I knew I was in the right place when I saw a teenage  girl - braces and all - sporting the blunt message ‘Bollocks to Poverty!’ written in big black bold font on her face.

Yes, this was indeed the first annual Power Shift UK event, and it was in full swing when I arrived. Scattered in different rooms for various workshops, 300 young people from all over the UK gathered in packs in a central London; congregating to battle climate change.

Power Shift is a four-day festival full of interesting and innovative workshops, equipped with veteran climate change experts, as well as topping it all of with one of the best flashmobs I have ever seen - lets just say it involved business suits, umbrellas, the London Eye, and a hip hop dance routine.

It could well have been one of the most informative, effective, as well as fun formats targeted at young people. And it was the first of its kind in the UK -  Australia and the US have already held their own very successful Power Shift’s.

‘‘Some of the young people here, before now, never took a direct interest in protesting or climate change! What makes it special is when they leave here they are passionate about it. I get some of them coming up to me and saying they want to get involved and do more,’’ said one of the event’s organisers Amy Mount.

Admittedly, I am not the greenest person in the world; my mum reminds me to recycle, aerosol sprays are my hair extensions’ BFF, and ever since an embarrassing incident involving a very busy crossing in Waterloo - which is still too painful to talk about - I have an aversion to ALL cyclists, not to mention my strange fetish for 4X4’s trucks; all the potential trimmings that could’ve made me the anti-Christ to these green-loving angels.

However, contrary to my expectations, there was not a long haired hippy, or compost smelling tofu eating anarchist, or non red light stopping, pedestrian-hating cyclist in sight. I sat in a room full of under 25 year olds from all different backgrounds, places, and races; and we all listened with the same sense of openness as each speaker came up and motivated without preaching, enlightening on all of the ways climate change can effect us, and most importantly what we could do about it all.

As Shilpa Shah, founder of the Akashi Project (a Cambridge Carbon Footprint initiative) said, “We can change the world.” Then George Marshall, founder of Climate Outreach Information Network said to us that “being here is making a real difference,” – all the positive talk to get the troops amped up.

By the time the weekend was over I wanted to cry, as I was sharply removed from the loving and grassy bosom of mother earth (and I had only just got comfortable there). And as I was thrust back into the dark and dank underworld of the Northern line, I realised I was more aware than ever of the climate around me and what it all meant.

So what is next you ask? Well aside from easing up on the hairspray, and love for trucks, it goes without saying that I, and the 300 plus, will be at Power Shift next year. So at least for four days I can feel like the teenage girl with the bold message on her face, Tori Clissold, 18, who told me, “I can truly say that I care, I am here, I am doing something, and loving it!”

Did you know:

A massive international anti-global warming event called ‘350’ is taking place 157 countries all around the world on the 24th October 2009. Get involved.

Words: Akilah Russell