The Presidential Palace. The Presidential Palace in Guinea Bissau lies derelict and burnt out. You can walk amongst the shards of broken crockery, blackened banisters, and singed carpets. Its empty rooms are a fitting metaphor for this failing state.

Teachers in the public sector have not been paid in years. Portuguese, the official language, is hardly spoken by young people and the nation is reverting to a creole contributing to its international isolation.

In a country which ranks 10th from the bottom on the U.N.'s Human Development Index and where life expectancy is 47, there are perhaps more pressing concerns than educating people about climate change.

However, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is doing just that. Nelson Gomez Dias, Country Director in Guinea Bissau, described the mobile laboratory used to educate children in Guinea Bissau on one of its most pressing environmental challenges. Biomass fuel.

Biomass fuel (charcoal and wood) is the single greatest contributor to deforestation in the world. The rural roads of Guinea Bissau are lined with sacks of the stuff on sale to truck drivers to transport to urban markets. And there is great demand as 80 percent of Africans rely on biomass for energy.

The IUCN takes its laboratory to schools across the country. Climate change per se is not on the curriculum. They believe you can only encourage people to act sustainably if you offer them a tangible improvement to their quality of life.

They ask children to boil two liters of water, trialling three methods: the traditional three stone fire with charcoal, with wood, and a biomass burning stove made from termite mud, cow dung and rice stalks. The latter performs better against all criteria: time to boil, amount of fuel required, energy required to fetch fuel, cost of fuel, and associated health implications.

The lesson encourages children to use their resources more sustainably, teaching them how to make the stoves, using materials available throughout Guinea Bissau. Children are also extremely effective agents of change, nagging their parents to adopt the new stoves.

The program targets the most vulnerable members of society, reducing women and children's daily chores, while bringing cost savings and health benefits. Effective environmental education in a country where formal education has gone up in smoke.

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More work than anyone imagined -- watch a slideshow of the project unfolding.Leise JonesIt is worth noting that the original JP Green House budget for the first year of the project was $25k. In retrospect, this was woefully inadequate, but by no means out of line with the four previous rehabs I had completed. We now project that total expenses for the first phase of the rehab, from purchase (July 2009) through occupancy (January 2010), will come in over $200k, a cost overrun of Big Dig proportions. Like the largest public works boondoggle in U.S. history, we seriously underestimated the problems; in our case, the difficulties in rehabbing a poorly maintained structure which had been abandoned for five years.

Our first clue in this regard, uncovered during the first week of ownership, was that the sill plates -- hard pine beams resting on the stone foundation on which the building sits -- in more than half of the building were termite-ridden. The major structural work of supporting the building, pouring new foundations, and replacing the sills and lower framing was both beyond our own capacity and also precluded occupancy and the piecemeal rehab we planned.

Most anyone who has worked on an old building will nod knowingly in sympathy at our experience of grabbing hold of one problem only to find another, and then another. It’s like tugging on a loose piece of yarn and watching a whole sweater unravel. So to with the JP Green House, but the silver lining that was gradually revealed as we came to understand that no part or system in the 100-year-old, ill-maintained, former corner store could be left in place, was the opportunity to shoot for a truly revolutionary standard of energy efficient rehab.

Between purchase of the property last July and October, the scope of work and scale of our ambitions for the JP Green House were raised from a modest, homeowner conducted spiff-up to a full, down-to-studs demolition job, complete new wiring and plumbing, and, most important, the goal of passivhaus certification. Unlike most energy-efficiency investments, it is very difficult to determine what should be considered additional costs of aiming for passivhaus. Yes, we would have had to attend to the structural problems in the JP Green House under any remodeling plan, but neither would we have needed the massive (for a single family house) buttresses and footings to support thick concrete floors, which will serve as heat sinks, had we not gone down the route we chose. Thankfully, we had patient, expert guidance from a number of highly proficient advisers -- particularly Greg Caplan of Living Structures, Inc. in JP, my dad, Harold Ward, recently retired from teaching at Brown University, where he ran the Urban Environmental Laboratory and Environmental Studies Program, and Peg Preble, our neighbor and master electrician. We were also fortunate to connect with the just-founded design/build firm of Placetailor, headed by Simon Hare.

There will be no shortage of work left for Andrée and me. The schedule calls for completion of all rough carpentry, insulation, HRV system and ducting, electrical and plumbing, sufficient to meet Boston building code, by mid-January, with the first passivhaus blower test soon thereafter. This still leaves to us construction of all interior walls, completing kitchen and bath, all finish work, storefront exterior and a few other odds and ends like construction of the deck necessary to access the new front door.

We have had tremendous community support, with too many volunteers to name joining our crew for a few days to full weeks and 20+ turnouts for Saturday work days. We are looking to expand on this support with a contractor “barn raising” week in December, whereby our friends and other interested construction professionals gain hands-on experience with passivahus building techniques, while donating time and expertise to help finish off the project.

The JP Green House is almost entirely an expression of faith -- on our own part (Andrée and I are looting our retirement accounts to meet the nut), our families (both of which have given important assistance), and the generous volunteer hours, donations of supplies, tools and appliances of our community. What we have not received, thus far, is any support from federal, state or local “green build” programs, utility “renewable portfolio” funds or private foundation grants (other than an estimated $9k we expect in tax benefits and small rebates).

The JP Green House is a “pure” model, therefore: a demonstration of what may be done without relying on funding sources that are unavailable to all. On the other hand, we will occupy our home and start our JP Green House program work without any reserve or cushion, lacking the solar hot water and pv systems necessary to achieve < zero carbon impact, and with the old strorefront, to be used as community space, passivhaus education and outreach and “hub” for 350.org campaignign, still to be completed. More on this interesting state of affairs in the next post.

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Students take a stand on Boston Common.Ian MacLellanIt seemed like I had just fallen asleep in my bivvy on the hard soil of the Boston Common on Sunday night, when I was rudely awakened around 1:00 a.m. by the voice of Craig Altemose, founder and driving force behind the Massachusetts Leadership Campaign, crackling through a bullhorn: "Wake up everybody. The police are here and they have given us a two-minute warning. If you do not want to be cited for trespassing, you need to move immediately off the Common."

One hundred and fifty students and community supporters gathered for the third time to sleep out the Common, a weekly focal point for dozens of on-campus sleep-outs that began the day after 350.org's Oct. 24 Day of Climate Action. This Sunday we were joined by Dr. James Hansen, whose crumpled porkpie hat I picked out of the crowd as students and community supporters stumbled out, bleary-eyed, of the 44 tents pitched directly across Beacon Street from the Massachusetts State House.

