A monthly newsletter by the student leaders of Schools for Climate Action
A Message from the Schools for Climate Action Student Advocates: Now that we are beginning to gain traction in passing meaningful climate legislation, it is more important than ever to push harder for the change we want to see. Here is a list of actions and events for Climate Week 2021.
Fridays for Future is a youth-led movement that aims to spread awareness about climate change through protests and school strikes. Students and climate activists work together internationally to call out government leaders and acknowledge the climate crisis as something that needs to be addressed immediately for the safety of youth and the planet. See the Fridays for Future map of strike events.
Members of Schools for Climate Action have been calling elected officials using a script from Evergreen Action to encourage the inclusion of the Clean Energy Payment Program in the reconciliation bill.
A recent study found that this program will create nearly 8 million jobs and generate nearly $1 trillion in economic growth. Even more importantly, it will help us bring the climate crisis to an end (@evergreenaction).Here is the link to Evergreen Action's Call your Member of Congresss/MOC.
The Hollywood Climate Summit is an annual gathering of the entertainment community to combat the climate crisis. This year, our summit will take place from September 23-26, 2021 as both a digital and in-person outdoor experience in Los Angeles.
It will be presented by Netflix and NYU Los Angeles with programming sponsored by the NRDC, Center Cultural Power, Sierra Club, Earth Angel, Scriptation and EarthJustice. Talent confirmed includes Rosario Dawson (Actor, Producer, Activist), Senator Ed Markey, Hunter Vaughan (Co-Director of the Global Green Network and Author of Hollywood's Dirtiest Secret: the Hidden Environmental Costs of Movies), Emellie O'Brien (Founder & CEO of Earth Angel), Emma Stewart Ph.D. (Netflix’s Sustainability Officer), Richa Moorjani (Actor, Activist), Dave Burd aka Lil Dicky (Actor, Comedian, Rapper), Leah Thomas (Activist, Author, founder of Intersectional Environmentalist), and many more. The event will be hosted on the digital conference platform, Hopin, which allows users to do one-on-one networking and gives them access to an expo fair with vendors and climate groups. It’s an opportunity to build alliances, exchange resources, celebrate progress, increase accountability and inspire action.
On September 21st, the Aspen Institute's K12 Climate Action Commission will release an action plan and policy recommendations to help the education sector take action on climate change. The action plan will describe key challenges and opportunities related to mitigating climate change by reducing schools' environmental footprints, adapting and building resilience to climate impacts, and educating students on climate change and sustainability, with a focus on advancing equity. The plan will also outline policy recommendations for the federal, state, and local levels to help schools take climate action. Register now, and stay tuned for more details on the K12 Climate Action Plan!
Fossil Free California
Fossil-Free California has a great toolkit on how to pass a CALSTRS divestment resolution. Check out this video called Why Divestment? At present, CalSTRS has over $6 billion invested in fossil fuel producers; a total of $17.5 billion in all fossil-fuel-related companies. But while the rest of the portfolio has doubled in size, fossil fuels have languished. If CalSTRS had divested 10 years ago, they would have increased their profits by $5.5 billion! Fossil fuels are considered a declining industry - there is no financial future in these destructive activities.
New Global Study on the Impact of Climate Change on the Mental Health of Youth
A global study has been recently conducted by seven academic institutions around the world which surveyed about 10,000 people between the ages of 16 and 25 across ten countries, which tells a shocking story about the impact climate change is having on the mental health of youth around the world. This ground-breaking study reports that: 40% of young people are hesitant to have children due to fear of the climate crisis, 45% say their lives and skill are affected by climate related distress and anxiety, 64% believe that governments are not doing enough to divert the impact of the climate crisis, most agreeing that leadership is failing to protect young and future generations, And around three quarters of respondents stated that they are at least quite fearful of their future. Caroline Hickman, co-author of the study stated, “It suggests for the first time that high levels of psychological distress in youth is linked to government inaction. Our children’s anxiety is a completely rational reaction given the inadequate responses to climate change they are seeing from governments”(Guardian)
Teach Climate Justice is an excellent resource from the Zinn Education Project for teachers who want to include climate justice in their curriculum but aren’t sure where to start.
From Presidio Graduate School: The Teaching Climate Change Essentials professional development moves teachers through a scaffolded exploration of climate change and global warming. By the end of this course, teachers will be able to:
Explain the fundamentals of climate science literacy;
Analyze how climate change human impacts the planet and people, especially people in marginalized communities;
Design entry points to include these fundamentals in a variety of existing K-12 curricula;
Discover and adapt curricula and resources for use in classrooms; and
Compare and contrast climate change solutions that teachers and students might participate in personally, locally and globally.
Participation in the Teaching Climate Change Essentials course gives K-12 educators the competencies and confidence to teach climate change within their own local context as well as recognition through teacher professional development hours, Continuing Education Units (CEUs) or Graduate Credit.
Call for personal stories on how wildfire smoke has affected you or your students!
In June of 2021, The Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health conducted and released research on the medical and biological effects of wildfire smoke on childrens’ health. Besides the commonly known effects, such as chest pain, dizziness, increased asthma attacks and higher risk for upper respiratory infections, their research concluded that exposure to PM2.5 (a smoke particle small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs) can lead to neuropsychological effects that may develop later in life, such as ADHD, autism, impaired school performance, and decreased memory.
One way to prevent these effects and protect the students is by securing funding for climate resiliency for schools so they can invest in tools such as HVAC systems. Schools for Climate Action and other youth advocates are putting together a short film and a research paper on students’ and teachers’ stories in order to tie the stories to data and help support concrete policy asks as new funding for climate resiliency in schools becomes available.
If you or your students have stories they would like to share about how wildfire smoke has impacted their life at school, please email us at empower@schoolsforclimateaction.org.
Except where specifically stated, opinions expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Schools for Climate Action.
Schools for Climate Action is a non-partisan, grassroots, youth-adult campaign with a mission to empower schools to speak up for climate action. We advocate for elected officials to to combat the climate crisis in order to protect current and future generations.
