I promised to blog about the discussion I had with Bill Radulovich and others about the new internship program I am going to be involved in, so here it is:
After school this afternoon, I rode my bike down the street to Starbucks. I was to meet with Bill Radulovich and Mark Jones (who is the web designer) at 3:15, and when I arrived a few minutes early, they were in line for their drinks. We sat at a large square table there and discussed what schools I'm interested in for next year and began to briefly enter the topic of the internship and the Climate Prosperity Citizens organization that Mr. Rad (what a great nickname!) is heading. My close friend (and fellow actor in the theater department at our school) Taylor arrived just as Mr. Rad was beginning to discuss they big why of the organization. People have been living with their "stuff" and in having this "stuff," they drain the environment of its resources and basically trash the land, he said. The idea behind climate prosperity is having sustainability while also being able to have our things--this means changing the way we get things and changing perhaps what things we value or want.
Mr. Rad put it this way: prosperous living + a healthy environment = climate prosperity
Taylor entered into the discussion and mentioned her passion for dancing. Mr. Rad's daughter Danica (completing her degree at UCLA) is also a dancer, so he used the connection to launch into her role in the internship Taylor and I are interested in being a part of.
Danica will be our editor. We will be contributors to the website of this "grassroots" group, along with many others. Anything we find of interest or relevance to the organization--basically information on how to run a green household or be a green student--we will submit to the wiki-style website for evaluation and posting. It can be a link, a video, a blog post from our own experience, an article, a website--anything. There are many different categories to submit to--and endless possibilities for new ones. The major categories are clothing, energy and transportation, food, health and beauty, shelter and maintenance, and waste and water management. Within each are more specific categories; for example, under waste and water management is conservation and under that plastic and water.
Somewhere during this discussion, my other friend Julia arrived and listened to what will most likely become something she will be involved in through her senior year and college, along with Taylor, I, and many others. It is so very exciting. So exciting that I've already submitted something to the site--the first "Green Gal Tip" I ever posted to this very blog.
On another note, the Climate Prosperity Citizens (CPC) organization sure is going places. The group's got contacts everywhere--Argentina, Ghana, England, across the states--and Mr. Rad hopes it will spread to all languages and reaches of the world. It's your one stop shop for how to run a green household or be environmentally-conscious. In the near future, he expects the number of interns to grow to the 5,000s or 10,000s and that the editors will continue to grow until we have a pyramid of people checking the content on the website, making sure its valid and relevant.
Although it's now small and its contributors are located in the East Bay, as the information starts getting added (and once we spread to the Facebook community and network from there) and our connects broaden, this website will be huge.
One major thing he mentioned was that this is the "bottom-up" approach to change. We've been learning about this concept in my AP Human Geography class and it's great to see it in action. The larger group that the CPC is affiliated with is the Climate Prosperity Alliance (which actually will be represented in Copenhagen this December to negotiate the successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol). The Climate Prosperity Alliance is a top-down method--where the influence and change is coming from the big corporations and public influences (they're focus is technology and bringing green technology to developing countries and making it a more prevalent energy source, etc.). The CPC comes from the citizens--and largely from the youth (as Mr. Rad said, the future of the world). We contribute this information, integrate it into our lives as we are submitting it and reading it, and as we do so change the culture and the habits of our culture. I totally agree with the bottom-up method because my personal belief is that its the culture that needs to change to really make a difference.
We finished up the discussion by taking a look at the website and going through the submitting process. Once we've submitted and been involved for a certain amount of time, we will be promoted to Editor. From there, we will continue to rise in the evaluation pyramid until we reach a Platinum standard of intern. Not only will we gain this recognition, during the process of obtaining it, we will gain such valuable experience and knowledge to take with us for the rest of our lives.
Tomorrow night is a Focus Group meeting with the whole group of CPCitizens and we will be discussing ways to make the website better and learning the ropes of the site. Can't wait to get started :)
Thanks for reading!
