Main Page

From ScribbleWiki: Youth Climate Pledge

4EDDCm qv8032ry07vdd91vdsv0ylv7y4

[edit] Help us to list out some of the best and the most creative action steps that every young person can take to confront climate change.

Use this wiki to list your ideas under each of the following categories: My home, My school, My community, and My country. The goal is to share and promote great ideas that everyone can do. Remember, these actions have to apply to a 17 year old living in Iowa and a 17 year old living in Indonesia.

At the UN Foundation Youth Leadership Summit [1] this July 17-19, 2008, all the participants will vote for the top ideas in each category. This will form the basis of a final Youth Climate Pledge to be announced at the end of the Summit.

Presently, I am working with a group that is based in the UK (Coalition for Climate Change"the African initiative") to bring all African together in UK by June to discuss the way forward for Africa on the issue of climate change, We would be looking at the impact of climate change in Africa and how the people are copying

[edit] MY HOME:

What are some steps people can take in their homes to address climate change

• Unplug appliances and chargers when it is not in use (because it still uses energy).
• Avoid the waste of water; for example turning it off when brushing my teeth.

Purchase energy and water efficient products, especially those certified LEED, Watersaver, energy saver, logos like that.

• Taking short showers as opposed to long baths.
• Upgrade household heating so that it is efficient.
• Recycle.
• Buy less fast food.
• Buy products with less packaging.
• Buy local products (within 100 miles of home)
• Eat less meat

-Construct and live in green, zero net energy homes. -When you buy foods, buy fresh, local, and organic. -Use edible and natural landscaping.

culltivate the open spaces as trass and the roof we must make a garden for every house

• Turn off lights in all unused areas
• Turn the thermostat up higher in the summer and lower in the winter
• Drive only when required to drive; bike if possible, carpool if possible, combine trips
• Set all computers and peripheral equipment into the EPA power consumption standards (e.g. computer hiberation)
• Plant trees

(BRHS, AT)

• Reduce the use of non-vital appliances that run on electricity such as television or radio.

(BRHS, BG)

[edit] MY SCHOOL:

What are some ways that schools could have a better climate policy - or create a policy?  Are there specific action steps to take or school policies that need to be changed or created?

  Start listing your ideas!

• Offering some kind of compensation to those clasrooms that get the most amount of things to recycle
• Do my best to make my peers aware by word and example of the coming energy, food, water crises, and explain to them methods of reducing human impact on the natural world.
• Speak up to the administration to implement energy-efficient technology such as solar panels, automated electronics and bathroom equipment, as resources allow.
• Organize workshops based on peer-to-peer education on climate change, in this way raising awareness on the issue within the community.
• In each classroom to place a recycle box for paper which will be collected regularly.
• Talk to the school board to make sure they are interested in climate change and recycling.

-Ask the school to offer organic foods for lunch, and request that they buy these foods fresh as well as locally. we shold provide our school garden with fresh fruit and vegetables

• Reduce the energy used within schools by switching off unnecessary lights during the day, and keeping everything off at night.

• Try to give the exact information about energy consumption and how it affects the world we live in so people could start to become more aware of their energy consumption in order to be a small part in a big change. This project starts in our schools to be spread all over our families.

• Request administration to implement a copy-monitoring software (e.g. PaperCut) that can limit copies by person and show the carbon footprint of every copy job to increase awareness and save paper
• Encourage school to buy only recycled or recyclable products such as paper, furniture, carpet, etc
• Encourage food-service provider and administration to use recycled paper products versus styrofoam during food-service
• Encourage school lunches to be appropriately sized. A large amount of food turned to waste at schools.
• Teach students to pick up after themselves, so that the custodial staff can conserve energy (from working after hours and using heavy machinery).
• If a renovation is planned for the parking lot - implement bioswales to regulate and clean parking lot runoff
• Use indigenous plants in any school landscaping to reduce the need for watering and fertilizers and to encourage the return of natural wildlife
• When doing a roof renovation - consider a 'white roof' versus ashphalt to reduce the heat-island effect of the building
• Infuse the curriculum with the topics of sustainability and environmental ethics

(BRHS - AT)

• Reduce energy used at schools by using chalk/whiteboards instead of overhead projectors.

(BRHS - BG)

[edit] MY COMMUNITY:

Look around, how could your city or town take action?  What is the responsibility of elected officials and community leaders? What should you do to help out?

  Start listing your ideas!

