This is this week’s post from Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s Move Beyond Coal Campaign

This weekend I experienced something amazing. More than 12,000 youth activists took part in PowerShift 2009, and one of the hottest issues all weekend was coal – how to stop using coal and switch to clean energy.

This was a historic convergence on Washington, DC, and I was honored to be a part of such a powerful event that brought together so many great young leaders. It’s clear to anyone who attended PowerShift that he movement to move America away from coal is powerful, growing, and fired up.

Young people from every part of the U.S. and affected by every part of the dirty coal cycle attended – from Appalachia where mountaintop removal coal mining devastates communities and the environment, to American Indian reservations where water is polluted by the mining and burning of coal, and states across the nation where coal-fired power plants spew their pollution and greenhouse gases.

The crowds wanting to take action against coal swarmed all over the conference. I led a standing-room only workshop along with the Sierra Club’s Move Beyond Coal Campaign Deputy Director, Mary Anne Hitt. In that session and others like it, it was clear that young people want to do something smart rather than continuing our reliance on coal. This historic gathering shows real promise in taking on the industry.

On Monday, these thousands of young people also took their message to Capitol Hill, taking part in the largest lobby day since Earth Day in the 1970s and the largest lobby day ever on global warming.

We are excited to work with these thousands of young activists, whether it’s by helping them kick coal off their campuses and replacing it with clean energy, or by helping them educate the public about the health risks and the major contribution to global warming caused by burning coal.

Now, more than ever, we must fight global warming by moving beyond coal. PowerShift showed me the energy and commitment of this inspiring, dynamic movement. The future is bright, indeed.