SLAP is really gonna happen!

Posted by Alec

When the film crew came last week, they only came for one day. But we had to pretend they were there for a week. We scheduled so many things that day!

One of the things that happened was we had a meeting with the city, to talk about SLAP.There were a lot of important people there, including Rick Cole, the city manager. He was really interested and he wants to help out with SLAP.

I really think we can do this! We’re finally getting somewhere.

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Documentary film crew

Posted by Alec

In global warming
7May 08

Just a few days ago, I had a film crew follow me around all day… it was pretty cool!

This woman named Lynne Cherry, and a guy named Gary Braasch wrote a book called, “How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Climate Change.” And now they’re making it into a documentary.

They are going to feature Kids vs Global Warming and SLAP will be featured throughout the documentary! It’s pretty awesome.

Here’s Lynne Cherry’s website: http://www.lynnecherry.com/

And Gary Braasch’s: http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/

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Happy Earth Day!

Posted by Alec

In global warming
22Apr 08

Hi Everyone! Happy earth day!

I woke up this today and felt the excitement that most kids feel on Christmas morning. Just two years ago, I would have not cared at all about today. It would’ve just been another school day… but so much has change since then. Now, I wake up and feel ready. Ready to do something. I’m not quite sure what, But I know that today will be a great day.

I just realized that it’s been a year now since I first learned about global warming. One year ago, my mom rented “an inconvenient truth,” and got me to watch it. I was actually reluctant at first. It just seemed like another boring documentary. But I was wrong. The movie completely changed me. I watched the whole thing twice in a row, right there on the spot. I knew I needed to do something.

And after being involved for a while, I’ve realized that the movie has been influential to a lot of other people to. It’s amazing how one man can change the minds of millions of people.

Really, as a nation, we’ve really gone though a huge change. 30 years ago, nobody celebrated earth day. It was just a hippie thing back then (or so I’m told. That was about 117 years before I was born.)

But now… Everyone cares. A business can’t get by very good without making a “green” ad or making a “green” product. Google, Youtube, Yahoo, they all have “green” logos today (I encourage you to check them out, they’re pretty cool.)

Everyone suddenly wants everything they buy to be green. They suddenly want to get rid of all their light bulbs and replace them with CFLs. They suddenly want to shop local, and bring their own cloth bags. They suddenly feel proud driving a hybrid car. And it’s really all because of on man. Al Gore changed the face of this nation. If it weren’t for him, we would probably still be driving away from Target in our SUV with the back seats piled high with plastic bags. (*gasp*)

So, America, thank you. Thank you for watching Al Gore’s movie. Thank you for buying green. Thank you for changing your light bulbs, for shopping local, for bringing your own bags.Thank you, America, for caring. We really are starting to get somewhere.

We can do this. We can stop global warming.

And again, happy earth day!

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Worldlink speech Video

Posted by Alec

In global warming
26Feb 08

I’ve finally uploaded the video of my speech to YouTube… It’s not the best quality, but it’s all we have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8lt5mHJE68

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WorldLink conference Jan. 24

Posted by Alec

In global warming
31Jan 08

Today was the 11th annual WorldLink conference, a youth town meeting that happens every year. The theme this year was “Untying Global Knots: Global Warming, corruption, poverty, media bias.” Over 700 high school students attended, from 27 different schools.

WorldLink chose me to be a speaker at the event. I was on a panel along with 3 other PhD’s, including a woman who works for the IPCC, the organization that won the Nobel Peace prize along with Al Gore. Lisa Shaffer, my mentor for the work study week last year was also there.

My first speech was to all of the 700 high school students. It was so cool. I got a standing ovation (that’s totally bragging, but it was pretty cool…) The speech will be on YouTube by Sunday. I’ll send out a link on the site when it’s up.

So… anyway, after the first speech, I gave my skeptic presentation (The climate skeptic’s five flavors of denial) to three different groups of about 30-75 high school kids each. I got commitments from over 50 kids that said they wanted to help, and 7 schools that wanted to start a Kids vs. Global Warming Action Team at their school.

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First SLAP meeting

Posted by Alec

In Events
7Nov 07

Yesterday, we had out first SLAP meeting. It went great! there were over 20 people that showed up, and almost all of them signed up to help!

I gave a small presentation explaining everything to the kids who attended. Then I passed around a sheet to sign up. For the meeting, I developed a SLAP “time line of completion”. What a boring title…

This is what the time line looks like (Sorry for the bad quality):

So here’s how it works…

I’m thinking we’ll start to collect designs now and have them all in by the beginning of February. We’ll start researching the source materials (What will it be made out of? wood, metal, paper, etc.), and have that done by February too. So then in February we’ll start manufacturing the 120 (or so) signs. We should have that finished by April
Also, on Nov. 17th (NEXT saturday), we’ll have a meeting to go out and identify each location.I’ve mapped out a general idea of where each sign should be, but after we split up into teams, we’ll go out into each of the sections and find exact locations. We’ll take a picture, tell who it’s owned by (business, private (someone’s house), city, etc.), say if it would look fine there, and so on…

Also, on January 22nd, we’ll have another meeting to learn how to get permission. There’s a process we have to learn. We can’t just walk up to someone and ask, “can we stick a giant pole in your front yard?” We’ve gotta have mad permission-asking skills…

So, we’ll start getting permissions then, and probably be done by the time the signs are done being made, which is the beginning of April.

