Remember what it was like to be a student in spring?  There was so much to do – write term papers, study for finals, and there was always the desire to hang out with your friends on the green and absorb the sun after a long winter.  National Wildlife Federation’s Campus Chill Out winners have taken time in their very busy lives to lead others in significantly reducing greenhouse gases on their campuses.  With persistence, determination, and hope, together these students, faculty, and staff have implemented programs on their campuses that have removed 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and saved their campuses an estimated $5 million annually. 

            On this spring day, when I get even busier with cutting the lawn, weeding, and starting to prepare the garden beds, these Chill Out winners inspire me with their leadership.  Their example reminds me that my actions too can make a difference and that it’s worth the time for me to take the steps I can in my own home to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.  See NWF's Reduce Global Warming at Home to learn more about what you can do.

View the Chill Out Broadcast with a special message from Former Vice President Al Gore and showcasing the eight winning campuses from the Chill Out contest.

A recent article “Global Warming Could Be Worse Than Thought” spotlighted findings from a British Royal Navy submarine, the HMS Tireless, that Arctic summer sea ice could be completely gone as early as the summer of 2020.  This is 20 years earlier than has been predicted up until this point. 

This finding is particularly troublesome because sea ice reflects 90% of the sunlight that hits it.  Darker ocean water, on the other hand, absorbs 80% of the sunlight that hits it.  If reflective sea ice is replaced with heat-absorbing ocean water in the Arctic, one of the key cooling mechanisms of our planet will be disrupted which will only accelerate climate change. 

This is called a positive feedback loop, and it’s quite negative.  By acting now we can still avoid the most catastrophic impacts of climate change and create a bright energy future.  For wildlife, for our children’s future, for this beautiful planet, let’s continue speaking out.  We can do this, but we need to act now.

       I was saddened to learn while reading National Wildlife Federation’s Gardener’s Guide to Global Warming that my home state of Pennsylvania is due to lose our state flower, the mountain laurel, and our state tree, the eastern hemlock, if we don’t take action on global warming.  As a lifelong gardener, I know how our native plants help give us a cherished sense of place.  The mountain laurel and eastern hemlock really help define Pennsylvania as home for me.

I was also glad to learn that there are solutions to global warming in gardener’s hands.  As the report says:

“Although the predictions for global warming are dire, they are not inevitable.  Just as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects serious consequences if we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the current rate, it also concludes that global warming and its impacts will be significantly lessened if we start now on a path to reduce our global warming pollution.

“As gardeners, we are both guardians and stewards of our environment, and it is important for us to realize that there are many simple and thoughtful ways that we can work with nature to solve the problem.”

To see how your state tree and flower will be affected and to learn more about what you can do in your backyard, your community, and actions for your elected officials, visit Gardener's Guide to Global Warming. 

Sitting next to me in the left window seat on a recent cross-country flight was an obese ten-year old boy.  His mom put him on the plane to visit his dad living in California.  As soon as our plane reached ten thousand feet, the boy broke out his handheld game player and began a long and intense battle with the invading demons in the gadget.

After a couple of hours, our pilot came on the intercom and said, “folks, off to our left is one of the best views you will ever see of the Grand Canyon.”  I watched the boy.  His eyes never left the battleground on his screen, not even for a second. I was saddened by this boy who was so possessed by an addictive electronic world that had no interest or a sense of wonder in nature.  It occurred to me that I was witnessing an important American phenomenon that is having a profound impact on our children’s future and the future of nature itself.

What is happening to our connection to nature and where has outdoor time gone? There are many signs that something major – something profoundly different -- is happening to the basic connection between Americans and the outdoors. The signs are everywhere:

• In 2005 the Association for Childhood Education International reported that that U.S.children’s outdoor time is down by 50% over previous generations.
• A study published in Early Childhood in 2004 found that 85% of mothers reported that their children play outdoors less than they did as children. 
• In 2004 the Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that the average child now spends over 6 hours daily watching TV, playing video games or on a computer.

You might be asking, Soooo? Why does it matter whether or not our kids go outside?  I am concerned that an important connection between being outdoors and caring for nature is being broken. Children who fish, camp and spend time in the wild before age 11 are much more likely to grow up to be environmentally-minded and committed as adults according to Cornell researchers. Their study indicates that participating in wild nature activities before age 11 is a “particularly potent pathway toward shaping both environmental attitudes and behaviors in adulthood."  