Green Gal
---
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
-- Henry Van Dyke
After school this afternoon, I rode my bike down the street to Starbucks. I was to meet with Bill Radulovich and Mark Jones (who is the web designer) at 3:15, and when I arrived a few minutes early, they were in line for their drinks. We sat at a large square table there and discussed what schools I'm interested in for next year and began to briefly enter the topic of the internship and the Climate Prosperity Citizens organization that Mr. Rad (what a great nickname!) is heading. My close friend (and fellow actor in the theater department at our school) Taylor arrived just as Mr. Rad was beginning to discuss they big why of the organization. People have been living with their "stuff" and in having this "stuff," they drain the environment of its resources and basically trash the land, he said. The idea behind climate prosperity is having sustainability while also being able to have our things--this means changing the way we get things and changing perhaps what things we value or want.
Mr. Rad put it this way: prosperous living + a healthy environment = climate prosperity
Taylor entered into the discussion and mentioned her passion for dancing. Mr. Rad's daughter Danica (completing her degree at UCLA) is also a dancer, so he used the connection to launch into her role in the internship Taylor and I are interested in being a part of.Danica will be our editor. We will be contributors to the website of this "grassroots" group, along with many others. Anything we find of interest or relevance to the organization--basically information on how to run a green household or be a green student--we will submit to the wiki-style website for evaluation and posting. It can be a link, a video, a blog post from our own experience, an article, a website--anything. There are many different categories to submit to--and endless possibilities for new ones. The major categories are clothing, energy and transportation, food, health and beauty, shelter and maintenance, and waste and water management. Within each are more specific categories; for example, under waste and water management is conservation and under that plastic and water.
Somewhere during this discussion, my other friend Julia arrived and listened to what will most likely become something she will be involved in through her senior year and college, along with Taylor, I, and many others. It is so very exciting. So exciting that I've already submitted something to the site--the first "Green Gal Tip" I ever posted to this very blog.
On another note, the Climate Prosperity Citizens (CPC) organization sure is going places. The group's got contacts everywhere--Argentina, Ghana, England, across the states--and Mr. Rad hopes it will spread to all languages and reaches of the world. It's your one stop shop for how to run a green household or be environmentally-conscious. In the near future, he expects the number of interns to grow to the 5,000s or 10,000s and that the editors will continue to grow until we have a pyramid of people checking the content on the website, making sure its valid and relevant.Although it's now small and its contributors are located in the East Bay, as the information starts getting added (and once we spread to the Facebook community and network from there) and our connects broaden, this website will be huge.
One major thing he mentioned was that this is the "bottom-up" approach to change. We've been learning about this concept in my AP Human Geography class and it's great to see it in action. The larger group that the CPC is affiliated with is the Climate Prosperity Alliance (which actually will be represented in Copenhagen this December to negotiate the successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol). The Climate Prosperity Alliance is a top-down method--where the influence and change is coming from the big corporations and public influences (they're focus is technology and bringing green technology to developing countries and making it a more prevalent energy source, etc.). The CPC comes from the citizens--and largely from the youth (as Mr. Rad said, the future of the world). We contribute this information, integrate it into our lives as we are submitting it and reading it, and as we do so change the culture and the habits of our culture. I totally agree with the bottom-up method because my personal belief is that its the culture that needs to change to really make a difference.
We finished up the discussion by taking a look at the website and going through the submitting process. Once we've submitted and been involved for a certain amount of time, we will be promoted to Editor. From there, we will continue to rise in the evaluation pyramid until we reach a Platinum standard of intern. Not only will we gain this recognition, during the process of obtaining it, we will gain such valuable experience and knowledge to take with us for the rest of our lives.
Tomorrow night is a Focus Group meeting with the whole group of CPCitizens and we will be discussing ways to make the website better and learning the ropes of the site. Can't wait to get started :)
Thanks for reading!
Green Gal
---
Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
-- Henry Van Dyke
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