There are some amazing young people around the world that understand this and are working hard to inspire change. One of the goals of the Environmental Scouts is to link together all of these voices and develop a global curriculum to create a broad level of education on these topics.
Melati and Isabel Wijsen
Sisters Melati and Isabel Wijsen are on a mission to ban plastic bags in Bali.
Inspired by similar measures in other parts of the world, Melati and Isabel Wijsen launched the campaign Bye Bye Plastic Bags in 2013, which received worldwide support — and recently succeeded in getting the island’s governor to commit to a ban by 2018.
The two sisters, who frequent the environmentally minded Green School along with a crew of likely motivated kids, continue to ask the question: How can they make a difference in the world?
Plastic bags are essentially indestructible, yet they’re used and thrown away with reckless abandon. Most end up in the ocean, where they pollute the water and harm marine life; the rest are burned in garbage piles, where they release harmful dioxins into the atmosphere. Melati and Isabel Wijsen are on a mission to stop plastic bags from suffocating their beautiful island home of Bali. Their efforts — including petitions, beach cleanups, even a hunger strike — paid off when they convinced their governor to commit to a plastic bag-free Bali by 2018. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re too young or you won’t understand,” Isabel says to other aspiring activists. “We’re not telling you it’s going to be easy. We’re telling you it’s going to be worth it.”
Xiye Bastida
“We are on Earth to take care of life. We are on Earth to take care of each other.”
Xiye Bastida is a teenage climate activist currently based in New York City and one of the lead organizers of the Fridays For Future youth climate strike movement. Bastida was born and raised in Mexico as part of the Otomi-Toltec indigenous peoples. She sits on the administration committee of the Peoples Climate Movement, where she brings the voice of youth to existing grassroots and climate organizations. She received the “Spirit of the UN” award in 2018.
Follow Xiye on Twitter @xiyebastida and Instagram @xiyebeara
Jerome Foster II
Jerome is a 17-year-old African-American climate activist, high school student, and virtual reality/augmented reality entrepreneur. Jerome Foster II strikes in front of the White House as apart of the Climate Strikes Movement. He is also a board member for Young Voices for the Planet, a Smithsonian Ambassador, a National Geographic Explorer, a Climate Reality Leader, and an intern for Congressman John Lewis at the House of Representatives. Jerome Foster II has won the World Series of Entrepreneurship and has been featured in TIME Magazine, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, Telemundo, ELLE, Axios, VICELAND, and many others. Also, he has written op-eds on Yes! Magazine, E&E News, and UNICEF. In addition, has two documentaries set to launch within the next 4 years which are both in the filming stage now. Instagram & Twitter: @JeromeFosterII
Lauren Singer
Lauren is an Environmental Studies graduate from NYU and former Sustainability Manager at the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, and the amount of trash that she has produced over the past three years can fit inside of a 16 oz. mason jar.
Lauren Singer is author of the Zero Waste blog, Trash is for Tossers and founder of organic cleaning product company, The Simply Co.
Through her blog, she has empowered millions of readers to produce less waste by shopping package-free, making their own products and refusing plastic and single-use items.
Her work has been profiled by New York Magazine, MSNBC, NBC, AOL, CNN, Yahoo, Fox Business, BBC and NPR, among others.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.
Greta Thunberg
If you know anything about famous kids in the news, you would have heard about Greta Thunberg, a 17 year old Swedish girl who started skipping school in August 2018 to strike for the climate crisis outside the Swedish Parliament building. Since then, she has inspired an international movement to fight climate change.
In 2019, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was also named “2019 Person of the Year” in Times Magazine and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I really admire her courage. She started off as a single kid sitting on the Swedish Parliament building steps, asking that the politicians do something about the climate crisis. In September 2019, she led the largest climate strike in history.
Click above to watch her incredibly inspiring Tedx Talk that she presented about a year ago.
Dylan D’Haeze
17 yo Dylan D’Haeze is a great role model for us kids. He lives in one of my favorite places I’ve visited, Orcas Island in Washington state. He has already produced three documentary films and is raising our awareness about plastic pollution, the climate crisis, and how everything in our world is interconnected.
Check out his website! http://kidscansavetheplanet.com
Click above to watch the trailer for one of his documentaries called “Everything Connects“.
Everything Connects explores how communities can develop zero waste strategies, and looks at building a sustainable lifestyle for today, and for future generations. Once you watch this documentary, you’ll gain a better understanding about how everything we do affects the planet. And how the actions of others are affecting your life.
Amy and Ella Meek
Amy and Ella Meek, sisters living in the UK, ages 16 and 14, started a charity called Kids Against Plastic. They are focused on Education and then Action. They are very inspiring to us because they have done a lot of research about problems and misuse of plastic. The two of them have already brought about change in their community, such as installing water fountains to reduce single use plastic water bottles. Two years ago, they presented their first TEDx talk.
Their website provides a lot of information about plastic pollution: https://www.kidsagainstplastic.co.uk/
Luisa Neubauer
Luisa Neubauer is a 24 year old climate activist who studied Geography in college and was shocked what she was learning. Alongside Greta Thunberg, she attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Click above to watch her inspiring Tedx Talk.
