Hello RANsters and RYSEstars!

Just wanted to give you a belated reportback on something RAN/RYSE did over the summer! From July 12 to August 10, we rode along the Warped Tour, a loud rock tour with dozens of bands, in a bus that ran on recycled vegetable oil! Every day we woke up at 9 AM to prop up our tent and set our table for an 8 hour day of loud music, funny looking haircuts, and MAD outreach! Allow me to break it down for you…

VISION

Earlier this summer RAN Youth Sustaining the Earth (RYSE) was launched with the goal of activating and equipping young activists with the tools RAN has to offer. We set out to be at the Warped Tour to offer a network of tools and resources for young concertgoers hungry for climate justice activism. In a hyper-consumption oriented environment like the Warped Tour, non-profit groups sell social change and activism, which people support with their donations, signatures, and through wearing groups’ logos (usually stickers). While we had a donation jar, petitions, and free shwag on our table, we wanted RAN activism to be seen as accessible, rather than for specialists who concertgoers may only “support.”

OUTREACH

So, we wanted to support concertgoers’ activism, not the other way around. This unusual goal (for a group on Warped Tour) pushed us to do some unusual kinds of outreach. The most unusual outreach we accomplished was hosting workshops on Direct Action and Climate Justice in our tent. These went well, but it quickly became apparent that it was difficult to hold a workshop while bands are playing on 3 nearby stages. During our latter half of tour, we adapted the workshop-oriented outreach method to the environment at Warped Tour. A certain ska band from Boston was really intrigued in RAN and RYSE. And they better have been, since they had a big banner on stage demanding an end to global warming!

They invited us, whenever we wanted, to pass out stickers, pamphlets, and flyers to the line of people at their autograph signings. We did this, and more. In the middle of everyday on our last week of tour, we gathered up a big box of RAN materials, and headed over to the autograph line. We held lightning fast Climate Justice workshops for 6-10 people at a time. Right answers and awesome participation won free RAN stickers, pins, and patches; and then resource zines and sign-up sheets were at the end of the band’s table if people were interested in getting involved. This was definitely the most fun outreach we did all tour.

There were other bands that came and visited our tent and expressed excitement over the issues we were advocating, as well as amazement at our awesome tour bus. They offered us some space on their table for literature, which we obviously took them up on! Most bands on Warped Tour do autograph-signings almost daily. So while people got autographs and time to chat with their favorite band, they also picked up some recommended RAN literature.

Along the way, RAN and RYSE activists from respective regions of the country joined up with us to help us table and talk up ways concertgoers could get active locally.

VEGETABLE OIL

We drove a Ford E-350 diesel engine shuttle bus. The bus had undergone some work so that it could run on used vegetable oil as fuel. Crazy, right? Actually, it’s pretty simple. The veggie oil just has to be clean (all the food junks filtered out) and have the right viscosity (heated up so it moved smooth). We rented it from the great folks at Fossil Free Fuel in Pittsburgh. They have a garage where all they do is convert diesel vehicles to run on veggie oil!

Where did we get all these gallons of grease? Most restaurants were excited to give us their used oil, as they had to go through trouble anyways to get it disposed of. We had a mechanical pump that sucked the grease right into our filtration tank, and then ran it through a heating and filtration process. After an hour of filtering, it was ready to pump into our second fuel tank. On lucky days, kind food vendors at the Warped Tour would give us their oil from that day. We would have to let it sit for a few days to let all the bits of funnel cake, french fries, and battered Oreos (one author would like to interject a “yuck,” the other a “yum,”) settle so that the good grease was left on top.

Lots of people were very intrigued and impressed by the technology, including the awesome folks who ran the Take Action! Non-Profit Area. They were so excited that they let us park the van on the grounds to show off the carbon-neutral technology! To accommodate all of the curiosity about the vehicle, we put together a display on the back of our bus with an explanation about how it works, some flyers from RAN’s Freedom From Oil campaign, and the excellent RAN pamphlet, “Getting Real About Biofuels.”

CONCLUSION

People loved us! I mean, duh; but in an environment bombarded by corporate ads, dozens of MTV rock bands, and REALLY overpriced food, it was encouraging just how many people hungered for a more just and sustainable world. The people who joined up with RAN and RYSE did so for a multitude of reasons, but one that really stuck out to me was the burnout and inefficacy of groups whose main focus was recycling or otherwise simply cleaning up after companies destroying the earth. Obviously, we encouraged this brand of activity and seek to support it, but we also suggested complimentary action of challenging corporate power that lets the environment fall by the wayside. Offering an opportunity to get active in ways that people previously could not meant we were doing what we set out to do, it was a success! The Warped Eco-Initiative, another non-profit on the tour, promoted recycling and alternative energy by offering examples and opportunities to get active everyday at the tour. If RAN and RYSE is ever to attempt a Warped Tour again, hopefully we can meet the Warped Eco-Initiative’s model for recycling advocacy and offer a taste of our brand of activism, challenging corporate power, on the spot!

A BIG thank you to the following, whose support we could not have survived without: Debra, Josh, Jodie, and Levana at RAN, AK Press, the Brian MacKenzie Infoshop, Mike McGuire, Fossil Free Fuel, Erin, Andrea, and Sumner of the Take Action! Crew, Evan the guitar technician, Frida, Kara, War Resisters League, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Matt Smith, Big D and the Kids Table, New Found Glory, The Fabulous Rudies’ BBQ, Tad and Positive Youth Foundation, Maureen Donley-Hoopes, Mark and Heather Trapchak, Action for Animals, and everyone who housed us and fed us along the way!