The Boston Police were very relaxed as they collected identification, and not everyone followed the advice of our National Lawyer's Guild attorneys to offer nothing beyond the most basic information. I found myself standing behind Hansen, who did follow instructions, but not for lack of trying by the officer questioning him, who seemed genuinely befuddled by the presence of this grandfatherly physicist from Pennsylvania. "Do you have kids here?" he asked Jim, "Aren't there enough causes in Pennsylvania that you have to come all the way to Boston to collect a summons?"

Hansen, of course, has no shortage of climate action opportunities and it's a measure of the intelligent strategy crafted by Students for a Just and Stable Future (formerly Massachusetts Power Shift), that the NASA scientist would choose to come to Boston. Like the Climate Ground Zero direct actions at Coal River Mountain, which Hansen has also personally joined, the Massachusetts student campaign is important for several reasons.

The campaign aims to put Massachusetts on record endorsing Hansen's call for 350 ppm and pass legislation requiring 100 percent clean electricity in the Commonwealth by 2020. These are common sense, measured objectives, which appear startlingly bold only against a backdrop of dinky measures advanced by major environmental organizations willing to compromise before conflict is even joined, as repeatedly demonstrated in the handling of Waxman-Markey and Boxer-Kerry.

"Wake Up - Sleep Out!" is also a brilliant tactic, with great promise to spread to campuses throughout the U.S. In what has become a nightly ritual at every sleep-out, participants gather to sit in a tight circle, each standing in turn to introduce themselves, state which college they attend, give the date on which they "woke up," how many nights each has spent out of doors, and when they plan to sleep-out next. On Sunday, there were students from Bunker Hill Community College and Amherst, Westfield State and Hampshire College (my alma mater), UMass and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Harvard, Tufts, Boston University, Mount Holyoke and Smith College, among others. Significantly, regarding the prospect for spreading the campaign outside Massachusetts, there were also students from Vermont, Maine, and Connecticut.

Marla Marcum, chair of the Climate Change Task Force of the United Methodist Church in New England, and a key campaign leader, compared the student action with the biblical story of Esther, bride to a Persian king who overstepped protocol, knowing the penalty was death, in order to save her people from annihilation. "When Esther hesitated to take a personal risk in order to safeguard the future of her people," said Marla, "her uncle encouraged her, saying, 'Perhaps you have come for a time such as this.' Today we are in a position to call on our leaders to safeguard the future of all people.  Like Esther, we must choose between doing the usual thing, the safe thing, the comfortable thing and doing what is right and necessary, even at some cost.” The Mass Leadership students are doing the right thing – calling upon Governor Deval Patrick to introduce 100 percent renewables legislation and refusing to sleep in dorms powered by dirty coal, in order to make there plea emphatic.

Ken Ward (left) and James Hansen (center) identify themselves to Boston police.Ian MacLellanOne cannot spend a night on the Common and come away with any thought that the sleep outs are a gimmick. These smart, earnest students -- who head to their tents between 6-8 each night, pull out laptops and study – are making a profound statement about how dire the climate climate crisis is, how we are all intimately, individually and institutionally culpable, and how change, if it is to come in time, demands action outside the confines of what might be called "personal life-as-usual."

If there is a single failure that stands above the swirl of missteps, cognitive dissonance and blind obedience to organizational imperatives that has fatally undermined the U.S. environmentalist climate agenda, it is our seeming incapacity to act as if we believe what we are saying. We are so close to the tough, daily, grinding business of trying to push immense political stones up hill, that there is little opportunity to step back and contemplate what it is we communicate by the sum total -- the gestalt -- of our efforts.

Imagine a make believe land, similar to our own, but in which Dr. James Hansen was delayed by a couple decades in putting his finger on the problem. In this land, climate change would not  leak by drips and drabs into the national conscience. The crisis would appear full blown, our attention to it riveted, perhaps, by the sudden disappearance of the Arctic ice cap.

In such straits, what might environmentalists do? I expect leaders in this make believe land, shocked by the terrible threat of planetary decimation and stunned by the scale of change and minuscule timeframe within which a functional, global solution must be achieved, would intuitively rush to take actions which we in the real world, faced with what Bill McKibben calls a “slow moving” crisis, have not envisioned. The couple hundred individuals who control institutional environmentalism in the make believe world, as they do here, would convene and form a joint campaign, coalition or conference, determine that all secondary programs should be dropped and all extent reserves invested in a single, last minute effort.

Having quickly, brutally and dramatically reconfigured their institution, environmentalists in make believe land -- without yet having determined what to demand or how to go about winning -- would have acquired more power and singleminded purpose than U.S. environmentalists, with two decades to prepare, have yet mustered. Our mirror environmentalists would be acting appropriately in the circumstances, underlining their statements of dire risk through serious and appropriate action.

The Massachusetts Leadership Campaign is nearly unique, here in the real world, because its student leaders have taken steps -- moderate, to be sure, but firmly and emphatically outside ordinary life, where looming climate cataclysm is fended off or downplayed.

Climate cataclysm cannot be averted by half measures plumped by half hearted spokespersons employed by organizations conducting business as usual. Sleeping out on campus, in the community and on the Boston Common may seem small potatoes compared to the well oiled ACES juggernaut, but it would be a mistake to think so. At its core, the Mass Leadership Campaign presents a profound moral challenge to denial, which is far more dangerous to the status quo than anything else we are doing.

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Columbia Journalism Review itself reports the startling and depressing news:

For the first time since it was created fourteen years ago, Columbia University’s highly regarded dual-degree graduate program in environmental journalism will not be accepting applications for next academic year.

In a letter to faculty at the Graduate School of Journalism, the Department of Environmental Sciences, and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the program directors cited falling employment in the field, the rising costs of education, and a lack of financial aid for students as the reasons for their decision:

“As you know, media organizations across the county are in dire financial straits and thousands of journalists’ jobs have been eliminated. Science and environment beats have been particularly vulnerable. Although our graduates have done well in their careers, even those still employed are finding few opportunities to do the kind of substantive reporting for which the dual degree program has trained them, as they scramble to do their own work plus that of laid-off colleagues.”

Maybe not a total surprise to readers of this blog and Chris Mooney’s book, Unscientific America,” but very untimely decision for two reasons.  First,”The scientific community is failing miserably in communicating the potential catastrophe of climate change.”  And second, the issue of global warming has already emerged as a top tier issue — and it’s increasingly obvious that it will become “the Story of the Century,” as I called it in my book.  Indeed CJR quotes one of the graduates pointing this very fact out:

Dina Cappiello, who covers environmental issues out of The Associated Press’s D.C. bureau, has worked at some half dozen news outlets since she completed Columbia’s dual-degree program in 1999. She says she has managed to stay “one step ahead of the crashing wave” of layoffs that has battered the industry. And having an environmental degree has, at times, been a nuisance when applying for jobs where editors mistook her for an environmentalist or didn’t understand the need for the rigorous scientific training she received. But once on the job, Cappiello adds, editors always recognized the value of her training, and never more so than over the last couple years.