• Creating recycle zones in every zone of the city, so people that are throwing away old cellphones, computers, TVs and that kind of stuff don't have to make a big trip to leave them, it would encourage recycling!
• Gathering signatures to ask those supermarkets near our homes to stop using plastic bags, and replace them by paper bags
• Educate the people and promote the concept of separating the garbage, therefore recycling.
• Introduce the usage of paper bags in stores--eliminate the use of one-time use products from stores, businesses.
• Encourage the use of bicycles and convenient public transportation.
• Gather reasoned and varied voices in talking to your city council about creating a more close-knit community, accessible to all people of all transportation, and to promote local ecosystems and biodiversity.
• To introduce interdictions to people's behavior in parks, forests and other green areas, and furthermore, to enforce them.
• Encourage use of plasma gasification to convert waste/ municipal solid waste to green electricity.
• Process human waste in efficient biogesters to produce methane for use in generating green electricity.
• we must make people sort out the rubbish; to make the recycle easy way and also we should keep our community clean

• Encourage communities to implement HOV (High-Occupancy Vehicle) lanes on all major thoroughfares
• Encourage corporate sponsorship of community clean-up days
• Honor individuals and corporations who 'walk the talk' and lead by example with regards to the environment
• Provide grant funding to lower-income areas to implement sustainability programs

(BRHS - AT)

• Cease the use of incineration plants and encourage the use of recycling centers.

(BRHS - BG)

• Encourage farmers to utilize various methods to reduce soil erosion, thereby improving water quality and soil conservation.

[edit] MY COUNTRY:

Every country has global commitments to honor and responsibilities to undertake.  What are the most important things a country should do in regard to climate change?  Are their national policies that should be created?  What are the best steps each nation can take?

• Encouraging countries to make a fond with money for some students interested in the topic so they can go outside to learn about it and bring new knowledge and ideas to their own countries, for example to the annual youth leadership summit.
• To plant a tree every year.
• Increase the usage of natural textiles.
• Organize actions which involve cleaning specific areas.
• Encourage the states to create more green areas, especially in the cities.
• Use bio-fuel derived from plant which grow on arid land and producing non-edible oil, outside the fuel or food dilemna and giving therefore more jobs and more lands to less developed contries.
• Don't use biofuel, leave the corn for food. Implement instead alternative wind, solar, geothermal energies.
• Use cellulosic materials to make ethanol, and discourage use of corn to make ethanol.
• Produce biofuels using a carbon sequestration form of algalculture with raceways located on waste land, with surplus nutrients used to grow lipid (biodiesel) producing algae.
• Stop using productive farmland to grow energy crops.
• Conserve and recycle water and other resources in short supply.

establish a speasilized ministry for the safty of enviroment and it has training person

• Start to develop specific education programs that tend to make pupils and student more aware of the contribution they can give it the fight against Global Warming.
• Go green by investing in and driving electric cars....GO EV1!!!!!
• To wisely dedicate finite resources to bettering human conditions and not carbon reduction programs that will, according to IPCC will slow temperature increase by a mere 6 years over a century at tremendous cost.
• Observe wise prioritizing such as the Copenhagen Consensus. Global Warming is not our main priority when infectious disease and malnutrition plague millions.

• Encourage the development of sustainable energy sources through increased tax credits and other government incentives/funding
• Reallocate government resources within the Department of Energy to create an Office of Sustainable Energy
• Encourage all government facilities to go 'green' and lead by example
• Government regulations cannot solve all the climate problems; combating the climate crisis begins with each of us at home
• Design and implement a completely paperless money system

(BRHS - AT)

• Encouraging the practice of turning organic materials into compost.

(BRHS - BG)

• Encourage the funding of a company called ENECO to produce Wind Amplified Rotor Platforms. These are platforms that generate clean, efficient wind energies and are designed to reduce fuel consumption by 50-70%.

(BRHS - BG)

• America needs to stop importing everything to cut down on the greenhouse gas emission caused by the transportation across seas.

[edit] Other thoughts and ideas

There is an industry of wasted energy dedicated to war. This energy can be re-distributed through the means of global disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration to be redirected towards dialogue based processes by mutual education and campaign awareness and the establishment of the civil society. Of more details click on http://www.peace365.org and show your participation.

• Limit arms production, and carefully control sales.
• Teach self-help, basic skills, development techniques, resource conservation, environmental protection, health and safety, democracy and other essential subjects via global Radio Schools for the 2 (two) billion people with inadequate access to education.
• Educate the global public on the need of diversity in all things.
• Act to protect the environment.
• Take all necessary actions to increase global food production.
• Develop better systems for water conservation and recycling.
• Reduce restrictions on personal firearms, thereby propogating the goals of the Second Amendment. This would deter crime, allowing precious police funds to be used for other, humanitarian-like programs.

(BRHS---BK)

• Do not focus on one mainstream thought, but at the same time, do not elevate minorities exclusively while leaving the rest of mainstream society behind in their ability to express their beliefs.
• Use more forceful dialogue, and if necessary, pointed missiles, in dealing with rogue nations such as Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, in order to prevent any possible sabotage plans to disrupt world energy supplies and/or trade routes. (In other words, use all options available to prevent such a crisis.)
• Educate the next generation to enable mutual respect, and a renewed desire for peace and prosperity throughout society for the future.
• Understand that as with other issues, the primary focus of climate policy should not necessarily be carbon reduction but the improvement of living conditions for the people today and future generations.