Catherine Gund, filmmaker and co-founder of the feminist Third Wave Foundation, chronicles Sadie and Safiyah’s journey as they talk to chefs, farmers and food activists, as well as their own friends, about all manner of food policy and health issues. The girls educate themselves and the audience as they start asking very intelligent and probing questions about their own school lunches, how their food is grown, how far it has traveled, how it is packaged and prepared, food access, farmers markets and what healthy, sustainable options exist where they live. Director Catherine Gund explains that helping to teach her daughter Sadie how to make healthy food choices and to feel a connection to her food was part of her motivation for making the film:

Kids need to know the full benefits of local food: more energy-efficient production, more prosperous farmers, healthier communities, longer lasting and better tasting fruits and veggies. Kids need to know that their food doesn’t only come from the supermarket or the factory, but from nearby farms, trees and the ground.

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Click here to find an upcoming screening of the film near you.

It was an amazing experience to hear kids talking about these issues. This movie can have a real impact on the way we think about what we’re eating.

—Alice Waters, chef, author and founder of the Edible Schoolyard

The campaign targets 11 EU countries — Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The campaign will involve celebrities from the various participating countries.

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Editor’s note: Brenna Dardolph is a student at the University of Kansas who recently finished Prof. Simran Sethi’s course Media & the Environment.

When we were seven, my good friend Julia’s parents finally quit smoking. The cause? Their little first grader’s nagging. As part of her elementary school curriculum, Julia was learning about the perils of smoking. It was her concern that finally convinced her parents to kick the habit.

As much as we believe parents shape their children, rarely do we consider that the opposite may be true. But the British government apparently does. Recently, seventeen local councils called on citizens, including children as young as seven to become the nation’s environmental watchdogs– to be on guard for littering, noise pollution and other environmental infractions. Participants in programs like “Eyes for Islington” in Islington or the “Junior Street Champions” in Luton receive information about collecting evidence and reporting environmental crimes. As a writer in the Independent pointed out, it is a chance for Britain’s youngsters to leave their computer games, get out their notebooks and commit themselves to a better community.

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Profiled in the new book, Renewing the Countryside: Youth, this new generation is making their mark on rural areas, from starting new farms to putting out their own entrepreneurial shingle in small towns. Renewing the Countryside: Youth showcases fifty case study stories, one from each state in the United States, cooking up a super-size serving of inspiration for what can be done in similar communities throughout rural America.

Renewing the Country (RTC), a Minnesota-based non-profit organization, specializes in championing such stories, telling the story of the small-scale but big impact individuals and organizations that are creatively crafting livelihoods that positively impact their rural communities. While other RTC books focus on stories within specific states such as Wisconsin, this latest book project, published in partnership with the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE), uniquely celebrates rural youth.

In addition to the case study stories themselves, the engaging writing and photography also came from a team young artists across the nation. But beyond the inspiring read, this book serves as a starter blueprint for others looking to either return to or plant new roots in rural America, no matter one’s age.  Looking at these case study stories collectively, five themes emerge that identify why this particular group of young people are succeeding in the countryside:

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Moving the Earth on Her Day!

When Earth Hour was celebrated on the 28th of last month, the city of Delhi saved 600 MW of electricity - the highest in any Metro city in India - just by switching off non-essential lights. In terms of Carbon emissions, it was as if 2.3 million small cars were taken off the road.  It was thus decided by the Chief Minister of Delhi that the Earth Hour will be celebrated every month in the city, and 22nd April - the Earth Day was appropriately chosen to be the day for this month.

Earth Day this year was also a landmark event for the city. Delhi faces several environmental issues most of which are actually the challenges of a rapidly evolving capital city of a country which is developing at an equal pace. Trees being cut almost every day, a polluted river only getting worse, the mobility crisis and the inequity, vehicular pollution and unplanned urban planning are all issues faced by citizens who wanted a solution to these by having a say in the decision making and access to basic information.

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Both “clean coal” and carbon trading are lies. They are huge scams perpetrated by massive energy companies that are choking our planet. Over twelve thousand students converged on Washington D.C. to demand an end to polluting coal plants, and that the United States start to lead the world in creating truly sustainable clean energy and green jobs. Students filled the halls of Congress, lobbying their elected officials to fight global warming and demanding an end to polluting coal.