When research shows kids are now spending six hours or more hours a day in front of a screen, we all should be worried about that.  National Wildlife Federation’s polling shows that outdoor people like hunters and anglers demonstrate a much higher recognition of the threat of global warming than do the general public.  Let me suggest that the unprecedented threat from global warming has been ignored by people who spend their time in front of a TV or computer isolated in an air-conditioned space.  I worry that we will not address global warming until it interferes with our television reception or until it’s too late.

Out of the window of my home office, I look over Pine Creek valley where nine decades ago, Rachael Carson and her mother often roamed looking for spring flowers.  I can’t help but believe that those hours “a field” had a profound influence on this great conservationist and fostered her “Sense of Wonder.”

Gone are the days when the majority of kids spent hours at a time in the full flush of nature – in unstructured play exploring the hidden wonders under every rock and around every tree. Gone too are the nights when kids sleep under a blanket of stars.

The often spicy and challenging political commentators, The Dixie Chicks convey the need to be connected to nature this way in the verses of their popular song, “Cowboy Take me Away.”   

“I said I want to touch the earth, I want to break it in my hands.

I want to grow something wild and unruly…

I want to sleep on hard ground; in the comfort of your arms;

I want a pillow of blue bonnets and a blanket of stars;

Oh it sounds good to me…”

Doesn’t that sound good to you too?  Kids need to be outside for their own physical, emotional and mental well-being.  We all need to be reconnected to nature for the renewal of our minds and for the future of conservation.

What will become of wild places, if our children like the boy on my plane know little of the mystery, the grace, the interconnectedness of all living things?   We only save what we love and we only love what we know. 

Let me share one more closing thought, spending time in nature gives us a more vivid multi-sensory experience as we absorb inputs through our ears, eyes, nose and fingers.  Our memories are made the richer and more durable by multiple stimuli. We literally absorb the place as it absorbs us.

As a child, I spent many hours a field with my father who was a dog trainer and hunter.  My father died more than thirty years ago, yet when I go to the woods and smell a familiar plant or hear a distant crow on a crisp fall morning, my memories of being with dad come flooding back in rich detail as if it were yesterday.  In those moments I can hear his voice clearly and I can see his ruddy face in the golden light of an early morning sun. I cherish those memories.

Make memories in nature with children.  They will scarcely remember watching television with you, but they will hold on to their experiences in the wild for a lifetime.  To get more involved out-of-doors, see our website:  www.GreenHour.org. 

Did you know that the average American child spends 6 hours a day in front of the television or playing video games?  We should all be worried about that.  Kids today are spending far too much time indoors and are not connecting with nature. If this keeps up we won’t be building the next generation of conservation leaders.

There’s something you can do.  National Wildlife starts this Sunday April 22 and goes through April 30.  Take some time this week and get your families, friends, and yourself outside.  Help reconnect yourself and your family to nature.  Join the National Wildlife Watch. Download a Watch list of wildlife in your neighborhood, take a walk in your favorite outdoor spot, and see how many animals you can find. Come back and post your findings on National Wildlife Federation’s NatureQuest^SM site. Participate in an environmental service project in your community: Help create healthy habitats, connect people with nature, and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases leading to global warming-or design your own project. And for wildlife-watching inspiration, be sure to tune in to the premiere of Springwatch USA on the Animal Planet network, Saturday, April 21st. To learn more about National Wildlife Week, National Wildlife Watch, and community service projects, visit www.nwf.org/nationalwildlifeweek

Go outside and have fun.  Your kids won’t remember the time they spent watching television, but they will remember the time they spend with you reconnecting to nature.

     I was so pleased yesterday to see the eight top winners of National Wildlife Federation’s national Chill Out competition be honored in a first-of-its-kind webcast from George Washington Universitycampus in Washington, D.C.  Over 18,000 students, faculty, and staff on 200 campuses tuned in to watch panelists from each winning campus answer questions and share about their projects. 

The winning projects go well beyond the minimum 30 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions scientists urge by 2030.  Projects include installing energy saving software on computers (California State University– Chico), converting an electricity system to a biomass hydronic district heating system (Mount Wachusett Community College), and installing the largest solar installation east of the Mississippi (Monmouth University). 

Combined, these winning projects reduce carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to planting 6,900 acres of trees, removing 4,600 cars from the road, or driving 60 million fewer miles.  The Chill Out winners are showing by example how do exactly what the science says should be done.   

My hat is off to them.  If every campus, business and organization in the country followed the lead set by these schools and these energetic young leaders, global warming pollution could be significantly reduced in this country along with the environmental damage it is causing. 

