Youth Taking Action: Kids vs. Global Warming

by James Bach

Published July 08, 2009 @ 08:51AM PT

Every movement needs its Evangelists! When it comes to climate change Ashoka's Youth Venturer Alec Loorz, 14, is one of the most successful galvanizers in the field. Two years ago Alec started Kids vs. Global Warming to educate youth on  climate change and empower them to take action. Alec has gotten his message out to thousands of youth, started several environmental awareness projects and is working on a nationwide advocacy project. We spoke with Alec about his work on climate change, receiving support from Al Gore and how each of us can contribute to combating global warming.

You have been very active in the environmental field, can you tell us about your work? What has been your greatest achievement?

Well, 2 years ago, I founded Kids vs Global Warming, a non-profit designed to educate youth on the science of climate change, and empower them to take action. I've given almost 100 presentations, and spoken to over 12,000 people, teaching about global warming, and promoting the message that youth need to be involved in making changes. I've done a few activism projects, the biggest of which is called SLAP- (Sea Level Awareness Project.) I worked with middle school students from Ventura, California to install 9 foot poles along the beach warning of the potential sea level rise because of global warming.

I'm also the youth leader for the Alliance for Climate Education. I'm working with them to reach over 100,000 high school students before the end of the year. I also wrote the Declaration of Independence from Fossil Fuels. It states that we, the youth of America no longer want to be governed by the fossil fuel industry. And I'm looking for 350,000 youth signatures to bring it to President Obama to show him that the youth cannot be forgotten on this issue. Click here to sign it!

I would say my greatest achievement was finishing SLAP, with the overwhelming support of the city officials and community members of Ventura.

Can you tell us how you got involved in climate change issues and the role that former Vice President Al Gore played in it?

Two years ago, I saw Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," and it changed my life forever. Something sparked inside me after seeing it, and I knew that I was being called to stop global warming within my lifetime. I decided I wanted to educate other kids my age about climate change, so I applied to be trained by my new hero, Al Gore. But I was only 12 years old at the time, so they rejected me... they told me I was too young. So I decided I was just going to do it myself. I put together my own presentation, and started giving it at schools and conferences all around California. After I had given 30 of my own presentations, I actually got to meet my hero, Al Gore, and he ended up personally inviting me to be trained in Nashville, Tennessee. So, as of right now, I am officially the youngest US-trained presenter of the Inconvenient Truth slide show. And ever since I was trained, the whole project has been growing so fast. Mr Gore has been supportive of my work and every time I see him, he always tells me that he's proud of me.

What is your biggest challenge in getting others to change their habits to live more environmentally sustainably?

I would say the biggest challenge is that it is hard to change something that we've never questioned. The generations before mine have built a society that depends way too much on fossil fuels. And our whole lifestyle is now dependent on it.

But we need to learn to push past these old habits and learn how to live with future generations in mind. Everything we do, from buying food to getting dressed to going to school uses fossil fuels. So we need to start by shifting our focus, and changing our mind set.

Kids agree that we need to do something but it is hard to even get our heads around HOW MUCH needs to change. Our whole way of life! Which, of course, won't happen until the new ways of living are available and affordable...which is what we need to be involved in creating.

I think that conserving energy and water and all of our resources is where we need to begin because it helps us to realize that we are dealing with limited resources. But, the real answer is not in conservation. Conservation only slows our usage. What really needs to happen is that we need to completely rethink the way we do life. We need to transition to a new lifestyle that cares as much about future generations and the animals and air and water and eco-systems as we do about ourselves and money and "success." And that is hard to do.

What we really need to do is re-define success as sustainability. If my generation can grow up with a new way of thinking, we will be making laws and inventing technologies and starting businesses with a new value system that is naturally "environmentally sustainable."

Until then, it's hard work.

There are many skeptics when it comes to climate change, what criticisms do you get and how do you respond to them?

There are still many skeptics when it comes to climate change. Even though the entire scientific community (except for maybe a few people who were bought out by oil companies) have accepted that man-made climate change is real, there are still people who believe otherwise. Big oil companies are spending millions of dollars paying off "scientists" just to go out and deny global warming. These are people who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year by Exxon and other "interest groups," and are featured in movies like "The Great Global Warming Swindle." And, unfortunately, there is a big group of people who believe what these people are saying, just because they saw it on TV.

I actually got started in this whole thing, though, in a debate with my best friend who didn't believe that climate change was real. I was so mad and frustrated that I couldn't debate with him well enough, so I went home that night and researched all that I could and made my first presentation to prove him wrong! Then, I turned what I learned into my first presentation called "The Climate Skeptic's Five Flavors of Denial" and I began to teach others how to debate with skeptics.

But I've learned since then that there are a lot of people who really don't want to debate. They aren't really "skeptics" because "skeptic" means they're open to learn the truth, even if it is different from what they think. They are "deniers" because it doesn't matter WHAT research or logic you use to talk with them, they just want to be nasty and attack you. I get criticisms all the time through the internet. It's like a safe place for people to be nasty or something. Whenever an article comes out about my global warming work, there are tons of people who get on there anonymously and make comments that I'm misinformed or brainwashed or that I'm lying to people.

These people, I usually ignore because I know that most of them are just angry or scared and lashing out to feel better. But sometimes, like when someone from Rush Limbaugh's staff wrote to me, I respond with thousands of words and pages of evidence from real scientists that shows not only that they need to read the research, but that I've done my research myself!

Can you give us a few practical ways in which each of us can make a positive impact?

The most important thing for all of us to remember is that we MATTER! Even though the actions we need to take might seem small in comparison to the enormity of the problem, every thing we do brings us one step closer to making the shift that we, as a whole society, need to make. So, here are a few ways to get involved in the movement.

-LOWER YOUR EMISSIONS: Simple things like the lists you read everywhere..like changing out lightbulbs, and riding your bike or walking rather than being driven, or planting gardens or using grey water (water from your shower or sinks) to water plants or refusing to use plastic water bottles or bags. There are hundreds of things you can do, I list a handful of them on my website. The reality is...we can't keep wasting energy the way we have been for generations. We are the generation who will grow up doing things different and thinking about the future when using resources.

-GET ORGANIZED: If we work together in our schools and communities, we can totally make a difference. Start a Global Warming Action Team at your school and get your friends to do an energy audit of your school and then raise money or apply for grants to buy solar panels for your school or plant a garden or become recycling maniacs. I know of a high school group in Santa Monica who dressed up like a plastic bag monster and went to their city council and worked to get plastic bags banned from their city.

-RAISE YOUR VOICE: Its also true that we can recycle and ride bikes all day long and we still won't be making a huge dent in the problem. Our whole world needs to get serious and make big changes. We need to be involved in the changes that governments and businesses need to make too. We, as students, need to remember that our VOICES matter even though we can't vote. Because we as youth will be the ones most affected, our voices must be heard by those leaders making decisions that will affect climate change...and our future. There is a strong youth movement going on in our world right now, insisting that change MUST happen. And our voices are needed.

Alec Loorz 6-7 from JP Eason on Vimeo.

Get to know other young social entrepreneurs by reading their stories and seeing videos of them in action at http://genvcampaigns.org/

If you are a young person between the ages of 12-20 and want to create positive change in your community join the global movement of young changemakers at http://genv.net/