Can a major policy shift be driven by insiders or must real change emerge as a result of a mass-based movement of outsiders willing to challenge the status quo? Nowhere are the stakes of this discussion higher than in the environmental movement. Forty years ago an oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara helped launch the modern environmental movement which organized the first Earth Day and changed the course of history by passing the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act and helping found the EPA. Today, as we face another crisis and an organizing moment of epic proportions--a front page stunning oil spill and an imminent climate crisis—many of the legacy organizations of the environmental movement have a very different strategy for creating change. Multi-million dollar budgets, career lobbyists and ties to Democratic politicians heavily influence their agenda. Despite money and connections, Big Green is struggling to wrest even modest concessions from their allies in Congress as the biggest polluters exercise veto power over any significant piece of legislation. What can the netroots do to have a bigger impact on the environmental movement? And what theory of change will move the U.S. toward policies that begin to address what scientists say is necessary to fight climate change?

Freedom must be protected everywhere it is threatened. The FCC has an opportunity to protect Internet users from telecom interests seeking to exploit them. This session will dissect the fight for an open Internet to this point and share strategies for building grassroots support to achieve real Internet Freedom.

Despite the constant onslaught of new tools and tactics, something very fundamental about change has not changed at all: stories matter. Our stories. Storytelling has been the most powerful building block for social change since the beginning of time. What social networking tools do is give us unprecedented power to share our stories to many more people than we could have imagined. Our stories—and our willingness to share the stories of others with our networks—can mean the difference between progressive change and perpetuating the status quo. We'll cover how empathy fuels change, why diversity is key in this cultural shift moment, what some common fears are and we'll teach key lessons for success.

The 2009 Copenhagen climate conference failed to deliver a fair and effective agreement in part because wealthy countries didn’t step up to the plate and do their part. However, the summit was a rallying point and narrative space for the climate justice movement, and it was the site of perhaps the most innovative and far-reaching new media work and coordination of online and offline organizing the progressive community has achieved in an international setting. Copenhagen connected activists around the world and helped bring international civil society into the internet age. Since a strong climate agreement has not yet been achieved, negotiations will continue with another summit in Cancun in November. This panel will examine lessons learned from Copenhagen while equipping bloggers and activists with tools and strategies that can help them advocate for a just and effective outcome in Cancun.

The excitement of the Obama movement and progressive agenda has been primarily centered on three demographic groups—millennials, minorities and educated whites—all of which are projected to grow as a percentage of the voting population over time. While this should be good news for progressives, there are a number of emerging nuances among these groups that could mean the difference between success and failure in 2010 and beyond. They include growing dissatisfaction among Millennials with the Obama administration, the continued assimilation of Hispanics and a rapidly changing higher education environment whose growth may not be sustainable. This panel will highlight these nuances and create opportunities for the Netroots to better engage with these constituencies.

As the GOP has garnered victories in Massachussetts, Virginia and New Jersey since the 2008 presidential election, progressives are looking for a new path to keep the seats they have and win back the ones they've lost. Standard playbook assumptions about where, how and why progressives can win campaigns have been turned on their head as increasing numbers of voters feel disaffected and Tea Partiers throw wild cards into many races. Progressive women can embrace this moment to help move the progressive agenda forward. But too often the Democratic Party fails to recruit and support the very women candidates who could be game changers for progressive politics. We'll discuss how the growing numbers of activist women—and organizations devoted to helping them participate in politics and political leadership—can help reconnect voters with important progressive economic and gender issues. And we'll analyze how to access the untapped power of women who want to make a difference for progressive issues and what it will take to get them elected.

How can bloggers become more engaged in the policy development process at progressive think tanks? How should think tanks reach out to bloggers and package their materials for maximum impact? This session will address these questions and more about how think tanks and bloggers are already working well together and ways we can continue to build pipelines for progressive ideas, policies and messages.

We remain a country where 77 percent of our citizens identify as Christian—not to mention those of other faiths. To advance progressive change and win the victories we need at the ballot box, we must build bridges with people of faith. The good news is that as progressives, we share more with this community than we sometimes think. This panel of progressive and faith leaders will provide an overview of the common values progressives can tap into when reaching out to faith communities, explain how to talk about those values in a way that will resonate with people of faith and share specific actions and strategies that have been effective in their own work to build faith community support for progressive issues such as LGBT rights, immigration reform, environmental protection and ending torture.

With more private military contractors in Afghanistan than troops; BP directing its own clean-up in the Gulf; the privatization of social safety services at the expense of our nation’s most vulnerable populations; prisons controlled by corporations that answer only to their shareholders; our roads, bridges and even water under the control of foreign corporations; and secret intelligence operations being outsourced to corporate mercenaries who work for the highest bidder, this panel will take a critical look at how privatization of government is subverting democracy and making our communities and nation less safe. What is the impact here and abroad? How can we hold corporations accountable, or are they outside the law? We’ll outline the high cost of handing over core government functions to big business and strategize on how to effect change, from grassroots mobilization to important legislation.

Since winning the White House and a Congressional majority, Democrats have faced a peculiar challenge: despite passing an economic rescue and several major center-left reform packages that have angered many progressives for being too accommodating, conservative outrage is high and right-wing messaging and framing on issues from healthcare to deficit spending have gained traction in the media and the public sphere. As a result, Democrats face serious electoral challenges in 2010. Join our panel of progressive messaging professionals as we seek to determine the cause of previous progressive failures of persuasion; begin to chart a new course for effective, reliable Democratic branding; and provide actionable tips and tactics for candidates, campaign workers and online activists to win in the challenging environment that is the 2010 election season and beyond.