We have PR and advertising going from march to the middle of April. That’s when we start advertising for the project. We’ll probably be in the newspapers a bunch, and maybe even on TV!

So, then, the final installation date in April 22nd, Earth Day. I think we can do all this in that time, but we’ll have to work hard, and we can’t just sit and wait for it to happen. Anyone else who would like to help, just make a comment here or email me.

Thanks!

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Bioneers!

Posted by Alec

In Events
28Oct 07

The annual Bioneers conference was held last weekend, and it was so awesome!

Bioneers is a huge conference. I think that about 10,000 people attended. It was a huge event.

I was only a *minority* so I had to sit in a tent with all the other *minorities* and watch the main speakers on a big screen. There were 15 morning speakers throughout all three days. After they spoke, there was a lunch, and then about 5 optional workshops.

I was really inspired by the whole thing. I would have to say my favorite speaker was Jay Harmon, founder of PAX scientific.

Jay’s work with PAX is really interesting. His whole thing is “copying how nature does it.” So, for example, they make boats shaped like dolphins. They also look at the natural flow of things, and use that to make more advanced technologies that are better for the environment.

I learned how common the spiral is. It’s everywhere! tornadoes, waves, galaxies… They like to use the spiral in their products.

One of my favorites is called the PAX mixer.

If water sits to long in a tank or something, it started to get toxic, so what do they do now? They put more chemicals in… But at PAX, they whip out the ol’ spiral.

This machine goes at the bottom of a big vat and spins around really fast. It makes a big whirlpool, which mixes the water so it doesn’t sit for too long. It’s really a genius idea.

Overall, I was inspired that there’s so many people doing something. It helped me understand that the time to make change is now.

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SLAP!

Posted by Alec

In Events
29Aug 07

It has finally come down to it. It’s time to start working on SLAP!

SLAP stands for Sea Level Awareness Project.

This event is trying to get the general public to know what the dangers are. We’ll be putting blue lines ten feet up specific poles around Ventura. The poles are going to be ten feet above sea level. So, if we let Greenland melt and sea level rise 20 feet, the sea level would be at the level of the blue line.

Under the blue line, at about eye level, there will be a sign. It will say something like, “If we continue to do nothing in the face of Global Warming, the blue line would be where sea level falls. You would be 10 feet underwater.” And then under that, “Go to kids-vs-global-warming.com to join the cause.”

Here’s a little diagram I made:

But we won’t be able to just walk right up to city street poles and nail big blue lines up there. There’s a lot we have to do before we can even think about it.

First, we need to get the city’s permission. That will be the hard part. There was someone from Santa Barbara who had a similar idea. He was going to draw a blue line 20 feet above sea level on the ground. Here’s his website: http://lightblueline.com/.

But unfortunately, they couldn’t get some of the approvals. The city said that “house values would drop if they were on the wrong side of the line.” hmm… That just made me laugh out loud.

But I think that if a kid did it, it would be harder for them to reject. So we can do it. I just need a couple other people to help me.

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Check this guy out!

Posted by Alec

In denial, info
25Aug 07

I’d like you all to meet a guy named Tim Ball… There’s a funny story about Tim here. But really, I don’t really know where to start…

Ok, so he works for the University of Winnipeg. In the department of climatology.
He heads the Natural Resources Stewardship Project and formerly headed the activist organization Friends of Science.
He’s a leading global warming scientist, and he does all this research about global warming. In all of his study, he has concluded that humans aren’t really causing global warming at all. It’s just a natural pattern.
Boy, where did I go wrong? Jesus! It actually isn’t us. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it… The scientists now know that it’s just a pattern. Wow……..
Full Story »

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Be Cool Be Green!

Posted by Alec

In Events
28Jul 07

August 7,8: Youth Summit through Green Ambassadors

“Be Cool, Be Green” is a gathering of youth in Downtown Los Angeles to encourage kids to get involved in green activism. It’s a great way for us to learn about Green Careers, to take a Green Tour of Downtown L.A., and to create and participate in a community service action, such as street theater, or creating a cool community space in the concrete jungle!

I’m going to be giving my first Kids vs Global Warming presentation at the event. I invite all of you to come and join in this event. If you live in Ventura county, I’d be happy to carpool with you.

Check out the website for the Green Ambassadors: (Be Cool Be Green is on the “News/Events” section)

http://www.greenambassadors.org/

Apply Now

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