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.

“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. The region had just been hit by the biggest cyclone on the last 40 years – The Aila.

I went there as part of a medical team that was going to provide them with basic medicines and amenities till the Government supplies arrived. As we visited more and more villages, I realized that it was the same story everywhere: People suffering from Diarrhea, skin diseases, food poisoning, blood pressure. They had no food for themselves or for their children. And it had been 5 days since the cyclone!

Everywhere I saw, there were broken houses, uprooted trees, flooded fields and dead animals. Every house had a story to tell of a loved one they had lost. Death was looming heavy.

And yet, I could see the smiles on the faces of children, upon seeing us. Women blushed when I noted their blood pressure, and men would fein strength as we would tend to their wounds. That is the Sunderban, that is India.

Life goes on. There is so much more to worry about today, that the yesterdays are washed away with the tide.

I invite you to watch this film, and reflect a bit on the ways in which our lives are all connected, even on the other side of the globe – knowingly, and unknowingly.”

- Ekta

Ekta Kotari is the Asia Team co-Leader with Project Survival Media. We are eleven teams of youth new media journalists on all seven continents, reporting on communities already impacted by climate change, and covering survival stories from the UN climate negotiations in Copehnagen.

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.

Upon her arrival in from the cold, Ms. Kothari, put it this way, “Honestly, since I was much ahead of the arrests, for me it was just a very powerful moment, like one of those which usually make history. It’s a real shame that despite such a magnanimous effort, the media can only focus on the downside of events!”

So, let’s take a moment and focus on the event itself. In order to motivate between nearly 100,000 people to walk for over three hours in the frigid streets of Copenhagen, Parliament Square to the Bella Center, (the location of the climate talks), the message must have been pretty powerful. It was: Marchers were calling for an agreement on climate change that recognizes what the science is telling us: We need to get back down to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to avoid critical warming feedbacks, and to ensure a livable planet. Marchers were also calling on our political leaders to fulfill their duty and pen a climate treaty that reflects scientific targets, and takes the aggressive action that we know we need.

The march was one of over 3,000 events around the world, from marches to candlelight vigils to the pealing of church bells.

At various stops along the way and at the Bella Center, marchers got to hear from an awesome succession of environmental and climate leaders, including: Marina Silva, former Brazil Environment Minister who, along with rubber tapper leader Chico Mendes, formed the independent trade union in the state of Acre; Vandana Shiva, physicist, philosopher, environmentalist, and one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization; and youth climate organizer Deepa Gupta, who helped lead the effort to bring 160 youth from the global south to the climate talks.

The positive energy around the march and the speeches was overwhelming, and those who where there came away with a sense that they had just been part of a great moment in this movement, and in our planet’s history.

Yes, arrests happened. Yes, it’s important to mention that. Arrests are sexy, and it’s okay to maybe even give them a bit more attention than they deserve. But the main story was that hundreds of thousands of peaceful walkers showed united support for a solution to climate change. That this message is quickly being drowned out is worrisome.

As a young person, I am determined to share the positive side of this day’s events. My generation cannot afford the continuation of a polarizing conversation around climate change, based on selective and sensationalist media coverage.

Youth need the world to hear the core message: There were millions of people this weekend who stood up and declared their support for a ‘real deal’ that adheres to scientific targets, to come out of these talks. And, encouragingly, they are ready to take positive action, and demanding the same from our world leaders.

With that, I am so appreciative of this video by Ms. Kothari, which shows us sitting at home what the march was like to tens of thousands of people.

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.

I have had the pleasure of documenting and photographing this movement across the globe. From the halls of Powershifts to the high level segments of the Conference of Parties, from the G20 to the High Arctic, I have been honored to lend my skills as a photographer, and help give the international youth movement a voice and image. Now, we at Fired UP! Media and Project Survival Media are seizing the opportunity to place large, professional, compelling images directly in front of the negotiators and delegates in Barcelona RIGHT NOW.

This last intercessional meeting will be instrumental in crafting the outcome of Copenhagen and it is absolutely essential, and wonderful that our story is being shown. But we need your help to support the display. All of this photographic coverage has been undertaken on a volunteer basis and because of this, we need to seek financial support to cover the shipment of these images to Barcelona. If you feel that displaying your voice at the UN is important, then please consider donating to Project Survival Media so we can continue to sound our voices loud and clear at the meeting before the most important meeting in the world. Survival is Not Negotiable. The youth of the world are here.” – Robert van Waarden

Help us support the photographers that so greatly amplify our voice, and influence our decision makers.

