You Can Save the World Contest Winners
As you will see from these winning essays, the generation of young people now in high school cares passionately, deeply, unreservedly about our world. One of the issues these young people are most concerned about is the health of our planet, which is why, this year, we asked them: What can you do to help slow down global warming?
The 2007 winners were flown to Washington, DC to participate in a Panim el Panim seminar and a You Can Save the World awards ceremony featuring Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). The essays below and three finalists’ essays are posted at momentmag.com, as is information for students and teachers about how to enter the 2008 contest. Thank you to PANIM The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values and Barnes & Noble for providing this year’s prizes.
To read the finalists, click here…
“Grandpa,” shouted the little boy, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, as he ran into the house and dropped his backpack. It was January 2058.
He pleaded, “Please tell me again about global warnings, Grandpa.”
“Global warming,” I corrected. “Okay….Not so long ago, cars, trucks, factories, power plants, airplanes and people put so much carbon dioxide into the air that the temperature kept getting hotter. The polar ice cap was melting faster than scientists once thought but they figured out how to slow down our planet’s warming. They thought that if people committed themselves to making some simple changes, it would be us, the people, who could stop global warming.”
“Was this when the birds still sang?”
“Yes,” I continued. “Small things had started to change. But no one thought it was a big deal. The birds still sang.…”
He burst in: “And there were butterflies! They were mon...mon…”
“Monarchs,” I finished his sentence. “They still flew. They were just beautiful. I never thought I would miss them so much…or the sound of birds singing or the taste of maple syrup or.…” I paused to close my eyes and search my memory, “The snow.”
“Tell me about the snow, Grandpa.”
“The snow fell every winter, gently, softly and silently. It filled the streets, covered the hills and landed on my mittens so that I could look at every crystal. We went sledding, ice skating and made snow angels. We ate icicles, threw snowballs and made a snow…”
“…man!” he yelled excitedly. “I know, I know. It had a carrot nose, a hat and twig arms and it looked like the ones I see in my story books. But yours was real. You touched the snow.”
I continued. “Then one winter, the snow never came, only lots of rain. The summer got longer. Since fall faded away and frost never came, leaves no longer turned bright red and yellow. Maple trees’ sap flowed less and less until it stopped. Butterflies could not find shelter on their trips to Mexico, because forests had been clear cut. No shelter eventually meant extinction. But some things thrived in the warm temperatures: poison ivy, ragweed pollen, ticks. And now you go to school, in January, in shorts and a t-shirt. But you know all this!” I glumly stopped talking.
“But, grandpa, what did those scientists ask people to do? Was it so hard?” my grandson probed.
“Well,” I slowly responded, “the scientists asked us to lower the temperature in our homes just a few degrees, to turn off lights when we left a room and to unplug our chargers when not using them. We were asked to change old fashioned light bulbs to super-efficient compact fluorescent ones, to recycle paper, plastic and metal and to turn off our cars when they were failing to prevent dirty fumes from spewing into our air. Many people thought it would be a good idea to walk or bike instead of drive. Back in 2008, if we had done these things, we could have stopped global warming from happening.”
My bewildered six-year old grandson asked, “Why didn’t the people work together and do those things?”
I just looked into his eyes—the eyes of a new, young, fresh generation who no longer lived in a clean or healthy world. I did not know what to say.
—Ben Muzi, Lawrence High School, Lawrence, New Jersey
It seems impossible for one person to make a difference and slow down global warming.
That is why I am lucky. I am a journalist. My sole mission is to inform the public. Because of my efforts to expose the truth about serious issues through writing, I hope to affect my readers so that they are inspired to institute change. Well, maybe I exaggerate a little. I am an editor on my school newspaper, and I do try and make a difference.
