I have had the opportunity to attend the first two days of the "Change It" conference in Boston which is being sponsored by Greenpeace and Seventh Generation.  There are more than fifty young people present. Each of them has a passion for the environment, but they are all very different. Students have come from the South, like Florida, from New England, from places like Vermont and from the Mid-West and each of them had so much energy and excitement.  I actually ran into a YP4 fellow at the conference, Betsy Ott from Northern Michigan University. Everyone is at the conference with the hope that when they go back to their campuses they can change it.

By June Zeitlin, Executive Director, Women's Environment & Development Organization

     The more we experience the effects of climate change, the clearer it becomes that everyone on the planet has a huge stake in what we decide to do now. That is why it is appalling that women are still being overlooked as key to the solution.

     When storms and mudslides devastate a neighborhood, women shoulder most of the cleanup, stay home from work or school the most and take care of the injured. When drought hits the developing world, it is women whose crops and animals suffer most, as they produce most of the food in Africa and Asia. Women are the ones who risk assault to go further and further in search of water and firewood.

The staff at Young People For have been generous enough to give the staff at Living Liberally a temporary home in their New York office. As well as a 2008 Fellow, I am a summer intern with Living Liberally (the group that hosted the comedy show at the Summit). As I am working in YP4 space right now I thought I would share this blog with my fellow fellows. This blog was originally posted to Living Liberally. 

[asset|aid=823|format=image|formatter=asset|title=bunchadirtycommies.jpg|width=249|height=257|align=right|resizable=true]Right-wingers say the darndest things.

The folks over at Love Global Warming — no joke, that's the name of the blog — are bent on revealing the truth about Young People For and other "so-called environmentalist organizations that prey on young people all over the free world."

Apparently YP4 is a "communist front [organization] whose only reason for existence is to trick the youth of America into throwing out our way of life and adopting communist ideologies."

Note: If the tense of this entry seems odd, it's because it was written live during the forum. Also, sorry for messing up the views count, it increments whenever I edit.

The Student Forum on Global warming is being held at the University of St Thomas on March 03, 2008. UST president Father Dease introduced MN Governor Tim Pawlenty and UST alumnus and world-renowned arctic explorer Will Steger.

On the wall above Will Steger is a graph of "Global CO2 Concentration over the Last 40,000 Years". When the ppm drops below 200, we hit an ice age. Above 300? Warming. Currently the concentration is 385 parts per million. This increase began at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

Al Gore, eat your heart out. A sustainability expert named Annie Leonard has created an awesome short animated film to explain — in just 20 minutes — the basics of sustainability. "Sustainability" is such a weird, wonky word, but this film really lays it all out in a down-to-earth and compelling way.

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Coby Beck has created an impressively comprehensive list of responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming.

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Rupert Murdoch CEO just announced that Fox and his various other media outlets (New York Post, MySpace) will begin addressing climate change.  

  Seriously?

Not only is the notoriously conservative Bush supporter not denying the existence of global warming, but he is going make an actual effort to inform his audience of the threats and challenges.

Read more at grist.org

This is a great video and example of how our daily lives and actions are part of a greater world.

Click below to open video or go here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vBUhwJ67jQ

Also, cute kid. My favorite is when he stands under the shower with his rain hat.

Looking around a news stand this past month you would have thought that all of American has gone green.  Issues of Glamour, Sports Illustratted, Vanity Fair, Vogue and countless others all published information about how to green practically everything in your life: home, office, make-up, clothes, vacation, television shows.  Celebrities like Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio are on the front lines spreading the message.  Domino, a home and decorating magazine, profiled more than 100 businesses that now provide environmental friendly products and green advice.  It seems that every house by the end of the year will be green --all except the only two that matter--the House of Representatives and the White House.