Posts Tagged ‘Youth’
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The Only Superhero The World Needs
During the early 90’s, Superhero cartoons and TV shows were kicking ass. There was the Marvel cartoons of Spiderman and X-men, Power Rangers and this guyCAPTAIN PLANET.
The most righteous, camp, mullet haired superhero ever!
He has no clear super ability, so he is able to do basically anything!In addition he taunts baddies with puns and has the amazing catchphrase of – The Power Is Yours.
So what’s his deal then
Gaia (Mother Earth) wakes up and finds out that the human race is destroying the planet, so she sends out 5 magic rings that control elements of nature (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Heart) to 5 special youngsters named the planeteers, who then travel the world defeating the bad guys. If they are really in trouble they put the power of the 5 rings together and BAM, Captain Planet saves the day.
FACT: Many famous actors voiced characters in the 113 episodes – Jeff Goldblum, Meg Ryan, Whoopie Goldberg, Sting, Dan Ackroyd & Elizabeth Taylor
the Eco-Villains are the best though.
- Hoggish Greedly: Pig like human representing overconsumption
- Looten Plunder: Greedy businessman representing uncontrolled capitalism
- Duke Nukem: A radioactive mutant to do with nuclear power
- Verminous Skumm: A rat creature representing poor sanitation
- Dr. Blight: Mad scientist who uses uncontrolled technology
- Captain Pollution: Opposite of Captain Plant (obviously) He once reproduced the 5 rings into evil versions of Radiation, Deforestation, Smog, Toxics and Hate.
FACT: Has the title for first ever kids cartoon, to deal with HIV/Aids and to mention sex.
The episodes are very over-the-top. In the episode ‘Polluting by Computer’ the Eco-Villains break into the government computer system and change all the National Parks stats so they can dump toxic waste there……..OK some of you are now saying that’s not that far fetched.
It would be great if Captain Planet returns to the screen. Teaching more kids about the issues around climate change, waste, sanitation and all things sustainable. Its message would be as clear as ever, as every kid knows about recycling and wind-farm these days. I think they just need two more Eco-Villains. one to do with oil and the other to do with government.
Who else agrees with me?
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2050 - Green and clean?
Climate Squad volunteer - Aisha Brown Colpani - discusses her vision of 2050 for our Greenprint to 2050 project
If you want to join the Greenprint, join us on the 25th August or 1st September. We’ll debate the lifestyles we want to live, the communities we want to live in and the best way to make it happen. Reserve a place by calling Heather on (0207) 420 4441 or e-mail climate.squad@globalactionplan.org.uk
Trying to imagine the world of the future takes a bit of thought; putting aside the image of a hover-car darting across the sky (for now), what can we really expect to see? How far will the world have moved from that to which we have become accustomed by the time the year 2050 rolls around?
It would be hard to make an even halfway plausible suggestion for a future reality without factoring in the major question of the state of the environment, or, more specifically, how much further we will push said environment before it furiously rebels. With more and more headline space being used to highlight the effects of Global Warming it seems that now is the time to pay attention if we want any kind of improvement today as well as in forty years time. Why not start at home?
The great thing about the boom in super-sophisticated technology is that we actually have the tools, we know where the problems lie; if we really want to transform the UK into a green and clean environment then we have to make the most of the means at our disposable in order to do our collective bit to reduce carbon emissions. By 2050 I’d like to see many major roads kept exclusively for bicycles. How many more people would be enticed to jump on their bikes knowing that they’d be able to ride calmly around town, in a space shared with other cyclists? And what number would ditch the car when they realised just how much more convenient pedalling down the main road would be? The fact that there is also a mini work-out to be had while inhaling the unpolluted air is not an unwelcome prospect either…the list of Pro’s is endless really. There’s no denying that the bicycle is having somewhat of a revival as the first choice of travel; who wants to wait for the bus or squeeze into the tube carriage when you could do your little bit just by pedalling down the street? Now, imagine the huge reduction in carbon emissions if the bicycles on the streets were to out-number the cars…I guess our fore-mothers and fathers had the right idea when it came to getting around.
But my vision of a clean-aired future does not rely solely on investing in two decent wheels; how can I even begin to imagine a carbon-free (or at least a greatly carbon-reduced!) environment without putting in a mention to those machines of unrivalled carbon-gulping power a.k.a. the oxygen givers, or, to use the more formal term, trees? Without trees there would be no world to fret over in the first place and I think it is time to give them a bit more appreciation; we need to make more space for these wonders of nature, especially in metropolitan areas where a glimpse of green can be something of a rarity. I do have to acknowledge that London does have some beautiful parks where the trees stand strong and the flowers are maintained with pride but I can think of another area that could benefit just as much from that consideration for plant-life; the school play-ground. I remember reading an opinion suggesting that the best way to get the younger generation interested in caring for the natural world would be with the introduction of a substantial garden area in schools, a place where the kids would learn how to interact considerately with plants - they will be the young adults taking responsibility for the future of the environment after all.
