Mayor Annise Parker designates teens as Green Ambassadors: Students unite to promote global youth environmental awareness, will travel to China

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An eco-trip to visit Beijing and Shanghai, from July 26 to Aug. 4, is sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Liu as part of the Green Team America international outreach program. The goal is to jump-start a youth movement to radically alter lifestyles and energy consumption around the planet.

Clements High School senior Steffi Hu, a member of the delegation, is already in Shanghai and will attend the “International Youth Summit on Energy and Climate Change” at the World Expo, which focuses on urban strategies and sustainable development. The rest of the group will depart on July 26 and later join Mayor Parker at the opening ceremony of Houston Day at the World Expo.

The 10-day excursion will include trips to the old Great Wall and the new Shanghai Port, allowing students to absorb the culture of the country as well as advanced environmental programs and projects that illustrate Chinese awareness of the global problem. The group will actively blog their experiences throughout the excursion at

http://greenteamamerica.wordpress.com

“Some people consider us too young to be so serious about the global condition, but I want to remind everyone that we, the students of the world, are the ones who will inherit the environmental problems raging out of control,” Hu, the Clements High School senior, said upon her arrival in China. “It is up to us to do something about them, before it really is too late”.

On July 17, from 3 to 5 p.m., Green Team America will host a Bon Voyage Open House to bid farewell to Houston’s Green Ambassadors. The members of the delegation will greet guests and share information about the upcoming trip.

Fitsum Abuye of Lee High School is looking forward to meeting Chinese students, sharing ideas, and discussing environmental issues. “I am so excited about visiting China for the first time,” Abuye said.

The sponsoring entity for the eco-trip program, entitled Project GLOBE, is Green Team America. GTA is dedicated to uniting environmental clubs at approximately 30,000 high schools across the U.S. When fully united, GTA will be reminiscent of the old Civilian Conservation Corps from the Roosevelt Administration era, when literally millions of young Americans all worked together to solve a national crisis.

For more information, contact Green Team America via e-mail at info@americasgreenteam.org.

Dr. James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and widely recognized as the top environmental scientist in the world, answers questions from Gary Dunham, Co-Founder of GTA and sisters, Zena and Keni Sabath, GTA charter member students. The interview took place in Houston just prior to the release of Dr. Hansen's new book Storms for My Grandchildren. The full interview video will be posted here when it becomes available.

Recent Projects

Houston, TX - Nov 19, 2009 -- Green Team America launched a program on November 7, 2009 at Rice University to educate America’s high school students with the facts regarding global warming and equip them with the tools to take effective action to make a difference in dealing with the effects of rapid climate change. Green Team America (GTA) hosted nearly 225 students from 35 schools from around Houston to deepen their understanding of global warming by listening to speakers and participating in projects that actually make a difference in slowing climate change. The goal of GTA is to enlist students and their science teachers in a grass roots effort to significantly reduce carbon emissions through small actions that can have a huge impact when replicated by hundreds of thousands of students and their extended families. This typical GTA program will make a difference in how we light our homes and conserve our power resources, but the real impact of Project GLOW comes in actually being able to make the US Power grid go on a green diet.

Project LEAF
(Let’s Enhance America’s Forests)
One of the most memorable environmental comparisons we all carried away from elementary school was “…trees are the lungs of our planet”. Well, that is virtually true and Planet Earth’s lungs are shrinking alarmingly fast. Can any of us actually grasp the concept of an acre and a half disappearing from the rain forest every second? Grasp it or not, we need to take some real and dramatic action.

GTA students are working with local city administrations and forestry professionals to plant the right kind of trees, in the right places, at the right time to assure 100% project success. The individual clubs will integrate their efforts with existing maintenance programs to create a lasting memorial to the concern and commitment of America’s young people and the faculty advisors who mentor them. The combined efforts of GTA clubs across the country will create a virtual sustainable forest.

Project STOPP
(Students To Oppose Plastic Pollution)
There is a floating mass of plastic debris the size of Texas sloshing around in the north Pacific and our landfills are literally buried under a tsunami of empty water bottles and packing foam…and it won’t even begin to bio-degrade for centuries to come. We all know that we must stop the flow of man-made plastics into our waste stream and yet we can’t seem to make it happen.

Green Team America is organizing students and faculty advisors across the nation to break the plastic habit at the source where most of it begins…at the local supermarket. GTA club members will coordinate a series of week-end events that include intercepting shoppers on the way IN with information and free eco-friendly tote bags so that on their way OUT they leave the plastic behind. We set our sights a bit higher than getting a community to respond, we are dedicated to changing the way America thinks about what to buy and how it impacts our lives.

Project HEAT
(Home Energy Audit Training)
Project HEAT is really more of an individual commitment than a collaborative project…and it springs from the students themselves. GTA was never intended to be a social or entertainment opportunity, our mission is serious and our intent is to practice what we preach.

Every GTA student member is provided with the tools and supervision to prepare an energy audit of their own home and support in creating a remediation plan that the entire family can embrace. The student becomes the driving force that moves their family into a new way of living the American lifestyle…a green lifestyle.