Last year, an environmental club at my school decided to make a statement. They painted a huge mural in the middle of the school warning students and teachers about the dangers of global warming. It included quotes from Al Gore; statistics about the effects on wildlife, the increased risk of disease, and potential effects on future generations. Club members also painted and posted leaves around the school halls with suggestions for what students could do to help the cause. Leaves that said, “Turn the lights off when you leave a room,” “Install energy efficient light bulbs” and “Carpool!” were everywhere.
Unfortunately, immature high school students drew over the leaves and wrote profanity on the mural. Club members had to paint over their drawings almost every day.
At that time, I was a staff writer on my school paper and thought that this would make an interesting story. The story wasn’t to be about global warming, but about how some students thought it was unfair for the school (through the mural) to “endorse” a political figure (Al Gore). The story was also going to tell about the students who were vandalizing the mural.
To be honest, I wasn’t really that concerned with the mural’s content; I just wanted to get the story. However, I did some investigation. I interviewed one of the club members and she told me endless facts and statistics about the risks involved if people remained ignorant and global warming continued to progress at a threatening rate. I not only learned the dangers involved if we continue to remain idle, but through one person’s efforts to teach me, I was able to write a story.
Let’s recap. Beginning with one person’s idea to paint a mural, a group took initiative, and through their actions sparked a controversy. The controversy set off a chain reaction: Students started talking, I interviewed a club member who forever changed my perspective, and I wrote an article. My story allowed me to inform 2,200 students about global warming.
One person can make a difference.
—Rachel Steingard, Chaparral High School, Scottsdale, Arizona
The United States is the world’s leader in contributing to global warming. As a result, according to Gallup polls, 81 percent of Americans believe that, "as the world's leading industrial country, the United States needs to set the lead when it comes to controlling greenhouse gases and pollution."
The majority’s will is, however, thwarted by the energy lobby and military industrial complex. For example, gas and oil companies donated $225 million to political campaigns in 2004; their influence dominated Vice President Dick Cheney’s 2005 energy plan’s call for $30 billion in tax cuts for the oil and gas industry. Similarly, military equipment causes large amounts of greenhouse emissions, and America’s more than $623 billion military budget is larger than the world’s combined military budgets.
The energy lobby and military-industrial complex represent the power of the motivated minority. We must engage the majority and harness its power.
Mass rallies are surprisingly ineffective. I believe that the numerous Save Darfur rallies have accomplished little. Conversely, AIPAC, one of America’s most powerful interest groups, represents about two percent of the population and its strategies work. Its strength comes from its knowledge of the American political system: AIPAC engages, informs and empowers average citizens to make lobbying trips to Washington, correspond with their congresspeople and sign petitions. Likewise, an environmental organization called the Green Corps successfully blocked drilling in the Arctic Reserve by organizing a 5,000-person lobbying trip to Washington.
The vast number of people who support stopping global warming must take such political action. What can I do to engage them? With Facebook and other web networking tools, making contacts with people becomes simple. Recently, I began a Facebook group in support of the environment and it now has members from all regions of the U.S. Contacts must be separated by congressional district to ensure a representative contact list from around the country. That is, dozens of contacts from one Chicago district are helpful, but if no one in Springfield is among my contacts, only one congressperson from Illinois may be affected. Because it is extremely difficult to make contacts in all congressional districts, working with environmental groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club can increase connections. If at least two hardworking, dedicated people are contacted in each congressional district (fewer than 900 people), getting thousands of signatures on a petition to stop global warming should not be too daunting. These petitions represent public opinion, but more importantly they represent votes. They will indicate to the government that people are paying attention and that it must act accordingly.
This is what I can do to stop global warming. By getting this idea out to organizations, interest groups and ordinary people, by creating this petition and spreading the word, I can motivate the majority. The power of the big lobbies and the military establishment is nothing compared to public opinion. With it on our side, all we have to do is bring it to the people who matter. To stave off this danger to humanity, brought on by humanity, humanity must be engaged to save itself.
—Noah Moskowitz, Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway, Long Beach, New York
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