Care for the environment is an issue which we must all take to our hearts sooner if we want to build a healthier, cleaner, more considerate society later. And the rewards don’t stop with the green credentials. Don’t believe me? Picture the scene: you leave work mid-afternoon (as the current obsession with a career will have taken a backseat for enjoyment of all the other things we could be doing), the sun shining and gently warming your face, or, perhaps, a light spray of rain (well we are talking about the UK here) - but not so much to hinder any outdoor activity. You go to your local little park area and find it buzzing with activity as people congregate to tend to the plant life, weeding and watering, admiring the different colours; it’s a time of relaxation and socialising. You feel closer to the Earth and further from the every day issues which tend to dominate the day…Why dismiss this snapshot as too good to be true?
When I think of 2050 and of my ideal vision of the UK and the world by that time, I think of a place proud of its reputation as a home to plants and wildlife left as nature intended; I think of a base that complies to the top environmental standards and keeps our pollution levels in-check through passionately upheld rules regarding the environment and encouragement of individual pride in our green surroundings. I imagine a place where recycling as much waste as possible becomes a reflex in every household and where more emphasis is put on respecting and enjoying our natural surroundings above man-made products. In 2050 the UK could be a place for cyclists, for environmentally acceptable vehicles of public transport, for lots of trees, for recycle bins (exclusively), for less stress about money and more time to breathe the truly fresh air.
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Worlds oldest woman turns 130!
By Simon Howlett
Antisa Khvichava, a woman from a remote village in west Georgia, has turned 130, making her the oldest person in the world by 16 years, officials claimed.
Yes, this claim is suspect. Being born in 1880, losing her birth certificate and having a child at 60, who is now himself 70.
But what about the official oldest people in the world - Eugénie Blanchard (1896-) Walter Breuning (1896-) and the UK record holders Eunice Bowman (1898-) and Claude Choules(1901-)
What is the one thing they all have in common apart from being old, grey and wrinkly?
Whenever a journalist comes knocking on their door asking ‘why they have lived so long’ secretly hoping that they will state ‘oh, I’ve got the fountain of youth in my back garden’
The boring answer they actually receive is ‘I keep myself busy and working.’Now, I have lived through the lazy teenage years, eating sweets and playing the latest GTA consistently. However I now find myself being uber busy, undertaking more opportunities and roles then physically possible, whilst also being addicted to twitter and chocolate digestives. With the added bonus of believing I’m fitter and healthy then ever!
So when my friends say ‘I cannot be bothered to recycle because it takes too much energy’ or ‘doing community work is pointless as I know one day I will move somewhere else’
Due to the presented evidence I can say something along the lines of -
If you recycle, if you do community work, if you do all the environmental and sustainable stuff that is, as evidence suggests good for the planet – you will keep yourself consistently busy and working hard just like Antisa Khvichava the oldest woman in the world has been doing for the last 130 years!What is more persuasive then that? Living forever and annoying your great-great-great-great-great grandchildren. Due to helping save the planet,
So yes, this blog has just confirmed and given you further artillery in turning people and friends green.
Use it well.
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Mud, Music and Manpower - IOW festival
Climate Squad volunteer Louise heads to the Isle of Wight festival 2010 for some…
Mud, Music & Manpower
By Louise Groom, Climate Squad Steering Group volunteer
What I was up to
I was lucky enough to head to the Isle of Wight last weekend for Climate Squad with V Inspired’s Summer of Give festival tour to talk to people about Climate Squad and all the cool (and free!) stuff young people can get from it such as skills training, certificates, fun times as well as meeting new people in their area and feeling good about cutting carbon and protecting our environment.
Pedal faster people
We went with Global Action Plan’s energy bike which you pedal (like a normal exercise bike) and generate energy to power various appliances such as your iPod or charge your phone which went down REALLY well at the festival! Loads of young people loved the bike (especially feeling the difference between powering old and new light bulbs) and once we got talking everyone was really keen to find out more and generally chat about climate change and cutting carbon. This was really motivating but meant I was knackered and lost my voice by the end of the festival! Late nights and screaming to the likes of the Strokes probably didn’t help….
PHOTOS: Check out Charlie from Kiss fm on the energy bike and some other awesome people I met:
Amazing skills
As we were with V’s big purple bus, we got to see all the incredibly talented volunteers playing around on the decks, mics, bass6 (amazing beatboxer - check him out) as well as superhuman football tricks, very bendy cheerleaders and some awesome bands!