“You have legislation on Capitol Hill that rivals the environmental statutes of the 1970s, at the beginning of the environmental movement,” she says. “You have an administration that made climate and energy its number-two priority, behind healthcare. It’s a beat that I, as one person, struggle at times to keep up with, and I wouldn’t be able to cover it as well as I do without my experience and training. At my last job at Energy & Environment Publishing, there were ten people that break my beat into ten slices.”

So this is just amazingly shortsighted of Columbia University, where I briefly taught as an adjunct professor nearly two decades ago.

Here’s the rest of the story:

The letter stressed that the two-year program—which offers two master’s degrees, in environmental science and journalism—will be suspended, rather than cancelled, so that its directors, Kim Kastens and Marguerite Holloway, can evaluate “its accomplishments to date and prospects for the future.”

Layoffs and buyouts have been rife among environmental journalists (whether more or less so than in the rest of the industry is hard to say). Many newspapers with reputations for strong coverage on that front, from the Sacramento Bee to the Columbus Dispatch, have let go of talented specialists. At Columbia, applications to the environmental journalism program have not seen a marked drop-off, Kastens says, but the number of students who accept offers to enroll has declined over the last three years. Although the classes have always been small, with no more than six students, this year, only one of eight matriculated.

“Although our students are assuming huge debt for knowledge and skills that we think are valuable,” Kastens and Holloway wrote in their letter, “we do not feel comfortable exhorting young people to take on that burden when their chances of repaying it have so diminished.”

Environmental journalists and both current and former students widely regarded the decision as a loss for the field. While many sympathized with Columbia’s predicament, not everybody thought suspending the program was the right move, myself included. In full disclosure, I am a graduate of the dual-degree program and was very satisfied with the education I got. Kastens also invited me to the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory a few weeks before the final decision was made to discuss the matter. I tried to persuade to her keep the program running while evaluating its financing and direction, and I am not alone in my opinion.

“I have a lot of respect for the decision and the people who made it, but strongly disagree,” says Dan Fagin, the director of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program, which enrolls 15 or 16 students every year and competes with the Columbia two-year program for students. “We’ve never needed well-trained science, health and environmental journalists more than we do right now. Yes, the market is tough, but with persistence, flexibility, and the right training, it is possible to find professional work even in this difficult environment. It can be done; it is being done.”

Indeed, the woes of environmental journalism are not universal. ProPublica—perhaps the most prominent of the new nonprofit startups—recently advertised for two investigative reporters with experience covering environmental issues. The staff at Energy & Environment Publishing, which runs Greenwire and ClimateWire, has grown considerably in recent years. And though they don’t offer much in the way of fulltime employment, online outlets such as Grist and Yale Environment 360 have won praise for their commentary and analysis, and offer freelance reporters a place to make a name for themselves.

None of this is meant to sugarcoat the situation for environmental journalists. It is much harder to find work today than it was three years ago, and Fagin stressed that it is very important to be honest with prospective students about the difficulties they will face when entering the job market.

Yet the fact remains that numerous outlets are, in fact, making environmental coverage a priority, and the reason is simple: topics like energy and climate change are at the forefront of the national agenda.

Jeers to Columbia.

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Home Economics of the JP Green House, Part 1

As my family and co-workers will readily attest, I looked forward to my energy audit with disturbing anticipation after I made the appointment about a month ago. I was nearly giddy at the thought of having all my energy-efficiency questions answered: Should I replace my windows? Insulate? Wrap my water heater? Were there huge drafts in my basement that I didn’t know about?

It was a bit like waiting for a first date with someone who came highly recommended. Only with the promise of lower utility bills instead of ... well. Other things.

I was sure this guy would have answers. But there were a few things I didn’t know.

For one thing, I didn’t know he’d look like Wade Boggs. (To baseball fans of a certain age: Aw yeah! Ol’ chicken-chomping panty-lover himself! To everyone else: You had to be there.) I also learned a few other things during the two hours he spent in my drafty house.

1. Utilities are generous ... to a point. When I wrote my post about replacing windows, some readers suggested an energy audit first. I was daunted by the cost, which can be a few hundred dollars, but I discovered that my utility offers free audits through a third-party company. Sweet. This is true in many, many places, and you should see if it’s true in your town—and then, if you can, find out just what services they cover. Because the auditor pointed out something that makes sense, but that I hadn’t really thought about: Utilities can choose how fancy an audit they feel like subsidizing. I think in my case, it was a pretty bare bones version—down to the basement, up to the attic, measure the windows, squint at things, crunch some numbers. But a utility in a nearby town, the auditor told me, has shelled out for infrared scans for any customer. Others subsidize the blower door test, a sort of whole-house draft detector that I now covet.

2. Infrared offers insights ... sometimes. The auditor said infrared scans—which show how much energy a house is losing, and where—are really only useful in a very warm or very cold situation, when the difference between the inside and outside temperatures is enough to register. I can’t confirm this elsewhere, though it sounds logical enough. Science types, please feel free to weigh in.

3. The ol’ “wrap your hot-water heater” tip is out of date. Most heaters are now built with insulation, but some still need that extra love. So how can you tell whether you need to take this step? According to the feds, if your hot-water heater is warm to the touch, it needs to be insulated, and a blanket or jacket can be had for a measly $10 to $20. Either way, keeping it set at 120 (or lower, if you can hack it) will save energy and money.

4. Commercial building managers overlook the obvious. My auditor said he does more commercial than residential audits, and that the companies he visits still need to make really simple, but cost-effective, changes—things like not running the air conditioning all weekend, or turning the lights out when no one’s in the building. Green walls may be more fun, but corporate America could make big gains just by flipping off the lights.

4.5. I have work to do. The good news is, my fella and I just took the plunge and insulated our attic, after two years of muttering about it. But now we need to insulate the basement. Get the furnace inspected, and possibly replaced. Add insulation to the walls (ulp). And do something about those windows.

I spend much of my time at Grist editing columns and videos that cheerily advise our users to take all these steps. But actually doing it? That’s a house of a different color.

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Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

My daughter's Girl Scout troop wants to start an anti-idling campaign at her school. We need help justifying why a car should be turned off for more than 30 seconds. Although they have found that it saves gas and wear and tear on the engine and other parts, very few people believe that 30 seconds is long enough. Most believe that their starter, in particular, will need to be replaced, thereby reducing the gas savings. Can you point us to definitive information about idling and when and why to turn off your engine? Thanks.

Kew100
Brentwood, Tenn.

