Amanda Seyfried, EarthDay.org On ‘Hope,’ ‘Ingenuity,’ Empowering Kids At Climate Leadership Gala

“Hope is the single most important thing we can give our students, and not for the reasons which will spring to mind,” Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers said as she opened the 2023 Climate Leadership Gala at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC on April 27^th.

Reminding the audience of about 300 people that “there are over 3 billion of them (kids) under 25 years old,” Rogers said that, though these kids have profound fears about climate change, we can give these kids hope. ”The hope that we want to give our students, through education and civic skill-building at all levels, is to deliberately and urgently convince them that they can solve the climate crisis through ingenuity, invention, innovation, and (as) entrepreneurs. And we want to start young, teaching them climate critical thinking skills, all the way from kindergarten to high school graduation, college trade schools and beyond.”

As much as the speakers addressed the dire condition of the planet today – where ice in the Arctic is melting dangerously fast and extreme weather events pummel and destroy lives and livelihoods across the globe, including in the U.S. – they also emphasized the opportunities in addressing climate change.

“Climate change promises to upend everything, but also give us a chance to redesign and rebuild the world in a very different way. In short, climate change is also about engagement and economic opportunity,” Rogers said. “But that will only happen if we teach our students to develop the skills, the ingenuity, to rethink the way things are,” she added. Anticipating that the attendees would think she was focused on generations ahead, she added, “And it doesn't have to take a generation to do it. In four years, we can graduate hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of students who see climate change in a very different way. A way to take charge, to invent, to innovate, provide a pipeline to good jobs that are also about solving the problems that face our planet.”

“We need to instill hope, the truth. Yes, we must educate our students about the dire predicament that we face. But hope, that's the answer. Teaching our kids to dream, dream big, think big, and challenge preconceived notions and the status quo,” Rogers underscored.

Speaking of kids…they need toys

Amanda Seyfried, actor of “Mean Girls” and “Mank” fame (among many others), and sustainability entrepreneur, also spoke about the need for a new economic model that integrates protecting the planet. She emphasized the need for sustainable products, including kids’ toys, like the playhouse that her company Make It Cute designs, manufactures and sells.

“I'm here tonight because the future of our globe, our environment will be determined by whether we in this moment do all we can to save it. Whoever we are, wherever we are, we can tackle problems large and small in this moment in a way that will support and create tools and innovations to make our world sustainable for us, for our kids, for our kids’ kids. And that's the world that we have to fight for together,” Seyfried said in her passionate short speech. Make it Cute was one of the gala sponsors.

If we could all see the earth from space….

Jane Poynter, Cofounder and Co-CEO of Space Perspective, which she said is bringing carbon-neutral space travel to the masses, talked about the power of seeing earth from space to inspire us earthlings to take better care of this, our only planet. Seeing “our incredible planet…from that a vantage point, people that have been…to space really do speak about it with great reverence. And it is for that reason that we want to take people to space in our carbon neutral zero-emission spaceship. Space Perspective was one of the sponsors of the gala. (I also interviewed her for an upcoming episode of Electric Ladies Podcast.)

Helping those most at risk

Among the awards given out at the Gala, Marlén Garcia, Executive Director of Earth Uprising, received the Youth Climate Leadership Award. In an impassioned speech, including describing her own personal struggles as a low-income immigrant female in the U.S. trying to make a difference addressing climate change, likely bringing tears to many eyes in the room. “Earth Uprising International is a global, youth-led climate movement, centering education, reparative justice, and solutions for a just transition to an equitable, regenerative economy,” according to their website.

Jacqueline Patterson, Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Project, which supports people across the U.S. at particular risk from the impact of climate change, was awarded the Women and the Green Economy (WAGE) Award, for her work in environmental justice for marginalized communities. Patterson is “a champion of climate change as a civil right, helping frontline communities build power to bring about systematic change and to ensure that opportunities in the new energy economy are equitably shared,” Gerald Torres, Earth Day Network Board Chair and Professor of Environmental Justice, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, said as he gave her the award.

The stories of the battles her team has fought for their communities were at once gut-wrenching and inspiring. She told the stories of Monica Lewis Patrick of Detroit, who is “pushing back on water privatization, pushing forward on people's water governance for access, for affordability, and for quality water.” And, “Phyllis and Jane of San Branch, Texas are fighting for water rights in a former Freeman settlement; the community that hasn't had running water since the mid-eighties, right outside of Dallas, one of the richest cities in the world.”

Then there is the story of how one woman, when their street lights were turned off, organized her community to get community solar for their street lights. And, women who Patterson described as who, “modeled growing our own food and community plant-based diets and really exemplify what it looks like to have sovereignty and to have self-determination and local self-reliance.” Patterson is the former senior director of the NAACP's Environmental and Climate Justice Program, where she served for about 11 years. (I also interviewed her for an upcoming episode of Electric Ladies Podcast.)