Thank you for your inspiration and dedication.

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.

Short segments like “Out and In,” The Toxic Tangent,” “Fish Fish Ain’t Biting,” and “What’s in Season?” give listeners regular and often hysterical updates on the latest in green trends, environmental toxins, sustainable fish consumption and what’s fresh in your farmer’s market – while emphasizing practical ways to live green everyday.

Campus news has the potential to provide a valuable tool for youth to spread climate and environmental solutions ideas, and to share climate change news from around the world by tapping into those publications off-line that students still tune into or read. Radio programs like It’s Hot In Here provide a critical link to domestic and world environmental news, while also offering local solutions, community networking and fun.

Gina and her co-host[s] will be doing their next show specifically on Coal and all the happening’s in WV this coming Monday August 31st from 12-1 Eastern. Tune in to hear me (Madeline Kovacs, of Fired Up Media), talk for about five minutes on Fired Up’s 2009 projects, our goals, and the importance of youth- and citizen-produced media, and the other highlights sure to delight!

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.

The 1.5 minute you-tube video that accompanies the project launch:

Antonia Juhasz, Director of the Chevron Program at Global Exchange, and Adrienne Maree Brown of the Ruckus Society spoke before the project announcement. “For the first time in history, seven out of ten of the largest corporations in the world are oil companies,” said Ms. Juhasz. “They are the wealthiest industry on the planet and the wealthiest industry the world has ever known. They are using their money to try to dominate the political debate on climate change at great peril to us all. But we can change this debate and our youth can lead the way. Youth on the front lines, with the energy and skills to reveal the true cost of climate devastation and breadth of the resistance to it, can change the global conversation and the course of history.”

As a part of the International Youth Delegation (IYD) to the negotiations, Project Survival Media will use new media tactics and tools to support policies that “safeguard the survival of all countries and peoples.” This message will be driven home by spotlighting communities disproportionately impacted by climate change: youth, women, people of color, and indigenous peoples.

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Project Coordinator Shadia Wood has experience managing media teams for events like Power Shift 09, an historic gathering of 12,000 young people on Climate Change, Power Shift 07, and COP 14 in Poznan, Poland in 2008. Her work with the Energy Action Coalition was presented in the 2007 Green Issue of Vanity Fair and was also a recipient of Elle Magazine’s 2008 Green Awards.

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Project Survival Media is a global network of youth journalists reporting from the frontlines of the climate crisis in the lead up to COP 15. Our seven new media teams, one for each continent, will report on the most compelling climate stories from around the world, amplify voices underrepresented by traditional media, and launch “Survival” to the forefront of the political debate. Project Survival Media is the 2009 international new media project of Fired Up Media, a project of the Earth Island Institute.

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.

Principal Dawn Granger appeared in the grant application video along with solar installer Dave Eveland and Mayor Charlie Tomlinson. Superintendent Dawn Tarzian recently set up a sustainability steering committee for the Corvallis School District, with student representatives. And the Corvallis School Board made sustainability one of its top goals, committing to saving $100,000 by means of energy conservation.

The students and their adult mentors see the solar project as a potential model for other schools that want to pursue renewable energy solutions in partnership with local businesses and community members, Becker said.

With the Corvallis High project, the students are learning how to network, organize and partner with more experienced professionals who possess expertise in specific fields. Green Club members met with multiple solar installers to get cost estimates, and to develop a model for financing and executing a project that would provide returns to the school in terms of energy costs saved, and returns on investment to the business. “Because schools do not pay taxes, we cannot directly receive the tax credits that the state offers as incentives. We can, however, do a Business Energy Tax Credit Pass-Through where a local business would provide us with upfront money and would receive much of it back in tax credits to their business,” Becker explained.

Corvallis as a city has also made impressive strides to reduce it’s carbon emissions, topping the EPA’s Green Power Communities list in January of this year and Country Home’s 2008 Best Green Cities in America by purchasing more renewable energy than any other municipality in the nation. Students at Oregon State University are largely responsible for the city’s success. In 2007, the students passed a self-imposed green fee to purchase renewable energy for their campus. OSU is the largest purchaser of energy in the city, so the impact on the city’s emissions as a whole has been considerable. OSU buys nearly 67 million kilowatt-hours of green power annually — enough to meet about 75 percent of its purchased electricity use.