A. Dearest Kew,

Stop idling (and stop worrying about your starter).madame.furie via flickrIsn't a car made to last through tens of thousands of stops and starts? You don't find these same pro-idling people assiduously avoiding frequent car trips in order to lengthen the overall life of their car. I'm missing some piece of the logic train wherein the engine knows that the driver maybe could have chosen to leave it running, and it takes revenge by breaking down sooner.

In my own personal car experience, the failure of starters is more closely linked to car manufacturer than to age or anti-idling. But personal experience is not definitive information, so instead I am going to point you to bossy federal agencies and a helpful nationwide anti-idling campaign.

First, let us reflect on why we are anti-idling. Idling a passenger car is almost always unnecessary, it wastes gas, and it produces myriad air pollutants (as detailed in one of my previous columns). Schoolchildren's mouths are closer to both engine and tailpipe (by virtue of their height, not because they are licking engines), so these polluting emissions enter their sensitive young bodies with ease. Larger diesel engines, such as would be found in a school bus or delivery truck, have the same issues, only diesel fuel is dirtier than gasoline. Most idling emissions research has been done on these diesel engines, and there are idling regulations now in many states (some include all engines, not just diesel). Tennessee does not appear to have anti-idling regulations.

One helpful resource for you might be Earth Day Network's No Idling Campaign. It's based on a Georgia No Idling campaign, is aimed at schoolchildren, and includes toolkits, data collection charts, and lesson plans. In terms of the "definitive information": Here is a serious refutation of the starter damage myth from the California Energy Commission; some data and resources on school bus idling from the EPA (including curriculum materials); and a short EPA sheet that references the 30-second rule. Another way to look at it is that no reputable source recommends idling.

If you commence your campaign and still have trouble with families worried about the imminent failure of their car, it might be effective to find a reputable local mechanic or car dealer who will vouch for the durability of the starter. The federal government is simply not persuasive enough in some situations -- too far away, too easily linked to a disliked leader. A community expert might be just the person you need. Best of luck.

Alternatorly,
Umbra

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Common wisdom tells us there’s no free lunch. But you can have a guilt-free lunch, thanks to Umbra Fisk’s recipe for midday munchers everywhere. You won’t have to swallow your pride -- you can eat well, save money, and help this juicy planet we call home.

“Ask Umbra” is the first video series produced by GristTV. Look for new video tips for greening your life from Umbra nearly every week.

Watch it on the go! Subscribe to GristTV video podcasts via iTunes.

Feed your mind with these links from the Grist archives:
Ask Umbra on food storage options
Let’s (re)do school lunch
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… and even more on school lunch

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Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

This fall, as part of an environmental ethics course, I would like to create a class blog somewhat along the lines of your column, with students posting questions and answers to environmental quandaries specific to our campus. I wonder if you have any words of wisdom. What sort of education and skills are most helpful to you in researching and writing about environmental questions? What are the most valuable resources you use in answering questions? Thanks for any help!

Brian C.
Atlanta, Ga.

A. Dearest Brian,

Dispense with care.Solo with others via flickrAdvice about advice. Meta, I think we say. Happily for your project, my formal education was either haphazard or subpar, and no special degrees or training prepared me to be a mysterious online environmental advice columnist. Whatever word or two of wisdom I can produce owes its existence to more diffuse sources.

I do have an abiding interest in and passion for environmental issues. I like learning new things, and understanding how the world works. An interest is not the same as a skill, but perhaps the germane point here is that your students should find quandaries that engage them, so they have a stake in researching and explaining the problems.

A solid understanding of basic environmental issues and dilemmas is helpful to me. I got some of that via formal education and through jobs in the "environmental" field. So, mayhap ensure your students know which are currently the best basic books on environmental dilemmas. The Union of Concerned Scientists' Consumers' Guide to Effective Environmental Choices (which I believe they're currently updating) is one of my favorites.

The most valuable research resource is Google. Many actual environmental resources have well-developed websites, and quite a bit of significant data is available online. If your students do not already understand how to determine the best key words, run a search, and then filter out a reputable source from the accumulated debris, teaching them this process will be key to your project.

As you are in an academic setting, they will also likely have access to actual live professionals whose work is relevant to the chosen quandaries. These, as you know, are very valuable. Not only are they professionals, but a live conversation is often much more informative than an internet search. On the internet we can of course gather neatly presented facts, but only the ones for which we look. In person our conversations veer in unexpected directions, and we also hear the nuances and passions that lie behind a quandary. I like talking to people.

So, in theory, I think your students just need your support ensuring their basic research, interview, and writing skills are up to the task. There are organizations I go to frequently, and they are frequently mentioned in this space, depending on the topic. A few of my tried and true are the aforementioned Union of Concerned Scientists (mwah!), Environmental Defense, and the public-information arms of the government (such as the EERE and the EPA's Clean Cars-Clean Air site). Federal sites are sometimes hard to sort through, but their public information is quite useful. Sift through my archives to build a list of other useful organizations.

Hopefully this intangible list describing the intangible skills most helpful to me will assist you. I do have one tangible skill that helps me quite a bit: I took a year of typing in high school and am an incredibly fast typist. That's right, I wasn't joking about my partially sub-par education.

Meta-ly,
Umbra

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From Rachel Carson's Silent Spring to current headlines in the news, there's long been mounting evidence that we're being poisoned by everyday items in our lives. I was crushed by the revelation that my trusty Nalgene bottle was leaching bisphenol A into my Brita-filtered water. The first time I had to purchase my own housecleaning supplies, I found myself torn between a well-marketed fear of germs and a wholly legitimate fear of toxic compounds. Like it or not, the unnatural creations of the chemical industry are everywhere.

The facts of our chemical-laden reality are at once alarming and overwhelming. Philip and Alice Shabecoff's Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children casts environmental contamination in the context of kids, connecting the dots between the toxification of the young and a slew of once rare, now devastatingly commonplace childhood diseases. The authors -- Philip Shabecoff, formerly chief environmental correspondent for The New York Times, and his wife Alice, freelance journalist and former executive director of the National Consumers League -- report that childhood cancer rates have risen about 67 percent in the last half century. The Shabecoffs not only explain the science behind this number, but tell the stories of families personally affected by it. At points, it makes for grim reading.

But wait, there's hope! Though we're exposed daily to a smorgasbord of cancer-causing agents and other poisonous concoctions, the good news is there are alternatives out there, and they're getting more attention as the dangers of toxic chemicals become better known.

The Shabecoffs acknowledge that their book deals with a depressing subject--but that's why they wrote it. Change can happen, they say, but it's up to us to make sure it does.

-----

Q. Have you seen, in the year since Poisoned Profits was published, that your message is reaching your intended audience?

