The Youth Climate Network
“The Youth Climate Movement’s Global New Media Push for Survival” by Kyle Cassidy – Wend Greenery & The Huffington Post – November 17, 2009
“Just in Time: Youth Journalists Take on Climate with Project Survival Media” by Celia Alario – Huffington Post – September 16, 2009
“Project Survival Media” Video by Michael Montalban – Project Green Generation – August 19, 2009
“Richard Graves: The Scoop on Climate Justice” Interview by Adam Waxman – WireTap Magazine – August 3, 2009
October 2009 Update On: Project Survival Media, Contributing, Photography, Consultancy, & Our New Home
Project Survival Media: After a rigorous application and selection process, Project Survival Media (PSM) has seven talented youth new media teams, one on every continent. These teams are producing six professional mini-documentaries, 70 professional photographs, and over 100 blogs in the lead up to COP 15 in Copenhagen this December.
Then, teams are distributing content through youth blogs in 15 languages, online and offline news outlets. We will be showing delegates what is happening on the front lines of the climate crisis in their region, what it is doing to the people they are sworn to serve and protect. We are taking the message to our delegates at Copenhagen: As you negotiate our planet’s climate, “Survival is not Negotiable.”
Team leaders have compiled a media pitch that we are using to approach hosts and syndication partners, as well as some outlets who want to pay for original content. It’s awesome. We also made this video, 350=Survival, with Jon Warnow of 350.org. Read the conversation below the YouTube post – a prime example on how a video like this can help educate on climate change.
Fired Up Contributors: This fall, Richard was hired as the online campaigner and blogger for the TckTckTck campaign, which is run by the Global Campaign for Climate Action. The campaign’s highlights include organizing the Global Wake Up Call, with 2600 events in 134 countries, as well as serving as the liaison with Change.org for Blog Action Day, single largest social change event on the web, with 13,600 Blogs in 156 Countries participating, collectively reaching an audience of 18,085,076 people.
Richard also wrote a series of articles for Grist Magazine on climate policy and healthcare, and an article for the US State Department’s eJournal USA, “International Youth: Fired Up About Climate Change“ which was featured together with articles by Dr. Pachauri and fellow It’s Getting Hot in Here editor, Zoë Caron. Richard is also now a contributor to The Huffinton Post. Lastly, Mara MacKinnon, a friend of Fired Up, recently wrote a noteworthy piece on the American Pika and implications for US climate policy for SolveClimate.
Photography: Fired Up and PSM Europe Team Leader Photographer Robert Van Waarden was accepted into the International League of Conservation Photographers as an Emerging Photographer. A collection of his photos on the youth climate movement was also on display at Bonn – Presently, we are seeking donations to help get this amazing display of artwork in place for climate negotiators to view during their next meeting in Barcelona.
Consultancy and Connections: Shadia worked closely with 350 in New York, pulling together thousands of photos from climate actions around the globe. Fired Up also made contact this summer with It’sHotInHere, an awesome environmental campus news show out of Ann Arbor, MI. Madeline appeared on the show! (That’s right, after the Nelly song 20 minutes in). Madeline has also been working for the last four months part-time as a Communications consultant with www.ourtask.org. She helped them film a new video, and will be taking some information about OT with her to Copenhagen, including resources about the global outlook studies and strategies that shape our future.
We are the new project of the Earth Island Institute: Lastly, but certainly not least, we are very proud to announce that Fired Up Media is the newest project of the Earth Island Institute. We have been accepted into a wonderful family of environmental organizations, including the Energy Action Coalition, Baikal Watch, Women’s Earth Alliance, and the Sacred Land Film Project. We had our orientation in early October, and can’t wait to keep growing our capacity.
Children and young people have a new platform to engage in climate solutions, with the launch of UniteforClimate.org today at the International Children & Youth Conference in Daejeon, Republic of Korea.UNICEF, as part of a diverse coalition of UN agencies, civil society groups, youth activists, universities, and private partners, built the open-source online engagement platform for youth people and children to collaborate on solutions to climate change.
Young people from the developed world have pioneered uses of new media for advocacy and partnered with youth networks around the the world to build platforms, like YouthClimate.org. However, UNICEF and the other Unite for Climate partners have developed appropriate technology to connect young people without access to the internet and computers or in low-bandwidth areas, by using SMS polls and other online-to-mobile technology to reach youth in the developing world.