The high school students who won the Earth Day Every Day challenge are part of a growing network of regional and national youth organizations including Cascade Climate Network and Sierra Student Coalition who address climate challenges by actively building solutions. Although there is no official high school network as of the moment, CHS Green Club Co-President Claire Meints intends to set one up through the Cascade Climate Network by creating a regional high school coordinator who would be responsible for connecting high schools throughout Oregon and Washington.

Meints expressed a sentiment that has been echoed by other teens and young adults: While it is important to be engaged and to let your political leaders know where you stand on the issues, “I think there is a difference in the way that the older generation of environmentalists view the future and what needs to be done. From what I have seen, there is a tendency for them to focus on fixing problems, which of course is important. However, I think something this generation does well is to address solutions; positive measures to take as opposed to negative ones. “An example: Instead of merely gathering to put ourselves in front of a coal mine to rally to shut it down, we also try to install alternative energy.”

Young people today will live out their lives in a world where either climate change and related challenges have made survival progressively harder, or where people have risen up to creatively confront these challenges head-on. Today’s students don’t have the time to wait for the perfect policy to begin taking positive action to re-invent their livelihoods, and why should they?

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.”   

Chait points to Senate customs and procedure as a major sticking point: “The Senate poses a particular obstacle to Democrats. Its structure gives greater voice to residents of low-population states, who tilt more Republican than the country as a whole. If you assume that every senator represents half the population of that state, then the Republican caucus represents less than 38 percent of the public. In electoral terms, we think of that as a tiny, even fringe minority. It’s less than the share of the electorate that voted for Barry Goldwater in 1964. But it supports enough senators to block the majority’s will. There is one tool available to break through the new supermajority requirement. That tool is called “reconciliation.” Reconciliation is an expedited process to vote on a budget, limiting debate to 20 hours and, more importantly, circumventing the filibuster. This means that one budget bill every year can be passed with just 51 votes. As the filibuster has grown routine, reconciliation has become a vital legislative tool. Many Democrats, alas, are far more squeamish than their GOP colleagues about deploying this tool.”

Why is this important?

He goes on to point out that while Republicans stepped up to deploy reconciliation as a tactic with little hesitation, “Eight Democratic senators signed a letter opposing the use of reconciliation to pass a cap-and-trade bill limiting carbon-dioxide emissions. Reconciliation, they wrote, “would circumvent normal Senate practice and would be inconsistent with the administration’s stated goals of bipartisanship, cooperation, and openness.” Several Democrats also oppose using reconciliation to pass health care reform. Democrat Mary Landrieu offered up a somewhat less melodramatic argument when she said that reconciliation “was intended for deficit reduction, and it should not be used for other things.”

In other words, if Senate Democrats were more concerned with passing aggressive legislation than they were about conserving a gentlemanly parliamentary procedure, we might have a cap-and-trade bill on the books. That is not to say that this author thinks that abuse of reconciliation is desirable, but rather that we need to make the case that it’s not worth inaction on emissions reduction, health care, and economic recovery. We need to find the eight Senate Democrats mentioned above and apply some pressure. The Democratic Party line needs to be to fight climate change, and Senate Dems need to fall in line.

Jesse Jenkins broke down critical Senate members and their stance on climate in his Watthead post right after the Powershift 09 conference. I remember speaking myself with students as they came out of lobby meetings with their representatives: Many representatives sent a staff person instead, were unable to make a commitment on film, and while supportive generally, or would not take a firm stand to get our emissions where we need to be, and this bunch included Senators and Representatives from both sides of the aisle. But I still believe that if swift action is to be taken on climate change, the most likely way it will happen is through Democratic ability to outline a series of priorities and unify behind them.

I am so, so encouraged by the policy choices being made by President Obama so far. However, in order to get the legislation passed that we need to begin to really bring down our emissions quickly, he will need Congress to fall in line. Now, the article above talks about party lines, and while this should not be a partisan issue, and I am thrilled whenever a Republican such as Inglis comes out with a video explaining the issue to his colleagues (thank you Focus the Nation!), I think that our fate will ultimately rest with Democratic ability to accept presidential leadership and stop quibbling.

So, not to sound like a broken record, but…call your Senator?

“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.

- 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!