It’s Getting Hot In Here

Cross-posted from Project Survival Media

I know this is technically old-hat, a whole week old, or a dinosaur in blogging-years, but this is a really wonderful video that captures a powerful moment, and I wanted to be sure to share this with all the youth who read IGHIH.

On Monday 7th December 2009, seventeen year old Christina Ora spoke on behalf of the global youth movement at the plenary session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Longterm Cooperative Action at COP15.

Christina is a high school student from Honiara, Solomon Islands. She passionately told an audience of thousands, including negotiators from all over the world, that it was time for action. Christina is a member of Project Survival Pacific, and is supported by GetUp Australia.

Watch this video, and get inspired by a young woman who has come to COP to fight for the survival of her homeland.

I am proud to announce the arrival of the mini-documentary, Rising Tides: Sunderbands, India. This documentary is the work of the India, Asia team of Project Survival Media. I asked team leader Ekta Kothari to tell me about her experience making the film, and she did!

“The story was incredibly powerful to film. I could never put the experience into words, but let me try to paint you a picture:

The Sunderbans is a place with many riches – An archipelago of mangrove ecosystems, and home to the Royal Bengal Tigers, boasting a biodiversity extremely rich in flora and fauna – right next door to my city, Kolkata.

And yet, the first time I visited these islands, all I could find was devastation. Continue reading ‘A Video about Survival: Rising Tide’

Video by Ekta Kothari.
Cross-posted from Project Survival Media.
Footage of the arch was also posted on The Huffington Post.

Sometimes it’s hard to describe an experience. Sometimes words, film, or photos fail to capture the overwhelming feeling that we are witnessing something truly extraordinary. We say, “You just had to be there.”

Enter the media. No one can be everywhere at once, so there are people whose job it is to go collect stories, verify them by checking a second source, and then paint a picture for the folks back home. People rely on the media to keep them informed about what’s going on in the world. And while the media can’t capture every detail, while there will unavoidably be some omissions and differences in emphasis, as reporters, it is part of our job to tell the whole story, and to pick out the wheat from the chaff.

This is why the coverage so far of the December 12 march in Copenhagen, Denmark is so disappointing to me. During the event, I was working in downtown Copenhagen alongside TckTckTck, 350.org, and Avaaz staff, collecting photos and videos coming in from actions all over the world. Behind me, a huge 2 by 5 foot screen showed local TV coverage of the march.

I was inside a media hub, surrounded by information, and the positive messages that kept flooding in. But until I heard verbal accounts from marchers and observers, and saw the footage that Ekta Kothari, Project Survival Media videographer, had shot during the day, I assumed that this particular action, the march in Copenhagen, had been pretty scary. Most of it wasn’t.

Continue reading ‘December 12, Copenhagen: The Real Headline’

If you are a youth climate activist, if you have been to a Powershift conference, and/or if you read this blog, you have seen some of these amazing images that are on display, right now, in front of delegates at the Barcelona intercessional meetings –only one month before Copenhagen. (click “read more” to see them up!)

I wanted to take a moment and share this work, and also a message from my amazing co-worker, Robert van Waarden:

“Youth have been documenting the movement on the front lines of the global climate crisis and now, we are bringing our message to negotiators at Barcelona.

For years now, the global youth climate movement has been organizing, building momentum and strength, and influencing the debate through our actions, documentation, and networking from the front lines of the climate crisis. Actions by individuals have inspired groups and movements across Earth to fight for a dependable, stable climate. It is the issue that defines our generation.

Continue reading ‘Youth Climate Photographer Shows at Barcelona Negotiations’

One would think that with a name like It’s Hot In Here, the hosts of the University of Michigan based environmental news/grooves radio show would have been in touch with It’sGettingHotInHere for years. And that maybe the two were even closely related.

Surprisingly, this is not the case, and I was overjoyed to be introduced yesterday to Jennifer, aka “Gina Gettum”, co-conceiver and host of the environmental news/music show on WCBN-88.3-FM-Ann Arbor since March 2008.

I asked Gina to tell me a bit about her show, and she said that the main goal of It’s Hot in Here is just to have a good time. “We hear so much doom and gloom with regards to environmental issues in the media, but the fact is that most of the people in this movement, the people working on these issues, and the people we want to engage with aren’t. We’re fun, sexy people. We like to stay positive, informed and rock out to great music. So, our show is quirky, fun, and full of laughter and sound effects. But it’s still smart and informative.”

Each show is built around a compelling environmental issue. Gina says “we’re lucky to be based in Ann Arbor, where we regularly draw upon the University’s and city’s wealth of academic and professional green-spertise!” Former guests of It’s Hot In Here have included fellow students, professionals and activists, as well as climate guru Joseph Romm, New York Times Bestselling Author John Perkins, former New York Times International Reporter Howard French, UM Professors Rebecca Hardin, Tom Princen, Andrew Hoffman, and Mark Wilson.

Continue reading ‘It’sGettingHotInHere.org Meets It’s Hot in Here Campus Radio’

Youth climate leaders launch a new media initiative to put Survival front & center on international stage, pressure delegates in Copenhagen

San Francisco, CA.— On August 11, hundreds of youth climate activists, supporters, artists, and community members gathered at Minna Gallery to launch a global network of youth journalists who will use video, photography, and blogs to report from the front lines of the climate crisis in the lead up to the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.