Another focus of the effort is online video, with low cost video-camera manufacturer FlipCam, YouTube, and the 1 minute to save the world contest coming together to provide equipment, host content, and screen video. Alongside the online video initiative, the site will have social networking tool available on the Unite for Climate site, for young citizens engaged in facing the challenge of climate change.
The platform was unveiled at the TUNZA International Children and Youth Conference in Daejeon, Republic of Korea, which is organized by the youth network affiliated with the UN Environment Program, TUNZA. Children and youth from some 110 countries participated in the launch of United for Climate, as well as released a statement they are delivering to world leaders.
The statement, titled “Listen to Our Voices”, led with this statement
We, young people – 3 billion of the world population – are concerned and frustrated that our governments are not doing enough to combat climate change. We feel that radical and holistic measures are needed urgently from us all. We now need more actions and less talking.”
The statement also made commitments by young people to work for sustainable solutions, work to green schools, campuses, and communities, as well as mobilize around the UN climate negotiations in Copenhagen, this fall.
To support this youth commitment on campuses and schools, Unite for Climate will connect at least 150 schools around the globe from September 2009. The Connecting Classrooms project will foster dialogue on climate change between school children, and is supported by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Mediterranean Center for Sustainable Development.
For more information:
United for Climate: www.uniteforclimate.org
Youth Climate Debates: www.youtube.com/youthclimatedebate
Youth Climate: www.youthclimate.org
It’s Getting Hot in Here – dispatches from the youth climate movement – www.itsgettinghotinhere.org
August 11th, 2009 join us for the Project Survival Media Benefit at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco, CA.
Imagine:
What if, on all seven continents, there were young people equipped to globally broadcast pivotal stories about the climate crisis?
What if these young people were empowered to amplify disenfranchised voices and propel the principle of “Survival” to the forefront of the political debate?
Well this is Project Survival Media. In the lead up to the UN Climate Negotiations, we are assembling a global network of youth journalists who will use video, photography, and blogs to report from the frontlines of the climate crisis. Continue reading ‘The Launch of Project Survival Media’
So, we tend to write a bit at Fired Up Media. I mean, it is part of our mission, so it makes sense. However, as another part of our mission is projecting the youth voice into the global conversation on building a sustainable future, we tend to write at a number of different sites. So, to give you all an idea of what we have been writing recently and where you can find it, we are doing a roundup. I hope you find it interesting and see the diversity of topics that Fired Up folks are tackling at any one time.
Madeline J. Kovacs : SolveClimate & It’s Getting Hot in Here- Jul 26th, 2009 – Students Lead Charge to Power School with Renewable Energy
Richard Graves: CommonDreams.org – Friday July 24, 2009 - Unregulated Carbon Credit Markets Threaten Local Sustainability Projects Worldwide
Kevin Kim: It’s Getting Hot in Here – July 21st, 2009 – A Green Way Forward? US/China Launches Joint Energy Research Center
Richard Graves: It’s Getting Hot in Here – July 14th, 2009- Unity over Divisiveness: Generational Approaches to the Climate Crisis
We will do another round-up soon, as we are writing up articles for America.gov’s eJournal USA and other publications, so keep an eye out!
I wanted to introduce our summer intern, Kevin Kim, who is coming to us from the Washington Workshops Foundation. They have the pretty awesome URL of Workshops.org, if you want to check them out. I was invited to open their their Washington Congressional Seminar with a talk on youth, politics, new media, and civic engagement. They introduced me to Kevin and now he is working with us for this summer. He is going to help out writing some manuals and articles and help out with graphic design, logistics, and some web work.
He wrote:
Hey, everyone. My name is Kevin Kim and I’m from the Orange County in California. I’ve been involved with a youth rights organization, many student groups, and grassroots political campaigning, and I hope to bring a new perspective to Fired Up and help you guys out on your projects. I’m really happy that I get the rare opportunity to actually roll up my sleeves and do some serious work that could bring about an important change in the youth climate movement today. I know we’ll have a great time.
Getty Images, the leading distributor of still imagery, launched the Grants for Good program to support exceptional photographers partnering with a nonprofit to support a cause and issue that needs to be visualized. Robert van Waarden, together with the Global Youth Action Network and Fired Up Media, submitted an application to photograph the emerging global youth climate movement. It was an exciting application to put together, including the development of a new media platform of social documentary photography. Now, while unfortunately our application was not selected as one of the two winners, it was selected as an exceptional finalist. Read about the finalists.