A. Alice: We've found a pretty warm response among parents -- blogs and websites and letters directly to us. We've gotten a bunch of totally heartbreaking stories, as well as people who call us or write us and ask us to help them deal with bad things that happen in their community. We had very good response from the scientific and health professionals, their journals.

Q. Have you witnessed a change in the way the public and policymakers view toxics?

A. Philip: One very major thing that has happened since then is we have a president who seems to understand these issues, and a Congress that is now not against the government protecting children, or anybody else. We have people appointed to key government positions, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, who do not see themselves as the servants of the corporations but the servants of the people. I think that's the most significant thing that's happened.

Alice: I add Michelle Obama into that, the step that she took in doing an organic garden. It was a symbolic step; at least she understands that children can be harmed by what's in their food.

And then around the margins there have been [other] stories, especially about bisphenol A. In a way that's annoying because if you focus on one little chemical, it almost means you're not looking at the whole picture. But let's look at it in a good light and say at least they're beginning to see that some chemicals can do harm, and at least people are beginning to understand the concept that it could change the way the genes work.

Q. Michelle Obama got a negative reaction from agribusiness after planting her organic garden. What's your take on that?

A. Philip: I think it's par for the course. I think industry likes to protect its turf and its profits, and because it's not sufficiently regulated, it can get away with doing things that harm our kids and the rest of us. I think the whole corporate culture has to change somehow if we're going to solve our basic environmental problems and protect our children. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening yet.

Q. Who bears the most responsibility to bring about change in a toxic landscape?

A. Philip: Ultimately, the American people are responsible. They are responsible in the way they conduct their daily lives, and especially their economic lives, like buying this terrible stuff that's out there, by not educating themselves enough about what's going on.

But then, of course, individuals alone cannot solve these problems, we cannot consume our way out of a toxic environment. The only entity that is powerful enough to stand up to these mega-corporations is government, and the government has to do the job at some point. I think that the Obama administration wants to do something, but whether it will be able to or not is another question. Opposition by conservative politicians who don't want any interference with the private sector, who regard absolute free market as kind of a religion, are trying to block him. And they're also trying to block him just so he'll fail, so they can return to power.

Alice and Philip Shabecoff

Alice: I agree with Philip, that the ultimate responsibility lies in the public, on the shoulders of the parents. We are a democracy and a free enterprise system; it's up to people to make their wills known.

Philip: In the marketplace, and in the voting booth.

Alice: You don't want to let the corporations off the hook. As we showed in the book, they know what they are doing, and they continue to do it, lawsuit after lawsuit, and story after story. But the only people who can really change them is the buying public.

Q. Is the current, more mainstream interest in organics and natural products just a passing trend, or do you believe that people are waking up to the reality of toxics?

A. Alice: I think it's a true trend, which will grow. I don't know the magnitude of it and how far it will spread. Is this something that only the college-educated people will take on, or is this something that will spread across the whole country to every level of economics and education? When you start to think about how people are interested in recycling and so on, that too is a harbinger of what we would love to see in terms of environmental health issues.

Q. Why has it been so difficult to draw attention to these issues?

A. Alice: It seems too overwhelming, and yet that was one of the messages [we want to get across]--it isn't overwhelming. There are steps you can take in your own home and with your neighbors that will eventually change the picture. But there are people who just don't want to face the music.

Philip: But we wrote about children because people can't just throw up their hands about their children or their grandchildren. You may downplay it yourself in terms of your own health, but you want to do everything you can for your kids. Or at least that's the way it should be.

Q. What's the best way to spread the word and educate those around us?

A. Alice: I thought that we could make some inroads through parent groups. There are so many parent groups around the country--small networks of mothers, sometimes fathers, who have coalesced around various illnesses. The parents of the kids with autism are the most visible, but they exist for all of the illnesses that we talked about in the book. One way that we might be able to get some motion going, despite education, despite whether you're small town or big city, is to work through these parent groups.

I've come across many parents who, when it comes to their children's illness, they have educated themselves and they are fighting mad. If we could work through those networks of parent groups--and in fact, that's what I'd like to try in the coming year--maybe we could make some changes in the community, the neighborhood level. And that's one good step in the right direction.

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Boys will be boys ... online or off.School started this week. We have two fourth-graders and a second-grader. Ken has the misfortune to be driving a carpool that involves four boys and two schools and takes about an hour round-trip. I am biking to work every day now, because we’re cutting back to just the one beat-up station wagon for transportation. Today I was almost hit by a Hummer.

New school year, new shoes, old lunchboxes, and a new household rule that we're all wrestling with: No internet access except Saturday mornings.

One of our children -- and I think it's fair to keep this private, so let's say child #1 -- was developing an addictive relationship with online gaming. When given the opportunity, he would do nothing but play games on the internet; easily twelve hours at a stretch. Child #2 was also a fan of gaming, but didn't seem quite so hypnotized -- he would cut himself off after two hours. Child #3, who is garrulous and loves sports, was fed up with #s 1 and 2 for being "boring and stupid" -- he couldn't get them to go outside and play much.

We, the parents and parental-figures in the lives of all three, were feeling uncomfortable about the clearly deteriorating situation with our Gamer. He was pale and spindly, and irritable whenever the games were taken away.

But let's face it, we all love to have those children who "self-entertain." We like it when they play alone, or nicely with others, and let us do our own thing much of the time. This is especially true in a house of three boys. Child #1, the Gamer, was pretty easy that way. Just the opposite is true of child #3, who is either talking or moving at all times, and to whom we sometimes say, "Wouldn’t you like to go watch TV for a while?"

Oftentimes, the problem of too much screen-time in a household is really a parental problem. Not only are we all addicted, to a certain degree (I'll admit my fondness for crafting two to three Facebook posts a day), but we have lost much of the community that made it easier to raise children. It's well-documented elsewhere (see Robert Putnam's work) and I won't rant, but without safe neighborhoods and at-home parents around, our kids' lives are quite attenuated, and they rightly expect us to entertain them within these limitations.

Part of the JP Green House project is to create a better childhood for our three boys, and any local kids who want in on it. Looking at the situation we had gotten ourselves into with #1, 2, and 3, it was inevitable that we'd have to fess up to our own bad habits around screens. So we called Comcast and explained: No we don't want cable TV and 144 channels, along with high speed internet, thank you -- just turn it off ... no really, turn it off! What do you mean we can't just have a phone line?

It isn't pretty. Day 1 of No Internet found #1 first sulking in bed, then raging at his dad, and then secretly staying up until he thought everyone was asleep, and nabbing a cell-phone to play games on.

Day 2 was better: all three kids were out in the street on their bikes, complaining about the excessive number of girls with pink bicycles in the neighborhood. There are worse things than girls who like pink.

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This Friday, don’t just Buy Nothing—use nothing!