PHOTOS: Some of V’s amazingly talented volunteers entertaining and showing how volunteering can be fun and help develop & support skilled young people (www.vinspired.com)
Big thanks and why it’s important
Overall, I had a wicked weekend and it really made me realise how so many young people want to be involved with projects such as Climate Squad and how important it is that we get out there and help them get involved, build up their CV and also…enjoy!!
Big thanks to V inspired for the great tunes & entertainment and Climate Squad for giving me the opportunity to go to a fantastic festival!
Get involved in festival fun
Climate Squad and V will be all over the place this summer so come and see us or if you’re interesting in volunteering with us, take a look at our opportunities or get in touch with climate.squad@globalactionplan.org.uk:
★ T4 On the Beach on 4th July
★ Y Not, Peak District - 30th Jul-1st Aug
★ Relentless Boardmasters, Newquay - 3rd-8th August
★ Celtic Blue Rock, South Wales - 6th-8th Aug
★ Relentless Boardmasters on 4th - 8th August
★ V Festival Chelmsford and/or Weston-Under-Lizard - 20th - 22nd August
★ Creamfields on 28th - 29th AugustFestivals we’ve been at:
Camden Green
Festival of Nature
Isle of Wight festival
Charlie from KissFM
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PUMP IT UP!
Pump it up!
Join us in this project to pump up car tyres for shoppers, saving them carbon and helping them take small steps to tackle climate change.
Basing ourselves in Shopping Centres around the country, we will help drivers save money, fuel and carbon!
By pumping up car tyres to the correct level, drivers not only benefit from saving money, becoming safer, and burning less fuel, they will also decrease their carbon emissions by 5-8%.
Here is what our volunteers have said about Pump it up:
“I have just done volunteering for Pump it Up at Brent Cross Shopping Centre today for Global Action Plan. I had a good day overall and got to meet some interesting people
as well as helping the environment and giving useful information to others.” - Becky ThorpeRemember your travel and food expenses are paid by us!
Register your interest by emailing climate.squad@globalactionplan.org.uk
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#1 Green Britain day - 5 easy steps for reducing your fashion footprint
2 million tonnes of clothes are bought in the UK every year, of which 1.2 million tonnes is dumped in landfill sites! The average Brit throws away 30kg of clothing and textiles which is very much down to the availability of cheap throwaway fashion.
So what’s the problem?In the UK the clothing and textiles sector was responsible for:
~3.1 million tonnes of GHG emissions
~1.5-2.0 million tonnes of waste
70 million tonnes of water waste
10 x more energy than producing steel or glassAlso, when these materials end up in landfill, some synthetic materials don’t decompose and some which do degrade release methane which is 21 x more powerful than CO2.
If everyone in the UK bought one reclaimed woollen garment a year, it would save an average of 371 million gallons of water – the average UK reservoir holds about 300 gallons!
5 easy steps for reducing your fashion footprint…
1. Choose eco labels - many shops have organic clothing, green, Fairtrade collections and upcycled collections which use old fabrics to create new fashion. There are also many UK based designers supporting local businesses and which save energy by being UK-made, e.g. People Tree, Beyond Skin and Izzy Lane.
2. Take your old clothes to one of the 6,000 recycling banks in the UK – this is easy yet only 25% of the banks are being used to their full capacity and only 16% of clothes are recycled! The clothes are taken to homeless, charity shops or sold in developing countries.
3. Shop in charity shops – Fed up of seeing everyone wearing the same dress as you? Full of vintage glamour at bargain prices, charity shops are ideal for that unique piece that will set you apart - and you will be raising money for charity! Over 70% of the world’s population uses second hand clothes so why not do it!?
4. Swapping and swishing –host your own party or swap online from one of the many websites out there.TheBigWardrobe has 30,000 members and pieces from Stella McCartney, Marc Jacobs and Topshop.
5. Customise your wardrobe – as Vivienne Westwood advised everyone watching her on Jonathon Ross:
“Do it yourself, take the tablecloth if its beautiful… put things together yourself, don’t spend money, just take what you can find, take your old things and keep on wearing them, don’t buy much fashion but if you do buy it, choose really well, wear it for a long time until it drops of your back and it will get more wonderful…forget buying all of these new clothes…buy less and choose well”
It is very easy to associate eco fashion with “hippies” however this shouldn’t be the case. London fashion week saw designers such as Izzy Lane and Amana take part in the “Estethica” initiative which is now in its 7th season.
The government have also outlined a sustainable clothing roadmap which is a voluntary clothing industry initiative to improve the environmental and ethical performance of clothing to hopefully make green fashion choices second-nature.
