Winter 2010 Climate Alert
Mexico: Inspiring Climate Solutions [ PDF ]
In this Newsletter:
First US Link to Tickell Interactive Network to be Launched on Earth Day 2010 in Hanover, New Hampshire
April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day, was a huge milestone for the US environmental movement. It is estimated that as many as twenty million Americans participated in thousands of events across the United States that day. Even President Richard Nixon, a man not known for his pronounced environmentalism, acknowledged the public opinion trend building in advance of Earth Day. On January 1, 1970 he signed the National Environmental Policy Act, and on July 7 he announced an Executive Order to create the US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Perhaps the most sweeping environmental legislation yet enacted by any nation, the US Clean Air Act of 1970 sailed through Congress, receiving unanimous support in the US Senate. On December 31, 1970 Nixon signed the Clean Air Act into law.
In the following four decades, tens of thousands of Earth Day events have occurred in over 140 countries. This wide-reaching international success can be largely attributed to the Earth Day Network inspired by Denis Hayes, coordinator of the first Earth Day while a graduate student at Harvard and currently President of the Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation. One of the most memorable Earth Days is the 20th anniversary event, held on April 22, 1990 in the chambers of the UN General Assembly and convened by Dr. Noel Brown, the North American Regional Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Forty astronauts and cosmonauts from 13 nations, UN delegates, and guests participated in an ‘Only One Earth’ ceremony, which included comments broadcast live via television from Soviet cosmonauts Alexander Balandin and Anatoly Solovyof, orbiting on the Mir space station.
Numerous events are planned in the US for Earth Day’s 40th anniversary, April 22, 2010, but one of the most interesting may be the Hanover, New Hampshire based launch of the Center for Environmental Leadership Training and International Climate Solutions (CELTICS). This Center, an independent non-profit organization based in Hanover, was conceived by Robert (Bob) Bartles, a businessman from Meriden, NH, a graduate of Dartmouth College, and a member of the Climate Institute Board of Advisors. CELTICS’ principal goals include increasing awareness of the growing environmental and social threats caused by climate change, and empowering future environmental leaders, especially those ages 15 to 29, to seek and implement effective solutions to these problems. The Center will focus its efforts on college and secondary school students from New England, Native American, First Nations and Inuit communities, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Philippines and other Asian nations. Bringing together leaders of diverse backgrounds and utilizing a wide range of internships, fellowships and workshops, CELTICS seeks to enhance future leaders’ understanding of coping strategies and communication techniques being used in other cultures. Furthermore, CELTICS seeks to increase students’ understanding of and involvement in research into innovative solutions currently being employed worldwide by scientific and educational communities.
Working closely with CELTICS president Bob Bartles to shape this new center are Dartmouth Professor Bruce Duthu, Director of the Native American Studies Program, Dartmouth Professor Ross Virginia, Director of the Institute for Arctic Studies, Vermont Law School Professor Patrick Parenteau, and many prominent Dartmouth alumni including Climate Institute President John Topping. Other likely local partners in this effort are the Rassias Center, a world-renowned innovator in foreign language teaching, the Dartmouth Department of Film & Media Studies, The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth, The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences at Dartmouth College, and the Environmental Studies Program at Dartmouth.
CELTICS will be the first US link to the Sir Crispin Tickell Interactive Climate Awareness and Response Network being launched in Mexico in February 2010. Drawing on the know-how of students and faculty at Dartmouth, Vermont Law School, and Kimball Union Academy, CELTICS plans to work with Climate Institute staff in Mexico and Washington to test and refine tools that will be used in the rapidly evolving Tickell Interactive Network. The shared goal of this new center, the Climate Institute, and Tickell Network partners is to develop strategies and tools that will bring many more minds to bear in climate and environmental problem solving and encourage a sharing of smart solutions. Just as the UNEP- astronaut event at Earth Day 20 highlighted the interconnectedness of Earth as seen from space, the CELTICS’ launch, building on events two months earlier in Mexico, may mark a passing of the torch from the negotiators, who have fallen so short, to a generation that will be profoundly affected by climate change and has the imagination to produce effective solutions.
Other Articles in this Newsletter:
A Message from the President: Mexico Lights the Way to Climate Stabilization
Pride In Having World’s Highest Observatory Sparks Growth of Interactive Network
Primer Centro Nacional de Observación Climática Global de Gran Altitud Sir Crispin Tickell
Tickell High Altitude Climate Observatory Fills Crucial Gap in Greenhouse Gas Analysis
Sir Crispin Tickell: un pionero ambiental
Sir Crispin Tickell: Environmental Pioneer
Heherson Alvarez Appointed Climate Change Commissioner
Heherson Álvarez nombrado Comisario del cambio climático