Category archives for Climate Change
Posted by Alec Loorz and many other young people are concerned about climate change. To raise awareness of the environmental threats to the planet, Alec is encouraging young people to participate in events in cities across the globe May 7 – 14.
“iMatter is about the generation most affected by climate change standing up and working for a planet worth inheriting,” Alec says. “It is about mobilizing and empowering our generation to create a sustainable and just world.”
To find out more about the march, go to iMatter March.
The time is here again — turn off your lights tomorrow Saturday, March 26 from 8:30 to 9:30 local
time and participate in a global observance called Earth Hour.
Individuals, businesses, and organizations across the world will be
participating. Earth Hour is a
demonstration of how much we can do to cut back power use and prevent
climate change if we all work together.
Do you plan to participate?
Read more on Earth Hour 2011 on National Geographic News.
Visit Earth Hour’s official page.
Past coverage:
Turn Off Your Lights for Earth Hour
Earth Hour 2010
Photograph by Kin Cheung, AP
Posted by I’ve been back from Iceland a few weeks now, and I miss it. I miss the people, with their awesome accents and frank sense of humor, the colorful houses, the surreal landscape with thousand year old volcanic rocks, the steam coming out of the ground everywhere you turn…all of it. I even miss the convenience stores, with those delectable Icelandic hot dogs, made with crunchy onions and sweet Icelandic mustard… my mouth is watering just remembering it.
I learned so much on this trip, about climate change, rocks, glaciers, photography, filmmaking, puffins, ice, and myself.
Have you ever wondered what climate change looks like? A climate park located in Jotunheiman National Park in Norway opened in April to help visitors understand the environmental impact of global warming. At Klimapark kids and adults can observe glaciers, snowdrifts, melt-offs,
permafrost. There are also tours under the Juvfonna
ice patch, the only ice tunnel in Northern Europe.
Archeologists have discovered hundreds of artifacts in the mountains surrounding the park due to unusual glacier melting, some up to 1,700 years old.
Klimapark also offers a summer “Klimacamp” in August, where kids can camp in the area, explore the land, and learn about the history of Norway. The camp is free, but there are a limited number of spots, so campers are selected through an application process.
Photograph courtesy Espen Finstad, KlimaPark 2469
Visit the Klimapark website.
Find out more about Klimacamp.
Alec Loorz is a guest contributor to
Green Scene. He is currently
participating in a National Geographic student expedition to Iceland.
Alec’s posts are his personal observations of his experience and of his
commitment to climate change awareness.
Day 13 in Iceland. Only 2 more full days before we go back home. 
I’m sad to leave what has become my life for the past 2 weeks, but at the same time, I’m ready to return to my normal life. At least it will be nice to get a full night of sleep.
My life has changed on this trip. Up until now, I’ve talked to people about climate change, and people have been inspired, but there has been something missing. I realized that what that was: I couldn’t personally relate to it.
Global warming has been something I learned about from books, websites, and movies. It can be unusual weather or something, but it is hard to really see the direct impact of climate change in my normal American life. But here in Iceland, being able to see the glaciers that are melting firsthand, that missing piece has clicked in place inside me.
(Alec Loorz is a guest contributor to Green Scene. He is currently
participating in a National Geographic student expedition to Iceland.
Alec’s posts are his personal observations of his experience and of his
commitment to climate change awareness.)
Wow, that was an amazing week. Just the fact that it’s taken me till day seven to sit down and write something should tell you something about how much we’re doing here in Iceland. It’s about 11 p.m. here, it’s still completely light out, (the sun goes down for about three hours per day, but it’s never really dark,) and I am exhausted. This has honestly been the best week of my entire life, hands down. I’ve achieved at least five of my life goals, and I’m expecting a few more over the next part of this journey. Let me list a few here:
For one, I saw my first glacier a few days ago (they all blur together,) and I walked on my first glacier yesterday. It was unbelievable. Seriously, I felt like I was in a dream, it was so surreal and incredibly beautiful, it was hard to actually believe I was there. The glacier we hiked on was called Fellsjökull (fells-yo-cull,) which is part of the great Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Europe, and the third largest in the world, right behind Greenland and Antarctica. I honestly cannot think of the words to describe what it felt like to be there, with the glacier, being able to touch and feel what’s happening to massive body of ice. I think the closest I can get is with a few pictures:
Alec Loorz is a guest contributor to Green Scene. He is currently participating in a National Geographic student expedition to Iceland. Alec’s posts are his personal observations of his experience and of his commitment to climate change awareness.
What We Need to Save the Planet for Future Generations
For many reasons, the climate change movement has not been able to bring about the changes we need to actually solve the climate crisis. Even though there are many people putting hundreds of millions of dollars and years of time into the effort, I am not sure we are any better off now than we were ten years ago.
If anything, we can say we’ve made climate change a mainstream topic. So, that’s something. Most people I talk to today have at least heard about climate change, and most have an opinion.
But we’re still not anywhere close to a sustainable society, which is what we need to survive.
I think I have an idea why. In comparing this movement to other social movements in the past (civil rights movement, women’s rights movement, independence movement in India led by Gandhi,) there’s one main difference that sets us apart: we are not suffering. Our lives are not personally affected by climate change.
In other movements, a specific group of people whose lives were personally affected by an injustice stood up to make their voices heard. Their suffering held them together as a movement.
For most people, at least in the United States, it’s still abstract and distant, and too ‘scientific’ to fully understand and be passionate about. It’s a political issue without passion, without suffering.
Read the whole post »
Earth Day celebrations began 40 years ago on April 22, 1970 to make people aware of pollution and other environmental problems that are harming the Earth. Small choices that people make every day contribute to the health or cause harm to the planet. When you think about it, every day should be Earth Day!
Many kids are finding ways to help the environment. Two committed kids on different continents have started websites to help kids around the world understand the issues and give solutions to some of the problems facing the planet.
Alec Loorz
Fifteen-year-old Alec (right, and with friends above) started Kids vs. Global Warming after he saw former Vice President Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth. Alec’s website explains the issue of global warming so kids can understand the causes, but he also offers solutions in his iMatter area of his site. He is planning a million kid march next year to bring attention to the issue, and he also has an iPod/iPhone application to connect kids and their projects around the world.
When you think of endangered animals, you probably think of creatures like polar bears, tigers, or orangutans. But plenty of other species that we don’t hear about are threatened by climate change, too. The Wildlife Conservation Society has published a new report listing some of the less well-known animals facing the challenges of a changing world.
The United Nations have designated 2010 as the Year of Biodiversity.
Get started by learning about the animals on the Wildlife Conservation Society’s list!