Read #2 Green Britain Day- 6 easy steps to reduce your travel footprintRead #3 Green Britain Day- 4 easy steps to reduce your food footprint
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Greenprint launch event, The Barbican, London
On Tuesday 8th June, 2010, Climate Squad were up at the crack of dawn, in part due to excitement and partly due to nerves for the launch of the Greenprint to 2050 project at the Barbican centre, London.The Barbican Centre was an ideal location for the event due to its embedded green credentials: the venue has a dedicated Environmental Sustainability Working Party dedicated purely towards ensuring the centre has the most sustainable and progressive vision of energy and resource use so to minimise environmental impacts.
The Barbican centre is also “the first City business to trial and implement a 100% food recycling programme where all food waste gets collected in the 1100.ltr catering bins and sent to be treated at a special plant where it is turned into fertiliser and returned to the soil.”
The event kicked off at 9.30am after volunteers were welcomed with refreshments and the chance to have a go on the Global Action Plan eco-interactives (which was too much activity for some that early in the morning!). Trewin Restorick, CEO of Global Action Plan , was the first guest speaker:
For all these and many other reasons, Greenprint 2050 is hugely important and I will be doing whatever I can to ensure that the outcomes reach as many of the key people as possible.”
Jan Kiso from the Department of Energy and Climate Change then spoke about why the government are thinking about 2050 now. Jan highlighted a very important point that in order to ensure we meet our 2050 target, we need to “manage the risk of locking up ‘dirty’ technologies” and look at new technologies which, for example, have lifetimes of on average13 years for a car and 30 years for an aeroplane. Jan then spoke about green energy, efficient technologies, behaviour change and ‘green’ imports as things we can do and focus on now.
The first session saw the volunteers break into 6 groups to discuss their vision of 2050 and how they imagine things to be within their group topic area. Facilitated by a Global Action Plan ambassador and Bank of America/Merrill Lynch volunteer, the group discussions proved popular and volunteers got really stuck in to dynamic thinking about what they would like their futures to look like. Technology and lifestyle was definitely the most popular group attracting the largest number of volunteers, however a lot of vision ideas were submitted from all topic areas.
Some examples of vision ideas:
Education – education about climate change will be mandatory from an early age and emphasis will be put on strengthening the link between cause and effect. There will also be more outdoor learning and every school will have a garden.
Health & welfare – we will live in a more collective society within nations and between them, we will also know people living on our streets and we will live in a safer neighbourhood.
Jobs & employment – sectors such as retail and manufacture industries will be smaller and high tech and environmental jobs will prevail. People will also have fewer working hours because there is less consumerism so smaller demands for production.
Technology & lifestyle – all homes will have solar panels and proper insulation, and products/services will have their CO2 “cost” reflected in their retail prices.
Leisure – open spaces within streets and communities will be safer so children can play outside without a worry. People will also have more time to pursue hobbies as they work fewer hours.
Transport – Air miles will be reduced by encouraging self sustainability, and the government will fund LEDC’s dependant on revenue they would have otherwise got from exporting food. Developing countries will be using this to look at other means of sustainable growth.
After a short break we resumed for the second session: the debate. The panel of guests included (from left to right in picture above) Victoria Chamberlain from Conservative Future,John Northall from Climate Squad, Vicky Wakefield-Jarrett from Young Greens, Alan Belmore from Liberal Youth and Christine Quigley from Young Labour. The panel were open to questions from volunteers and the visions which volunteers had previously submitted. On a number of occasions the debate drew back to carbon tax. Topics also discussed include nuclear power, renewable energies such as wind farms, production and usage of cars and education.
On the whole the event was a success and there was a very positive atmosphere throughout. It was great to meet so many of the ever expanding group of Climate Squad volunteers!
The debate will be available via audio shortly.
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FREE Greenprint to 2050 project launch event - 20 tickets left!
Join us on Tuesday 8th June 2010, 9am-1pm at the Barbican Centre, London
Reserve your FREE ticket by e-mailing - climate.squad@globalactionplan.org.uk
What do you think 2050 will LOOK like? What is your vision of 2050? … let’s create a positive vision of the future for people to aspire to!
The Greenprint to 2050 will set out a vision of what 2050 will look like, from your perspective, with the aim of presenting it to key political leaders at the House of Commons later this year. Once we have this vision, we can begin our journey by setting realistic goals to achieve it.
At the launch event, join sixty 16-25 year olds and a guest panel of 6 aspiring young people from the likes of Conservative Future, Liberal Youth, Young Labour, Young Greens, UKYCC and Climate Squad to determine what you believe society should look like in 40 years time within the following discussion areas: education; health and welfare; employment; technology and lifestyle; leisure and transport.
There will also be:
- Free refreshments and lunch will be provided
- Early birds will get free “Change the world for a fiver” books
- Travel expenses covered
- Eco-driving simulator and energy bike
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