Megan Luce:
Biography: Megan Luce is a feisty PIM 67 working towards her M.A. in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management. Megan received her B.A. in Literature and a minor in Education from Wheaton College in 2003. She was a 2003-2004 Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan. Megan spent several years abroad doing research, teaching, farming, and having adventures before returning the United States to attend SIT. At SIT, she was a core member of the 2007-2008 Environmental Working Group. Her interest in Environment has been enhanced by her work providing environmentally sound waste-management services at music festivals and her experience as a volunteer on farms practicing sustainable agriculture, but is now more concentrated on affecting environment at the policy level. Megan currently is the co-manager of Brattleboro’s Winter Farmers’ Market and the Northeast Regional Organizer for Democracy Matters, a national non-profit. Democracy Matters works to remove the corporate influence in politics and bring politics back to the people by training high school and college students in effective political activism and advocacy through grassroots organizing. To put it briefly, Megan teaches young people how to stick it to the man.
Workshop: On the Highway to a Hellish Future: Corporate Influence on US Energy Policy
Synopsis: In this workshop we will discuss the explicit relationship between industry lobbyists’ campaign donations and US energy and energy-related policies. We will collectively evaluate how the relationship between “big money” and politics has been preventing smart, progressive policy towards climate change, sustainable agricultural, and conservation despite well-documented knowledge of the relationship between industries’ behaviors and environmental/climate degradation. The work shop will move on to look at effective ways to limit corporate influence and enhance citizen influence on policy with a heavy focus on the very important and recently introduced Fair Elections Now Act. Participants will have a chance to learn about the nation-wide grassroots movement for Fair Elections and how they can get involved as citizens and/or as activists.