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There is brief mention of kids who are berated and made fun of for their dietary choice, as in the case of Sam Silverman, co-captain of his high school’s football team,  says, “my friends try to get me to eat meat and tell me how good it tastes and how much bigger I would be.”  But in some settings, such as Agnes Scott College, vegetarianism is widespread and food choices at cafeterias are beginning to cater to the students’ dietary choice.

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At the launch of the India Climate Solutions Road tour…

Not so long ago, and supported by Delhi Greens, the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) was formed to give a voice to the next generation of India in the climate dialogue. The Network called for youth to come together in order to ensure a clean, bright future. Several city summits amidst a National Youth Summit on Climate Change, and the first ever Indian youth delegation sent to the COP at Poznan ensured that the Indian youth got its voice heard both nationally and during the international climate negotiations.

Now, members of the Indian Youth Climate Network along with a solar powered band are traveling a distance of more than 3500 kilometers in the country in solar plug-in electric cars and alternative-fueled buses. The focus of this journey is to both raise awareness and convert awareness into tangible actions. Climate solutions would be documented all through the journey and the underlying objective is to communicate the message of working to bring down the Carbon concentration to well below 350 ppm.

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About 2,000 teens have signed on with an organization called Inconvenient Youth to tell their friends, neighborhoods, generation and anyone who will listen that the time to take action is now. Why? The founder of Inconvenient Youth, Mary Doerr, believes the young people “can solve it.”

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The webcast which was organized by Power Vote — spear headers of the Energy Action Coalition —  and seeks to emphasize the issue of climate change in the current election. The webcast is co-sponsored by Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection: the Alliance’s We Campaign has enlisted some 1.6 million individuals committed to solving our climate crisis.

Along with this webcast, Power Vote will be kicking off six days of Get Out the (Power) Vote campaigning on October 29, leading up to Election Day. They’re asking young people to gather on campuses and in communities across the country to watch the webcast together.

WHO: Energy Action Coalition and We Campaign
WHAT: Power Vote live webcast featuring Al Gore
WHEN: Wednesday, October 29, 5:30 p.m. PST / 6:30 p.m. MST / 7:30 p.m. CST / 8:30 p.m. EST

To RSVP for the webcast, visit http://events.powervote.org

>>Live Blog

Al Gore opens up to Buffalo Springfield’s Somethings Happening Here

Now JFK’s Man-On-The-Moon speech

Power Vote speaking about the 300,000 young people signing the Power Vote pledge

These Power Vote people like Al Gore - duh!

Al notes campuses Univ Maryland, Portland State, and Univ of Georgia did an awesome job!

Gore says Obama and McCain need to be accountable for the climate crisis

Gore says we went to Iraq for oil!

He links the climate crisis to every other crisis we have …

He says we need to be fuel independent in 10 years

More references to JFK. He is a big part of this election, i.e. Obama

Talking about the 700 Bilion bailout and its connection to the climate and the economy

Gore demands we change our infrastructure from carbon fuels to renewables

Says we need to get out and vote!

Says we need to solve the economic crisis with green jobs and enviromental change

Must build a renewable energy infrastructure

His iPhone just started ringing…

He is takign audience questions

He notes that people dont quite have the right amount of urgency for the climate crisis - we need to step up! there is a Bill McKibben joke there somewhere.

Gore is equating civil rights to climate action.

Talks about how the truth will save us with respect to the climate - Did he borrow one of Obama’s writers?

Al says he got in to this climate-stuff when he was in college - that was a long time ago!

Gore says efficiency and conservation are nubmer one!

Renewable energy is number 2

Says we also need a smart grid to accomadate the renewables

Wait, was the smart grid number 3?? I need Al’s iPhone number.

American biz loses 120 Bil/year due to grid failures…eeks!

Al quotes “Dont ever doubt that a small group of people can change the world, that is the only way the world has changed”

Gore says this election is critical in climate change policy due to record turnout in voting

Al thanks everyone for their effort at Power Vote

Power Vote is taking a 6 day initiative to get the vote out!

The launch includes not only TV ads, but also a series of five short films. With the short films, the network will expose greenwashing to half a billion MTV viewers from around the world. The short films urge corporations and young people to move towards a greener lifestyle.

One TV ad, created by ad agency 180 Amsterdam, features an animated character singing a “green song”.

“The MTV Green Song simply asks you to do your bit for the environment by switching off your lights, computers and TV sets,” said the 180 Amsterdam creative director, Sean Thompson.

The short film series will appear on Switch’s sister site Element. It will be pioneered by five young innovators seeking to fight the climate crisis with their videos.

