Boston Youth Climate Action Grants Monday, September 29, 2008 By: Liz Soper NWF Announces Recipients Ten Boston area schools will receive $1,000 grants each to educate and engage teenagers in “on-the-ground” actions to address global warming.  Projects range from Revere High School’s Green Team that will be running a campaign to rid their school of bottled water and encourage students to use re-usable water bottles, to Codman Academy’s Youth CAN’s program, which will help to educate their community through an energy fair, light bulb campaign and a program to teach younger students about important energy issues.   “It is our hope that these Youth Climate Action grants will help schools and their local communities to take action and serve as models of student involvement in science education as well as common sense actions within their community,” stated Liz Soper, Senior Field Education Manager, NWF.  “Whether students are conducting energy audits, identifying opportunities to reduce their carbon footprint, recycling, improving wildlife habitats, learning about global warming issues, or sharing their learning with others --the learning is creative, practical, and hands-on.”   Schools receiving this year’s grants include:  The Bromfield School Harvard, MA, East Boston High School East Boston, MA, Codman Academy Dorchester, MA, the King Open School - Cambridge, MA, 3rd Eye Unlimited New Bedford, MA, Revere High School Revere, MA, the John D. Runkle School Brookline, MA, Winthrop High School - Winthrop, MA, Milton Academy Milton, MA and the Boston Latin Academy Dorchester, MA.    Each grant recipient will also become part of the growing Youth CAN Climate Action Network in the Boston region, where currently over 15 Youth CAN groups have joined forces to address the issue of climate change.  This year the network will specifically be focused on addressing the need to enhance climate change education in K-12 schools in Massachusetts.  For more information check out the BLS Youth CAN network at http://www.youthcannetwork.org/ .   NWF’s Youth Climate Action grants are just part of a new and unique program developed by National Wildlife Federation called Climate Classroom™.  Climate Classroom™ offers innovative on-line resources to empower students as leaders on this important environmental issue.  Engaging and educational, the curricula provides age and developmentally appropriate ways to address a tough and complex topic in the classroom. NWF offers curricula to encourage students of grade 4 - 12 to learn about the science of global warming, its relevance to current natural events happening around them and how they can be part of the solution.    The Climate Classroom curricula are available free of charge online at www.climateclassroom.org

Momentum Is Building for Strong Climate Legislation Tuesday, July 1, 2008 By: Julie Starr Keep up the great work! On June 6, the U.S. Senate fell 6 votes shy of securing the 60 votes needed to stop an effort by Senate Republican leadership to delay the passage of the Climate Security Act. While NWF is of course disappointed that the bill will not move forward this year, we are thrilled to have won more support for dramatic action to address global warming than ever before. Many of the 54 Senators who voted for the bill had not previously supported global warming legislation. Clearly, they heard from concerned citizens like you. With a majority of Senators now supporting the bill, we need to work even harder to pass strong, bipartisan climate legislation in 2009. Thanks again for all your efforts. Here is a breakdown of how the Senators in the Northeast region voted: Eleven of the twelve New England Senators voted to move debate forward on the Climate Security Act. Only NH’s Senator Gregg did not show up for the vote, and he later indicated that he would not have supported it anyway.   In NY, Senator Schumer voted to support the bill, and although Senator Clinton was absent from the vote, she wrote a letter in support of the bill.   In NJ, both Senators Lautenberg and Menendez voted to support the bill. Leading up to the vote, NWF pulled out all the stops to mobilize our grassroots networks in this region to voice their support for the Climate Security Act. Thanks to your efforts, all but one Senator in the Northeast region expressed support for this historic bipartisan legislation. With this kind of momentum from our policy makers, we are moving closer to a clean energy future for people and wildlife. Watch a video of a major press conference held just before the vote, featuring a diverse array of NH's business leaders calling on their Senators to support the bill. For up-to-date information about federal climate legislation, and other areas of NWF's work on global warming, please visit www.nwf.org/climateaction. We still have important work ahead of us, so please check back often to see what NWF's Northeast office is doing to confront the global warming challenge, and to find out what you can do to be part of the solution. Thank you for all that you do for wildlife!