OliBac via flickrAh, back-to-school season. The rustling of leaves, the squeak of new sneakers, the reassuring sound of chalk on a blackboard. Wait, does anyone still use chalk? And if they do, is it emitting some sort of toxic dust that’s dooming our children to a life of bad health and environmental despair?

School, once that bastion of knowledge and wholesomeness, has become a sort of devil’s playground, presenting dilemmas ranging from toxic threats (probably not chalk, but what about radon or asbestos?) to junk-food lunches to diesel buses. We hereby present a few useful links and resources for navigating the hallways of your educational institution, whether it’s the local Kindergarten or a top-tier college.

Study up on the issues and think about whether your school makes the grade—then give yourself recess. You deserve it.

For the younger (swing)set

Most of you organized parental types have no doubt finished buying school supplies, but in case you’re scrambling—or all the colored pencils mysteriously break at once—here’s our guide to greener back-to-school shopping and a rundown of materials to avoid and embrace. Think about whether you can buy less overall, and remember: shopping online is better than driving to the mall.

Now that your kiddo is stocked up and off to school, will the bus ride be a source of bad fumes? Visit EPA’s Clean School Bus USA site to find out more about the issue of diesel buses and what school districts are doing to address it.

The toxic fun doesn’t stop when the bus puts on its brakes: unhealthy schools across the country are dealing with a legacy of bad building decisions. Once again, our friends at the EPA have a thorough (if not very pretty) site dedicated to making schools healthier places. You can also visit the Healthy Schools Campaign for a look at the issues and solutions (and enter their photo contest!).

One more major component of your child’s day: school lunch. Today’s lunches are a pale, plastic-wrapped imitation of the hot lunches of yesteryear (which were nothing to write home about, but at least they involved vegetables). A growing contingent is pushing for healthier lunches, and Congress is taking up the Child Nutrition Act this fall. Don’t let them keep feeding your kids crap. Get involved today.

And if you’re off to college ...

Take a look at our list of the 20 greenest colleges in the U.S. If you’re going to one of them or another green-leaning school, good for you! If you missed the boat, you could always transfer ... or better yet, check out our green campus special for inspiring profiles of student activists, tips for helping your school see the light, and handy links and resources for making this school year the greenest yet.

And keep an eye out for the newest Umbra Fisk video, coming soon: Umbra visits College of the Atlantic, the country’s first carbon-neutral school.

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From right to left: Tim Bromfield, Lynn Morris, and Will Lorimer. The three are tracing the 1-meter countour around the Atlantic Ocean in hopes of educating British students about communities threatened by rising sea levels.Courtesy Atlantic RisingAtlantic Rising is a new charity backed by Britain's Royal Geographical Society. We are a three-person team creating a network between schools around the Atlantic coastline to raise awareness about the effects of sea level rise on coastal communities.

The network is being launched with an expedition around the Atlantic rim tracing the 1-meter contour line -- the Atlantic coastline as it will look in 100 years if sea levels rise as predicted. Along the way I and my colleagues -- Will Lorimer and Lynn Morris -- will be visiting schools and blogging on Grist from communities confronting sea level rise and its attendant threats of coastal erosion, flooding and salinity.

Our work will take us to places where sea level rise is already having a profound effect on people's lives. We will meet the residents of the Kroo Bay slum in Sierra Leone whose homes and cattle are perennially swept into the sea by storm surges. We will also be looking at what local communities are doing to adapt to the effects -- meeting people like the Sandlanders soccer team in Ghana who have set themselves the goal of reinvigorating their displaced community through league success. Stateside, we will see how business is booming for the house movers transporting buildings back from the encroaching waves of Chesapeake Bay and Key West.

We are also connecting 50 English speaking secondary schools in low lying communities around the Atlantic's rim. We have already visited 11 schools in Scotland, England and Wales and the most common question students asked is, "Why should I care about climate change?"

We hope to answer this question by putting these children in touch with their peers around the Atlantic who have very real experiences of climate change. And once they have made friendships across the ocean they will not just understand the issues but care enough to act. We are not embarking upon a lecturing tour, but are creating an Atlantic-wide partnership of schools that are enabled to work collaboratively on classroom projects within an online community.

We set out from Britain on September 1 and will be spending our first night under canvas near Mont Saint-Michel in France where the large tidal range is predicted to exacerbate local sea level rise.

You can find out more about our project at www.atlanticrising.org and we'll document the trip on this website over the coming months.

--

Follow the Atlantic Rising project on Twitter (@AtlanticRising) or Facebook.

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The Wind Kids: How high school students helped bring a wind farm to Milford, Utah

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity runs an annual Coal Calendar Art & Essay Contest for middle schoolers, asking students to shill for the coal industry, no doubt in response to a biased classroom lesson about coal. See the comment thread on the coal coloring book story. This comment from reader LILACWINE seems worth calling out:

I teach science at a public middle school in Illinois and I have been receiving the "Illinois Coal is our Hero" calendars for years.  I do not know how I got on the mailing list, but the first year I actually cried when I saw it.  To think there are students out there who are being taught that "coal is the answer to all our energy needs" makes me worry about the miseducation of a whole generation of young people.

I am grateful to teach in a school that allows me some professional freedom to focus on a climate-change based curriculum.  However, I needed to invent this curriculum; our middle school text books do not contain current environmental information (although they are from 2002.  Hopefully newer ones reflect more current information.)

If you are a teacher and you need curriculum ideas, I learned about this site last year.  They have some curriculum for sale, but a lot of it is free.  http://www.facingthefuture.org/Curriculum/CurriculumHome/tabid/113/Default.aspx

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Every time Sierra Magazine comes out with its top green colleges list I get pissed off that my alma mater, Bowdoin College, doesn't make the cut.  And the reason I'm pissed is that it seems to me that even if you didn't care one little tiny bit about climate or environment--if all you cared about was endowment, physical plant, and US News ranking--as an undergraduate institution you'd create a killer Enviornmental Studies program with a climate focus simply to recruit students and make money as a business.

Why? Because people are banging down the doors, almost literally, to study the interface between climate, politics and business so they can be part of the great challenge of our lives.  And schools that train people well in that field will not only do well as both businesses and schools, they will also meet the needs of their students.

Perhaps more importantly, it's the job of an institution of higher learning to prepare its students for the world in which they live; it's also important to be in tune with the issues of our time. And if you're Bowdoin and other schools, part of your mission is also to improve the world. To its credit, Bowdoin is moving in the right direction. But it's getting crushed by archrivals like Bates (WTF!) and Middlebury. The hottness of the subject of climate, energy and business is so great that I get a call a week from Middlebury grads (!) who are well-trained and understand the key issues. It's a huge testament to Middlebury's success that right now we've got one Midd grad working for us [at Aspen Skiing Company] on sustainability and another interning. It's no accident.

