Join the Club and Help the Environment

Many teens are committed to cleaning up the environment and stopping global warming. The Sierra Club is one organization where young activists can get involved and make a difference.

Many teens are committed to cleaning up the environment and stopping global warming. The Sierra Club is one organization where young activists can get involved and make a difference. Teen Voices spoke with some of the Sierra Youth Coalition’s leading young activists—Anjali Helferty, Zoe Caron, and Maggie Baynham—to find out why they think it’s important to stop global warming NOW!

Teen Voices: If you could describe global warming in one sentence what would you say?

Zoë Caron: It is the basic symptom that we are seeing today of all the pressures that humans are putting on the environment.

TV: How did you become interested in fighting global warming?

Zoë : I went to a conference a few years ago in British Columbia called the Canadian Youth Climate Change Conference. We all lived together and talked all about global warming.

Anjali Helferty: I got involved with climate change and global warming when I was in my university because I got in contact with the Sierra Youth Coalition. They were part of a program called the Campus Climate Challenge. It tells college students about things you can do to help your campus become more energy efficient and help stop global warming.

Maggie Baynham: I took a course at my university about global warming. I studied the effects of global warming, and when I started working for the Sierra Youth Coalition in August I got involved in a very big way with the Sustainable Campuses Project and the Community Youth Action Project.

TV: Why is it so important to focus on global warming right now?

Anjali: Now is the time that we need to see action. Now is the time that we need the change to happen. It’s not an option anymore because it’s something that’s really happening, and we are seeing a lack of leadership from our politicians and from all the people in power right now. We see an unwillingness to make the change that needs to happen.

TV: Why do you think it’s important for youth to get involved?

Zoë : We are the ones who are going to be around to see global warming and climate change really play t hrough. A lot of the major problems caused by global warming haven’t really happened yet. We are causing it now, but a lot of the effects won’t happen for the next 10, 20, even 30 years. The effects will just keep getting worse so it’s important for us to get involved because it’s our future that we’re dealing with.

TV: What in your opinion is the easiest way for teenagers to effectively fight global warming on an everyday basis?

Zoë : The biggest problem is the amount of energy we use daily, so any time you do things that use less energy, like turning down the heat, not leaving the light on when you leave the room, and driving less, would be a big help.

Maggie: I think the most effective thing would be to decrease the consumerism.*

TV: Maggie, you traveled to Bolivia to work with an environmentalist. How was your trip, and what did you do while you were there?

Maggie: I was helping them do environmental education primarily. We did workshops on things like global warming and other environmental things. It was very interesting because the effects of climate change were very real to the farmers there. They were seeing things they have never seen before, like hail. They were not able to grow some things.

TV: What are your plans for the future as an environmentalist?

Maggie: I’m not really sure at this point. I’m going to be working with the Sierra Youth Coalition for another year or two. I’m planning on finishing at the university that I am at right now. No matter what, it will definitely be an ethic that I will carry with me for the rest of my life and I’ll always try and do my part.

TV: When do you think it will be too late to stop global warming?

Zoë : I think the deadline is coming up. We only have about 8-10 years to make a real difference, and after that it will be out of our control. The damage will be done and we won’t be able to do anything about it. But we still have time now to do something and take steps to stop global warming from doing too much damage.

TV: Any last words?

Zoë : Write a letter to your politician about global warming and you can really make a difference!

To find out more about the mission of the Sierra Youth Coalition,
visit their website at www.syc-cjs.org.

Rock Against Global Warming!

What if there were ways to educate young people about global warming through music? Rock Against Warming is an Australian organization that does just that. Ali, Jackson, Alice, and Georgia—also known as RAW crew—are four 15-year-old high school students who have come up with the idea to raise awareness about global warming by compiling a CD filled with songs about the issue. This CD will include songs from 15 southern Australian youth bands and a variety of music genres, from rap/hip hop to screamo/emo.*

Not convinced that Rock Against Warming is really making a difference? Well, they’ve gotten the attention of a former vice president of the United States, Al Gore, who wrote them a letter saying that “it is tremendous that you are organizing a Rock Against Warming CD.” If you would like to learn more about this organization or how you can get your hands on the CD that is coming out in late 2007, visit rockagainstwarming.com.

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