The new media project is called Project Survival Media, and its goals are ambitious: Launch seven youth-directed new media teams, one from each continent; Report on compelling and under-told climate change stories; Leverage this media using the vast organizing and distribution networks that youth have built to spread their message; and Influence the international dialogue in the lead up to the UN Climate Negotiations.

“What if, on all seven continents, there were young people equipped to globally broadcast pivotal stories about the climate crisis?” says youth organizer and Project Coordinator Shadia Fayne Wood.

“What if these young people were empowered to amplify disenfranchised voices and propel the principle of “Survival” to the forefront of the political debate? Climate change is not a future threat – people all over the planet are suffering from different effects of climate change right now, and they don’t have time to wait until a solution becomes politically feasible.” Ms. Wood also pointed out that there is a real need to breathe life into the statistics of the climate crisis, and that new media has the potential to do just that. Continue reading ‘Project Survival Media Launches from Minna Gallery, SF’

Cross-posted from SolveClimate

While the planet’s future climate is being determined by lawmakers in Congress and the United Nations Conference of the Parties this December, some students who are too young to vote are taking their future into their own hands. Oregon’s Corvallis High School was named “America’s most eco-friendly school” in the Earth Day Every Day School Challenge, where the combined effort of teacher Colleen Works, the CHS Green Club, and the school’s Political Action Workshop and Economics of Conscious Consumption classes won $20,000 to put toward a large solar panel installation. In all, 460 groups applied for the grant, evidence of the rapid growth in youth green initiatives across the country.

Teens are aware that climate change and its associated challenges will define their generation’s work, said CHS Green Club Co-President Chris Becker. For many of them, the inspiration to take action doesn’t come from fear as much as from the opportunity to create “cool” solutions.

“I think young people definitely understand this is a huge issue, probably bigger than anything any generation has ever faced before,” Becker said. “We showed in this past election that we can step up, and I hope that this generation will only become stronger, even more organized, and even better connected so we can solve this climate crisis and save our planet.”

The CHS Green Club has an ambitious renewable energy goal for Corvallis High: It wants to install 100 kilowatts of solar panels within 10 years, providing the school with a third of its current electrical demand. As the club points out on its web site, the solar panels will serve multiple purposes by reducing the school’s carbon footprint, lowering utility bills and educating students and the community. With the Wal-Mart grant on top of their efforts so far, they’ll need about $30,000 more to complete the first 10 kW phase. The students aren’t going it alone, though. The school’s faculty and administrators, plus community leaders, are behind the project. Continue reading ‘Students Lead Charge to Power School with Renewable Energy’

I want to preface this post by saying I share the optimism presented in many posts on itsgettinghot by the Obama administration’s behavior and decisions in the First 100 Days. There are many tools available to the President to make change immediately, from budget proposals to executive rulemaking, and he and his administrative appointees are rapidly restoring the role of science and technical expertise to the EPA, among other achievements.

However, for the United States to begin bringing our emissions down to get in line with the recommendations of James Hansen and 350, or demonstrate real leadership going into the Copenhagen climate negotiations, our attention needs to be focused on certain members of Congress, and especially the Senate. I bring this up in reference to an article that in its essentials has little to do with climate change, but whose implications are enormous. The article is a reflection on Senate Democrats by Jonathan Chait in the April 15 issue of The New Republic.

Chait’s main point is that Democrats are failing to fall in line in support of Obama’s policy agenda, even more so than Republicans failed to get in line with Bush’s, even at his lowest popularity (which got down to the thirties). During the President’s First 100 Days, House and Senate Dems have been responsible for a reduction of 1 million projected new jobs created by the stimulus, elimination of a budget proposal that would have limited subsidies to farmers grossing over 500,000 per year, limiting tax deductions for the rich, or saving the taxpayers 4 billion annually by ending guaranteed loans in favor of direct loans to pay for college. He points out that difference of opinion among members of the same party, while certainly desirable for policy development and debate, can become a hindrance when major policy goals are sacrificed on the altar of party incoherence and “Senate dysfunction.”    Continue reading ‘How Senate Democrats Will Determine Our Future’

Congressman Ed Markey, Chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, and the new chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, contributed some thoughts to the National Teach-In press release, and enthusiastically supported student and youth efforts to have a say in Congress’s energy decisions this year:

“Now is the time for student leaders to speak up in the fight against global warming. Congress is poised to write climate legislation that will grow our economy, create millions of green jobs and protect our planet for generations –the National Teach-In gives students around the country a seat at the table.”

However, we did NOT expect this:

Other videos by Senator John Kerry, Senator Herb Kohl, and Representative Mike Doyle are HERE.

The National Teach-In Webast is up. Featuring Jesse Tolkan, Billy Parish, and Wahleah Johns, this webcast addresses the following topics:

- Why are these First 100 Days so critical in taking the steps we need to address climate change?
- Why should Congress listen to Young People?
- What could our country look like in ten years if we enact policies that fully address the climate crisis?
- How are communities of faith playing a pivotal role in the climate discussion?

There is a campus version and a faith version. Please watch, and add your responses to the discussion questions posted at Re:Vision TV.

The National Teach-In now has nearly 800 campuses, congregations, and community organizations signed up to participate, and dozens of members of Congress committed to video-dialogues!