Schools that want to remain viable and relevant would be well advised to take a lesson from Middlebury and the other great schools on the top 20 list. The lesson could be a moral one: this is the work of our society, so it's your job to eduate to it. But it could also be a financial lesson: when my kids look at colleges, 15 years from now, you can bet your hat they're going to be scrutinizing the Environmental Studies program, and partly basing their decision to spend hundreds of thousands of my hard-earned cash to go there (brief pause while I have a momentary breakdown/panic attack over this thought). They will pick the school with the very best program because 20 years from now, if you're not climate-focused, you're not going to be anything. (In the same way, architecture programs without a green focus are dead and worthless programs today, if then even exist at all.)

Hopefully, my kids will have a wide range of easy choices, since the schools lacking such programs will be out of business.

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Sierra magazine has just released its third annual list of what it calls "the most eco-enlightened U.S. colleges." It ranks schools based on the results of a questionnaire sent to sustainability experts at hundreds of institutions across the country. Scores were assigned in eight categories: efficiency, energy, food, academics, purchasing, transportation, waste management, and administration. The rankings come at a time when two-thirds of college applicants say a school's green record would influence their enrollment decision, according to a Princeton Review survey [PDF].

Below we've got the dish on Sierra's top 20 picks. (Schools that also made the Princeton Review's "Green Honor Roll" are asterisked.)

Don't see your college or alma mater on the list?  Check out Sierra's full list of rankings for 135 colleges. And the College Sustainability Report Card evaluates the green cred of hundreds of U.S. and Canadian schools.

Photo: jiannone1. University of Colorado, Boulder

Known for its outdoorsy student body and scenic location at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, CU created the first student-directed recycling center in 1970, and in the decades since it's made many other impressive green strides. The school provides plenty of alternative transportation for students to get around town or up to the ski slopes, all its new buildings must meet LEED Gold standards, and first-year students are provided with reusable shopping bags.

Photo: Wonderlane2. University of Washington, Seattle*

The UW holds new campus buildings to a LEED Silver standard, strives for a local, organic focus in its food services, and is currently the pilot site to test the first compostable paper soft drink cups.

Photo: bgblogging3. Middlebury College, Vermont*

Middlebury's biomass gasification plant reduces the school's carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent and keeps it on track to becoming carbon neutral by 2016.

Photo: toddmundt4. University of Vermont, Burlington

With its Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, biodiesel buses, green buildings, and the eco-awareness of the student body and populace of Burlington, UVM consistently makes lists of green schools.

5. College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor, Maine*

Over 90 percent of this campus's lighting comes in the form of compact fluorescents, and a new wood-pellet furnace heats 20 percent of the school. Students design their own majors and all graduate with a B.A. in Human Ecology. The school has been carbon neutral since 2007.

Photo: lil_azorean6. Evergreen State College, Olympia, Wash.*

The college purchased a fleet of electric vehicles and runs a sustainably managed farm where it teaches courses in organic agriculture. With the help of students' self-imposed clean-energy fee, Evergreen is on its way to meeting its goals of being waste-free and carbon neutral by 2020.

7. University of California, Santa Cruz

One of eight UC schools that are part of the California Climate Action Registry, which tracks greenhouse-gas emissions, UCSC has a student-created fund for buying renewable energy credits, and is home to the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems.

Photo: Thomas Hawk8. University of California, Berkeley*

Cal has pledged to return its greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2014, six years earlier than the rest of the state, and its primary food service provider was first in the country to be organically certified.

Photo: _Gene_9. University of California, Los Angeles

UCLA wins for waste management, recycling the hell out of just about anything on campus that can be recycled (construction materials, cafeteria food waste, leftover lab water, etc.). Many of its dorms have solar-heated water.

Photo: baslow10. Oberlin College, Ohio

Oberlin has been greening its commencement year by year, offering hybrid vehicles to rent and serving local and organic food. It has a Bike Co-op, a solar parking pavilion, and hosts the Ecolympics, a four-week series of environmentally themed contests between dorms.

Photo: mathoov11. Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.*

Harvard leads the way in resource conservation, with its collection of CFLs, solar panels, and 17 LEED-certified buildings, not to mention moisture-sensitive sprinklers on the famous Yard.

12. University of New Hampshire, Durham*

This school, which held a sustainable commencement in 2009, gets most of its energy from landfill gas, and with an organic dairy research farm and a new double major in EcoGastronomy, it leads the way in focusing on sustainable agriculture and food practices.

Photo: midiman13. Arizona State University, Tempe*

ASU's biggest claim to green fame is its School of Sustainability, established in 2007, which offers interdisciplinary eco-related degree programs. The university has more solar panels than any other college campus in the U.S., and its president Michael Crow co-chairs the American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment. ASU has also teamed up with Grist to send local and national sustainability news to its whole student body--and we all know that working with Grist earns you the greatest green kudos!

Photo: interrupt14. Yale University, New Haven, Conn.*

Almost half of the food in Yale's dining halls is local, seasonal, or organic, thanks in part to the school's one-acre market garden. The school is a leader in environmental and climate research.

Photo: StevenM_6115. University of Florida, Gainesville

A new addition to the Gator football complex is certified LEED Platinum--the first athletic building in the U.S. to take that distinction--and it plans to host the first carbon-neutral home football season this year. The school aims to be waste-free by 2015.

Photo: davidgalestudios16. Bates College, Lewiston, Maine*

Bates does a good job of favoring local food, diverting food waste, and using renewable energy, and offers Prius rentals to its eco-savvy student body.

Photo: Jason McHuff17. Willamette University, Salem, Ore.

"The first university in the West" adopted strong green purchasing policies, has a new LEED Gold residence hall, and composts 50 percent of its food waste. Its Center for Sustainable Communities hires students to lead selected sustainability projects, and the National Wildlife Federation deemed it first in the nation for "sustainability activities."

Photo: blueathena718. Warren Wilson College, Asheville, N. Carolina

This tiny college is big on waste management, composting all food waste from its dining halls and receiving the Outstanding College Recycling Award from the Carolina Recycling Association.

Photo: oppositeofsuper19. Dickinson College, Carlisle, Penn.*

Dickinson has committed that all new buildings will meet at least a LEED Silver certification. The college also has a Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education and an organic farm, and has eliminated Styrofoam from its dining services.

Photo: wallyg20. New York University

This large university buys enough renewable-energy credits to offset all of its electricity use, and for a while was the top campus purchaser of green energy, according to the EPA. It requires new construction and renovations to meet LEED Silver standards (all the cool schools are doing it!), and doesn't let the big city stand in the way of offering local, organic food in dining halls.