“In its inaugural year, Getty Images received more than 403 proposals from photographers in 26 countries, who partnered with non-profits working in more than 55 countries. Jurors Dennis Freedman, Creative Director for W Magazine, Christopher Phillips, Curator for International Center of Photography and Lesley Martin, Publisher for Aperture Foundation, selected the winning proposals. [emphasis added]” Read their release.
“In addition to the two grant winners, Getty Images and the judges wish to recognize a number of outstanding finalists and their innovative grant proposals benefiting non-profits from around the world:”
For more information on these finalists and their proposals, please visit www.gettyimages.com/grants. Those interested in supporting any of these exceptional projects can secure additional information by sending an inquiry to Grants2@gettyimages.com.
The winners were really incredible photographers and one project in particular is one that will be really powerful on the issue of climate and justice is Karen Kasmauski’s project with Save Our Cumberland Mountains. She is going to be showing the Appalachian way of life and its devastation by Mountain Top Removal mining, one of the great American tragedies. View her work here.
You may have seen this photo, on the left, from the Bonn meeting of the UN Climate Negotiations. It seems simple enough, two men sitting at a table with a framed photograph perched in front of the microphone. Yet, it shows how everything has started to change on the fight to create a global agreement in Copenhagen this December. Why? It demonstrates how everything is in our hands now.
First, lets start with the framed photograph itself. You probably can’t see it too clearly, so lets take a look at the original. Floating above a sea of signs, Ethan Nuss of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network is speaking to the Power Shift 09 Lobby Day Rally in front of the US Capitol building. He is wearing a suit, but he is holding a megaphone. It is wicked cold out, due to a freak snowstorm. Ethan is an incredible speaker and despite the crowd noise is inspiring all the young people in the crowd, who are vigorously waving their signs, and fired up to go lobby Congress.
What does this have to do with Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate official and the Executive Secretary (think Secretary of State, not your dentist’s secretary) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – the body charged with creating a global agreement on climate change, and why did he put this framed photo up? In Poznan, Poland – there was an intergenerational inquiry on the role of youth and the UN climate process. There, I recorded Yvo de Boer state that, ” I think that civil society loses its power, when NGOs put down their banners and put on suits.” He spoke on how young people need to provide the passion, the activism, and not lose sight of their goals in policy thickets. He also called for governments to live up to their promises to include youth representation. See Unicef’s reporting on it, here.
At Power Shift 09, there was an incredible effort to document the conference and tell our own story. Our New Media Warroom, filled with bloggers, photographers, and videographers hailing from the Obama campaign, youth climate organizations, and Fired Up Media – recorded the incredible gathering.
Robert vanWaarden, the leading international youth climate photographer, came with Fired Up Media to shoot the conference. He captured some of the most stunning images you will see of Power Shift, showing the importance and vitality of the youth climate movement. He took this photo of Ethan and the Power Shift rally. Two days after the rally, Yvo de Boer came to Washington DC to speak at the Brooking Institute, a thinktank, where a lineup of speakers talked about political ‘realities’ that will force compromising on Capitol Hill. You can read a bit about it, here. Robert and I printed out the photo, met with Yvo and told him, “We may have put on suits, but we are never putting down our signs.” Continue reading ‘The Story of One Photo – Why Photographers Matter to a Movement’
I am very excited to tell all of you that we have completed our Fired Up: Youth Report segment on the International Youth Delegation at the Poznan climate talks.
This was a painstaking endeavor, involving serious project coordination, fundraising, and accreditation to the UN climate talks to spend two weeks filming the work, struggle, and the aspirations of the young people from over 54 countries that came to demand that their future and that of the most vulnerable be protected. It is airing as part of EarthFocus 12 and has been partnered with a piece on climate change and how it threatens the survival of Island Nations, focusing in this episode on the Maldives. We interviewed a Nobel Peace Prize Winner – Dr. Pauchauri and youth from countries all over the world. Take a look!
The Maldives/Youth Segment starts at 12:39. It is always hard to distill weeks of work into a few minutes, but I think many of the highlights are covered.
For a little more information about where this will be shown and who helped put this together, here is some information about LinkTV’s EarthFocus.
So here it goes, the unveiling of the Global Youth Climate Movement’s work in Poznan, Poland, for COP 14 at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:
To Download this video, click here. It’s the video labeled COP14 (Say What You Want).
And the other video:
To download this, click here . It is labeled COP 14 (teardrop)
