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and self-appointed swing vote Joe Lieberman (?-CT) have teamed up with John Kerry to craft a bi-(tri?)-partisan proposal to cap carbon, and Susan Collins (R-ME) has put forward her own cap-and-dividend approach.

There are positives and negatives to this bipartisan route. Will the compromise bill that emerges include unsavory trade-offs (i.e. nuclear title, “clean” coal, drilling permits)? Almost certainly. But as painful as these compromises may be, they also pave the road to 60 votes for a price on carbon. Lindsay Graham might be an unlikely climate hero, but his involvement could be the difference between disastrous inaction and a cap on carbon pollution. (For more on this, see some cogent analysis from Joe Romm)

2. Obama’s Getting in the Game

A great deal of anger has been directed at the White House for their failure to visibly lead on climate. Much of it is deserved. However, there are signs that President Obama and the administration are ready to step out in front on this issue.

Previously, we’ve seen a lot of behind the scenes maneuvering from Obama and other climate leaders in the White House such as Lisa Jackson, Carol Browner, and Steven Chu, as well as some stronger public engagement including last month’s Youth Clean Energy Forum.

In an editorial this weekend, the New York Times called for Obama to make a forceful argument for clean energy jobs and climate action in his State of the Union speech. Early indications suggest that climate will, in fact, be a prominent component of Wednesday’s address to Congress.

In addition, the White House has a trump card of its own – the ongoing effort by Lisa Jackson and the EPA to limit carbon pollution through their independent regulatory authority. The threat of EPA action serves as the stick to compliment the carrot of Senate negotiations, and as demonstrated by Lisa Murkowski’s Dirty Air Act, is clearly making big polluters nervous.

3. You

The politics and policies are complicated, but there is also one big, simple reason to be optimistic about climate action: all of you.

The youth climate movement has been out in front, aggressively making the case for our clean energy future. The movement is getting bigger, louder, and more organized by the day. Even with Washington’s usual suspects ready (perhaps eager) to leave climate for dead, rather than scale back, youth climate leaders plan only to ramp up.

Never underestimate the power of passionate, organized activists to rapidly reshape the narrative and reconfigure the conventional wisdom.

Just last week, thousands of citizens contacted their senators to oppose the Dirty Air Act. On Thursday, Lisa Murkowski took to the Senate floor and not only directly addressed the Dirty Air Act label, but also announced she was indefinitely postponing the vote on her proposal. This partial victory was only the beginning of the fight (stay tuned for more!) but it demonstrates the impact targeted activist pressure can have on the legislative process.

It’s easy to feel frustrated or powerless in the face of the perfect storm of bloviating and bullshit which passes for American politics. Don’t.

It’s time to double down. Join our Organize to be Heard Challenge or take part in any of the other amazing youth climate action going on across the country. Figure out who’s organizing on your campus and get involved. Recruit your friends. Enlist your acquaintances. Draft that one guy you met that one time (yeah, him too).

Do whatever you can to make your voice heard. It’s our clean energy future and no one is going to secure it for us. We have a lot of work ahead, but someone needs to tell the DC establishment that climate isn’t dead yet.

P.S. Though his spirit is admirable, please resist all comparisons to a certain Black Knight

A common refrain in political rhetoric is that “the children are our future.” The Consequence Campaign exists because youth aren’t just the future, we are the present. Our generation is mobilized and ready for action. Whether Washington is ready for it or not, we will not sit idly by as critical decisions are made. It’s our future and we are going to create it.

Consequence is the largest coalition of youth organizations ever assembled to call for congressional action on clean energy jobs and global warming. This is OUR fight. Youth have the most to lose from the impending climate catastrophe, and the most to gain from a new clean energy economy. In 2008, our decisive effort on the Obama campaign proved our political might. In 2009, our collective voice can be the deciding factor in the battle for strong clean energy reform. Standing together we cannot — and will not — be ignored.

Consequence Campaign partners are already running bold grassroots campaigns in every state in the country. In the posts below, you will hear from several of these partners in their own words about why they are involved in this effort and how you can take part.

It’s our time to lead. Together we will create our clean energy future.

53.4%. That is the percentage of unemployed millennials (who are not currently in school), and that number is what the Campus Progress Economic Opportunity campaign is all about.

Our generation came of age at a turbulent time faced with the failure of conservative economic, environmental, and foreign policy.

WE are the ones fighting 2 wars with countries that didn’t harm us instead of eliminating terrorism at the source, WE are the ones accumulating unprecedented amount of debt due to increasing college costs and the deregulation of the credit card industry, and WE are the ones that will be dealing with the worst CO₂nsequences of the climate crisis if we fail to act now!

At Campus Progress we are organizing events to encourage recent grards to get a clean energy job, we are providing support to emerging journalists who want to break the news on the most recent environmental disaster, and we are helping young people with ambitious campaigns in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Oklahoma, Florida, South Carolina, the District of Columbia, among others. We are also creating innovative multimedia to highlight the connections between the climate crisis and other progressive issues:

So join the Campus Progress Network and get access to all of our fantastic resources to take your activism to another level!

ACE :: Alliance for Climate Education is taking climate change back to school, literally! Around the country, trained ACE educators bring in-person, science-based, free, multimedia presentations to high schools. In our presentations, we cover the facts behind climate change and what students can do to stop it. This fall, we’re on track to reach 140,000 high school students with our program. Here’s a trailer of what we do:

After every presentation, we see that high school students get it when it comes to climate change. They realize human-caused climate change is real and that it is the most urgent challenge of their generation. We also see that students are ready to take it to the next level and do something about climate change.

And so, beyond presentations, ACE helps students get involved through action toolkits, grants, scholarships, leadership trainings, social networks like Facebook and more. Check out scholarship winner Kristine Cabuago!

You may also notice that in our name is the word Alliance and we strive to be just that! We look to connect and direct students to national and regional organizations wherever possible and help them plug into the larger climate movement (ie: please contact us if you are a national or local climate organization that works with young people!).

And so on this Blog Day of Action, we want you to know that high school students are powerful and they can change the course of humanity. It is our hope here at ACE that we can support students with the knowledge, tools and resources they need to make a difference.

Below are the full digital details on ACE:
• If you’re a high school student and you’d like to have an ACE presentation at your school, email: info@climateeducation.org
• Watch our trailer: http://www.youtube.com/ClimateEd
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/acespace
• Website: http://www.acespace.org