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Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

Long story short, my parents have been thinking about buying me a car since soon I will be going to University and that way, I won't constantly be using their cars. My mom suggested a Volkswagen Beetle Convertible, which I love the look of. However, it doesn't appear to be very environmentally friendly. I didn't do a lot of research since I don't really understand all the car terms, but the website I checked said that the Mini Cooper was a lot more eco-friendly for about the same price. I was just wondering which car you would suggest, preferably a convertible?

Megan Y.
Toronto, Ontario

A. Dearest Megan,

Fun, yes. But necessary?Vicarious car shopping is my favorite. Especially for a car I would never, ever buy, like a convertible. And in Canada, to booot! Howevah, I am an environmental advice columnist, so before we shop it is my duty to say this: I don't understand why you will need your own car. Typical university students spend their time living near campus, attending classes, studying, working at some nearby job, hanging out with proximate friends, and maybe going on an occasional weekend trip.

If you are attending a poorly planned university where a car is a necessity, all is forgiven and we will talk about how to pick one in a moment. Otherwise, we need to discuss. Your needs as a student could most likely be met with a combination of walking, biking, taking public transit, and renting the occasional car. You could also join a car-sharing service (here are your Canadian car-sharing resources). All of these will be less expensive than owning a car (check out this True Cost to Own calculator), be less of a hassle, keep the Freshman 15 at bay, and of course emit fewer pollutants. Please look into the transit situation at your matriculating university and reconsider your plan to add another dirty driver to the planet.

If your situation absolutely requires a car and my officious attitude should be shelved, I do have one further question. What is the point of owning a convertible when you live in Canada? I am familiar with the peri-Canada area, having lived in northern New England and the Pacific Northwest. A convertible is for sunny, warm areas with little precipitation, aka not Canada. Think about the maintenance issues for the hood.

Alright, enough rain on your parade. Your parents are willing to spend at least $25k on a new car, you're ready to cart all your new friends around, and you think the Beetle is cute. It sure is. Here are other convertibles in the lower price range: the Mazda Miata, the Ford Mustang, and the Toyota Solara. Slight more expensive are the Honda S200, the Volkswagen Eos, and the Nissan Z. Then we move into BMWs, Porsches, and Audis, which we shall set aside. I like Consumer Reports, and they like the Nissan, the Mazda, the Honda, and the Toyota for reliability and performance. Hm. All Japanese cars. Strange ...

On the fuel economy front, the U.S. government provides a side-by-side carbon footprint and air pollution score for the cars of your choice, and of course the Canadians compare cars as well. Out of your two favorites, the Mini Cooper does get better mileage -- or kilometrage. You wrote me because you were concerned about environmental impact, however, so I would go a little further if I were you and look into the fuel economy of all the convertibles in your price range.

Basically, I'm going to let you do your own footwork. Your first university research project. Look for a reliable car based on ratings. I think it's worth it to subscribe to Consumer Reports online, but you may also find old copies in the library; you should also take a cruise around GreenerCars.org (which will also require a subscription to get full details). Then evaluate the emissions and go with the best of both worlds. There's no point in buying a car you yourself have not committed to, and I'm not going to take responsibility for a car you hate. My only vote is against the Volkswagen. The mileage is poor and the long-term performance will be too. Alas for its enticing cuteness.

Regretfully,
Umbra

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These high school students aren't taking climate change lying down."Who knows about those farting cows? Give it up for the farting cows!"

Farting cows are definitely gross-out funny, but they also produce methane, which contributes to global warming. That's why they get a shout-out in the multimedia presentation on climate change that the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) offers free of charge to Bay Area high schools. ACE (not to be confused with ACES) is an Oakland-based nonprofit that aims to educate teenagers about climate change in a way that's hip, engaging, and might actually inspire them to action.

"You're just a regular teenager, driving to school, charging your cell phone, eating a burger made from a farting cow or two -- and all of a sudden we're in the middle of this planetary emergency!" educator Ambessa Cantave says in his presentation, featured in a groovy video on ACE's website (watch it below). With that line, he captures the mood of ACE'S target audience: teens who feel helpless and hopeless in the face of a looming global disaster they did not create.

"We're definitely not telling students that they're bad," said Alisha Fowler, a staff writer and educator for ACE. "We're telling them what's going on and that they didn't cause it, but we all have to step in together and do something about climate change."

ACE's interactive presentations combine quirky animations with music and live educators, some of whom even treat the kids to freestyle rapping. (If those deathly dull school-safety assemblies I remember from back in the day had been delivered in rhyme, maybe I actually would have worn elbow pads rollerblading.)

The current state of climate education in California varies hugely from district to district, teacher to teacher, and textbook to textbook, says Fowler. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill last year that would have mandated climate-change education in public schools. ACE fills the void with what Fowler called "a narrative about what it means to be a high school student right now in our planet's history."

ACE was created a little over a year ago by Michael Haas, founder of a wind energy company called Orion Energy Group. A father of young children, Haas came to believe that the key to finding solutions for our climate crisis lies in the education and empowerment of tomorrow's leaders. Today ACE, funded solely by Haas, employs several educators like Fowler and Cantave, who each make up to eight presentations a week to students everywhere from downtown Oakland to rural Mendocino. ACE has reached some 12,000 students in the Bay Area since presentations began this spring, and the group plans to reach 140,000 by the end of the year, through an expansion that's bringing the program to Southern California and the Boston, Houston, and Chicago areas this fall.

Through its Youth Empowerment Project (YEP), ACE gives students opportunities to get involved in the fight against climate change after they've absorbed the information in the presentation. High school juniors and seniors who take action against climate change can apply for $2,500 college scholarships, and schools can be awarded up to $20,000 in grant money for committing to combating global warming.

One scholarship winner knew next to nothing about climate change before seeing the ACE presentation, but is now pioneering a composting program at her San Francisco high school. Another student got his school to put up solar panels, and went on to become an ACE student presenter. ACE's student presenter trainings help high school students develop outreach and communication skills, giving them the tools to do their own climate change presentations in schools and communities.

"When we say taking action, we don't expect every single student to solarize their school or lobby their congressman," Fowler said. "[We're] trying to connect the dots between small actions and large actions and how they are all important."

Fowler emphasized that the group doesn't want to "moralize" -- it wants to meet students where they are and empower them in tangible ways. For example, ACE's website has a graphic suggesting 10 simple ways to reduce your carbon footprint: bike to school, wash laundry with cold water, unplug electronics that aren't in use, etc. Its blog suggests having a pool party instead of turning on the A.C.

"These students really have a profound opportunity in this climate crisis to ... re-envision our world," Fowler said. "Any way that we can ... give them the tools to know that that is actually possible is really powerful."

Watch how ACE works its magic:

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