If you are someone you know on a campus want to do something more, go to www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org to ask your college administration to sign up for the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment.  You can also host Focus the Nation on your campus on January 31, 2008.  Go to www.focusthenation.org

Over the weekend I read two very interesting articles.  In the New York Times Magazine’s The Power of Green, Thomas Friedman makes a compelling case that “green is the new red, white, and blue.” 

He says that for too long environmentalism has been defined by its opponents as “liberal,” “Tree-hugging,” “sissy,” “girlie-man,” “unpatriotic,” and “vaguely French.” 

Instead, Friedman says “… I want to rename "green." I want to rename it geostrategic, geoeconomic, capitalistic and patriotic. I want to do that because I think that living, working, designing, manufacturing and projecting America in a green way can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century. A redefined, broader and more muscular green ideology is not meant to trump the traditional Republican and Democratic agendas but rather to bridge them when it comes to addressing the three major issues facing every American today: jobs, temperature and terrorism.

"How do our kids compete in a flatter world? How do they thrive in a warmer world? How do they survive in a more dangerous world? Those are, in a nutshell, the big questions facing America at the dawn of the 21st century. But these problems are so large in scale that they can only be effectively addressed by an America with 50 green states --- not an America divided between red and blue states."

Imagine.  Read the whole article by clicking here.

Another article along the same lines was The Washington Post’s Global Warming a Security Risk.  This article highlighted a report done by CNA Corporation that was written by six retired admirals and five retired generals.  They warned that global warming impacts such as drought, hunger, and refugees from rising sea levels are going to further destabilize already unstable regions and potentially draw the United States into these situations.  The article goes on to say we can invest now in global warming solutions, or the cost will be much higher in addressing this problem later on.  Read the article by clicking here. 

My deepest sympathies go to the families and all those suffering loss from the tragedy at the Virginia Tech campus yesterday. 

This morning, several of the world’s leading scientists went to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.to share more detailed information about how global warming will affect North America (www.nwf.org/wildlifeandglobalwarming/IPCC.cfm). The potential harm to local wildlife is one of the report’s central findings, and one of the most alarming to me and to NWF. Temperature increases of just a few degrees may propel up to 40 percent of all species globally toward extinction. It’s unmistakable. This is not just global warming, it’s local warming. It’s happening where we live.

But what keeps me hopeful that we can still prevent the worst impacts of global warming is the overwhelming demand for action coming from folks all around the country. This past Saturday, more than 1,400 global warming demonstrations happened in all 50 states involving thousands of people from all walks of life. The day of action, called Step It Up 2007 (www.stepitup2007.org), turned out to be the largest global warming demonstration ever. It included everything from hiking up a threatened glacier in Wyoming, to diving to a threatened reef off the Florida Keys, to marching on state capitols. Maybe you participated. If you did, you’re part of the solution. NWF was involved in some of the events, but more encouraging was the fact that hundreds of events were organized by people with no tie to conservation or environmental groups. They are just mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, kids – all coming together to tell Congress to Step It Up and pass laws that reduce our global warming pollution 80 percent by 2050.

We can do this. If we start today and consistently reduce global warming pollution by 2 percent each year, we can get control of global warming.  The scientists have set the goal, and we can set the pace to get there. We can all reduce our global warming pollution by 2 percent a year – and it adds up. If individuals, cities, major corporations – everyone - sets our minds to it, we can get to 80 percent by 2050. If we don’t, we’re saddling our kids with a huge problem, and they will have to make serious and costly sacrifices.

We’re at a crossroads: America must choose between a fundamentally different planet or a fundamentally different energy future that breaks our oil addiction and aggressively opens the path to clean, safe alternative and renewable sources of fuel. Which path do you want to take?

Tomorrow, there will be over 1,350 rallies in every state in the Union.  People are joining together with the hope that by speaking out together, Congress will hear our voices and pass legislation to reduce global warming pollution 80% by 2050. 

Step It Up 07 has turned into a larger deal than its organizers could have ever guessed 11 weeks ago.  They thought they might be able to organize a hundred rallies, maybe 150--instead, thanks almost entirely to the deep desire of Americans to finally get something done about global warming-- the 1100 mark was passed earlier this month. It's going to be one of the largest days of grassroots environmental protest around the country since Earth Day 1970--and it's drawing dozens of Congressmen and Senators to rallies in their home states and districts.

                

Go to Step It Up 07 to learn about an action in your area and join in with millions of others speaking out on behalf of addressing global warming.  And tune in to the website of Step It Up 07 to watch the photos.  Some of them of them should be truly amazing--the underwater demonstrations off the Florida Keys, the people crowding into lower Manhattan to show where the sea will someday be, and others.