The Launch of Project Survival Media « It’s Getting Hot In Here

August 11th, 2009 join us for the Project Survival Media Benefit at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco, CA.

Imagine:

What if, on all seven continents, there were young people equipped to globally broadcast pivotal stories about the climate crisis?

What if these young people were empowered to amplify disenfranchised voices and propel the principle of “Survival” to the forefront of the political debate?

Well this is Project Survival Media. In the lead up to the UN Climate Negotiations, we are assembling a global network of youth journalists who will use video, photography, and blogs to report from the frontlines of the climate crisis.

We use names like climate change and global warming. Really, we are talking about Survival. It is very clear that this struggle is not about future generations. It is right now.

Right Now

* Desertification is running rampant in Africa, detrimentally exasperating every social and health issue.
* Heat waves have spread over Europe claiming hundreds of thousands of lives
* Basic resources like water are becoming extinct in many parts of Asia or too plentiful and are already claiming islands
* Droughts lay thickly over Australia, exhausting their agricultural system
* Diseases are spreading exponentially each year all over South America
* And, Hurricanes and forest fires have spun out of control throughout North America.
* Oh and the Ice Caps, our global climate stabilizer, are melting

Everywhere, the fossil fuel industry is wreaking havoc. And as a result, everything is changing.

And yet, we continually hear this false contradiction parroted throughout the most powerful nations in the world: what is scientifically necessary is not politically viable.

So, it is not politically viable to adhere to scientific targets that ensure a sustainable, peaceful, equitable, and collaborative treaty? But somehow it is politically viable to let half the world drown in climate chaos?

The vast majority of people all over the world are calling on their governments to make these necessary changes, and Youth are at the forefront of this. We do not accept that some people are just not worth saving.

We call on our leaders to follow our example:

Event Details

Guest Speakers:
Adrienne Maree Brown the Executive Director of The Ruckus Society
Antonia Juhasz from the Chevron Campaign at Global Exchange
Shadia Fayne Wood Coordinator and Found of Project Survival Media

Live Art & Silent Auction
We have also secured artists who will do some live art. Their pieces will then be up for silent auction. All proceeds go to benefit Project Survival Media.

Bay Area DJ’s
-Haylow
-LN
-Dion Decibels
-The Whooligan

To Get involved with the project email me at Shadia.fayne@gmail.com.

About Shadia Fayne

Shadia began at age seven as an advocate for justice and the environment, in an eight year campaign to pass state legislation that, without it, was responsible for cancer clusters and deaths that existed in her community. In response to her efforts she has received the Yoshiyama Award from the Hitachi Foundation, and the Brower Youth Award from the Earth Island Institute. At age fifteen, She attended the World Summit on Sustainable Development, joining the youth energy caucus' efforts to create the Official Global Youth Energy Policy Statement. Months later, Shadia attended the Second National People of Color Summit and there she helped create the Environmental Justice Youth Platform. She is a member of the Environmental Justice Climate Coalition Youth Committee and is on the Kids Against Pollution National Board of Trustees. Shadia graduated from West Canada Valley High School in 2005, where she then took two years off before entering a career in higher education to work as a leader in the Global Youth Climate Movement. She finished working for the EJCC as the youngest Campus Climate Challenge Coordinator in the Energy Action Coalition, in October 2007. She is currently attending American University of Beirut, studying Arabic and Communications.