“In Element, we’ve worked to confront both the skeptics who think that climate change is just too big to tackle — and those who hope that just changing their light bulbs is enough,” said Mark Harvey, Internews Europe’s Head of Development, who with Emily McDowell is the co-founder and co-producer of Element. He added, “Our five characters are from a new generation of climate activists who will connect with young people looking for those who embody lifestyle change, rather than preach about it.”

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Image source MTV Switch

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So, I handed out strips of paper to each student and asked them to anonymously mark the answer choice that they agreed with. On the paper were three lines:

• Protecting the environment is very important to me.
• Protecting the environment is a little bit important to me.
• Protecting the environment is not important to me.

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I steer my young fans to a fantastic organization called, Roots and Shoots. Formed by renown primatologist and humanitarian, Jane Goodall, Roots and Shoots channels the energy of youth into making positive change for their communities, for the animals and for the planet!

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MTV has been trying to change that. With a year long campaign launched last Earth Day called Break The Addiction, MTV set out to educate their viewers about environmental issues and empower them to create change. I recently talked with Ian Rowe, Vice President of Public Affairs and Strategic Partnerships at MTV, about their campaign, youth involvement in the environment and the special green edition of MTV's car makeover show, Pimp My Ride.

Green Options: How did the Break the Addiction campaign begin?

Ian Rowe: A year ago, April 22, 2006, we launched our Break the Addiction campaign to educate our audience about the issues related to global warming and to make it relevant to their daily lives. For most of our audience when they had historically heard about global warming it was in the context of polar bears suffering because of melting ice, which is a terrible thing but on a day to day basis young people weren't really seeing how it connected to their day to day life.

So we saw an opportunity to really help educate our audience about these issues, show how they're all connected and that daily behaviors could have an impact on all of these things. In the Break the Addiction campaign we present a new daily tip on air, online, and on wireless devices of a simple thing that every young person can do that will improve their life and then simultaneously, positively impact the environment.

GO: What has the response been regarding the campaign?

IR: Historically, the environment has not really rated that high with our audience. It was one of the reasons we actually wanted to launch the campaign because we knew global warming, issues of energy independence, and climate change were going to be big items on the agenda. After we launched the campaign we decided to do a major survey to see what the impact had been.

While Al Gore's efforts have definitely helped shape public opinion, when we did our poll in June of last year, for the first time ever young people rated the environment as the number one issue that their generation will face. Eight in ten said that the time to act on global warming is right now. We had never seen numbers like that at all. That's important for us because before we ever see major changes in behavior we first have to start seeing major changes in attitude. So that was great evidence for us that there has been a very good response.

GO: The Break the Addiction Campaign only lasts for one year though. What happens after Earth Day 2007?

IR: There's no question that we'll continue especially given the level of importance that climate change, global warming, energy independence have now taken on and certainly will through the presidential election. So we will continue to look for ways that MTV can engage our audience around this issue.

GO: How does Pimp My Ride fit in to all of this?

IR: As part of the campaign we wanted to use our biggest platform to reinforce that message and certainly Pimp My Ride is one of those. We had a young person who was willing to have their '65 Chevy Impala car pimped out. We put a 800-horsepower engine in it, converted it to biodiesel, put it on a race track against a performance sports car. We beat that car, which just shows that you don't have to sacrifice performance at all in order to be eco-friendly.

GO: How did the Governator get involved?

IR: We've worked with Governor Schwarzenegger before. Since we launched Break the Addiction we've been trying to find ways to work together, especially knowing his leadership in bringing California to address these issues. Once we were doing this Pimp My Ride in California it made sense to approach the governors office and it worked out really well.

GO: Is this the only green Pimp My Ride so far?

IR: It is, although we are looking for ways, not only in Pimp My Ride, but in other shows too where we can also incorporate a green message.

GO: It sounds like MTV is really trying to engage its audience - and it seems to be working.

IR: We are heartened by young people's response. The issues resonate with them because we're talking about how these issues can be addressed in a very pragmatic way every single day. And I think it's a hallmark of how we typically engage young people. We speak in a language that resonates with them around issues that they say they care about.

The special Pimp My Ride episode airs Sunday, April 22 at 1p ET, plus special green episodes of TRL (featuring Break the Addiction Challenge winners) and MTV News (with an interview with Gov Schwartzenegger) will air on Monday, April 23.
For more information about MTV's break the addiction campaign check out think.MTV.com.