Photo by Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
I can’t quite believe it, but Thomas Friedman covered our epic adventure across India in the Climate Solutions Road Tour and for a few sweet hours, we were #1 on the NY Times Most Popular list. I am thrilled that he’s finally writing youth stories that are actually covering the beauty of the international youth movement, and as excited as I am about the Indian Youth Climate Network, it is so inspiring to see this fit into the incredible actions going on around the world by international youth leading up to PowerShift with so much hope for a massive global campaign leading up to Copenhagen. Tom Friedman does not see all of the incredible work going on or he is not paying attention, but perhaps he – and others – are waking up. Young people are not going to wait any longer. Global youth are taking action, starting projects, mobilizing governments, and changing the climate dialogues nationally and internationally. Friedman writes:
I met Howe and Ringwald after a tiring day, but I have to admit that as soon as they started telling me their story it really made me smile. After a year of watching adults engage in devastating recklessness in the financial markets and depressing fecklessness in the global climate talks, it’s refreshing to know that the world keeps minting idealistic young people who are not waiting for governments to act, but are starting their own projects and driving innovation.
Thank you to the incredible and idealistic organizers who are doing the work around the world that inspired us to take this leap of faith for this tiny project that captured the imagination of a few people. I hope this is only the beginning, an indication of Friedman and others like him noticing just how big the youth movement is becoming with no patience left to wait or talk but a huge drive and huge power through our actions. Friedman encouraged us by saying that the best thing his writing can do for us now is to inspire more young people to do something crazy, new, loud, and fun – to spread our message through hope and a new vision, rather than through fear, and this is what young people do best. We must spread OUR voices and ensure that they are heard.
We have just completed the
Climate Solutions Road Tour, our epic adventure across India that has changed our lives, among others, and was recently featured in this week’s
Sunday edition of the New York Times, by writer Tom Friedman, author of The World is Flat (and Hot, Flat & Crowded) who we ran into in Delhi upon our arrival after 3500 kilometers of travel across the nation. We’re still number two on the most emailed articles on New York Times! We’re thrilled, the icing on a cake of some
great stories across the nation and the world to get the stories out there about the power of young people and the need and availability of climate solutions today!
We undertook this adventure in
an incredible fleet: three revolutionary electric cars, modified to be powered by the grid and rooftop solar panels, made by Reva; a truck running on jatropha oil and a solar covered minivan.
Completed by 15 young Indians and international youth and four members of a
solar powered band , this has been the world’s longest electric car caravan, proving the impossible is possible and that the future is now. We started this road tour with the idea of creating, communicating and celebrating climate solutions – inspiring immediate change,
empowering young people, and talking about the issue in new ways -
through music, dance, art, and youthful hope. We believe that we have a chance to create a new vision for the world and create truly new ways to solve this problem.
Over the month of our travels,
we covered 15 cities, including Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Goa, Ahmedabad, Udaipur, Jaipur and Delhi, along with dozens of villages throughout India. Everywhere we stopped, we found
new solutions being implemented by visionary individuals, communities, campuses, and corporates. We
charged at petrol pumps during the diesel strikes, visited a
tribal girls’ hostel and ate dinner fresh from a solar cooker, made music in multiple languages and planned a solar hospice with the
Prince of Rajpipla, and are putting together a documentary about these solutions and our journey. There are
far more solutions and
short videos already online. We met 90 year old women who have never left their village, while also meeting global corporate leaders whose innovations can shake global systems, and all of these people, regardless of their walk of life, were willing to share their solutions with us so that we can share them with others! You can find more information about all aspects of the tour online at
http://indiaclimatesolutions.com , though the links above will connect you to the relevant pages within the site!
Moving forward, the Climate Solutions Project will be working to continue
documenting climate solutionsacross India with the major goal of scaling up these game-changing climate solutions and demonstrating the need for international collaboration to implement these solutions. We’ll be hosting events across India and around the world to celebrate the solutions that we discovered during the journey, and continuing to conduct work with the Indian Youth Climate Network to conduct
climate leadership trainings to e
mpower young people to take action on climate change. Through our collaborations with universities, we’ll be working with vice chancellors, students, and faculty to create
carbon neutral campuses with a focus on graduating the next generation of climate leaders.
Our goal, though, is to ensure that leading up to Copenhagen, the world sees that the Road To
350 is paved with solutions — that the solutions already exist that can help us create a 350 world, but it will require enormous commitment, innovation, and political will to put us onto the 350 pathway. We will need a new vision for the future, one that we can all create together. So let’s get on the road!
This is an incredible article!!! Excellent work Caroline.
Congratulations on well deserved recognition.
how do we preserve our enviornment ????????