Vikas, 20, India - We propose to establish a self-sufficient community bicycle sharing system in India that will significantly decrease the carbon footprint of the average citizen and bring to the fore a powerful means of local transportation. The system will support itself by trading the carbon credits it will generate in the international carbon market. A community bicycle system at such a scale and model will be the first-of-its kind initiative in India and will provide much-needed impetus to the green initiatives in the country. 

Our aim is to encourage more people to join the bandwagon and trigger an explosion of such programs across India; much the same way it happened across Europe after UK introduced the system in 1996. 

We will test the program by introducing a fleet of about 30 bicycles in our university. A group of engineering students will work to realize this dream over the next six months. Once tested, it will be extended through out the city and later to the country. It is especially relevant as India is on the highway to development and we believe that prevention of damage to the environment is better than cure. 

The carbon credits generated will be calculated - selling it in the international market will earn revenues for the community biking system.

 

This February, we will organize a Minnesota Campus Energy Challenge (MCEC). This friendly statewide competition to reduce college and high school energy use will promote a pioneering mindset in which energy conservation, efficiency, and revolution become realities across Minnesota. The MCEC is an innovative approach for energy conservation through which students will evaluate, measure, and change their energy use habits. 

The organization of the competition is the responsibility of college students partnering with grassroots youth coalitions such as the Transcampus Energy Action Movement (TEAM MN), local high schools, and college environmental organizations. Beginning with the February Campus Energy Challenge, we will use these partnerships to change first college and then statewide environmental policies.

The competition seeks to educate, engage, and empower Minnesotan students using a variety of methods. Teach-ins, debates, and speakers will be educational. Building weatherization, energy monitoring, waste reduction, and similar projects to normalize reduced energy consumption will empower action and catalyze further community organizing. Other events (such as acoustic concerts and campus campouts) and the prize for the winning school that most reduces its energy consumption will create an exciting and lasting culture focused on sustainability.

Naupada, 19, India - While we walk out of a room having a 60W bulb without switching it off, the power wastage snow balls to approximately 22,000W per year. If this is the case of a single bulb what about the other appliances in our house hold.

My idea is to develop a electronic system which automatically turns ‘off’ and ‘on’ the appliances in a room. It works with cheap circuitry. What it does is very simple, it counts the number of persons entering a room then for the presence of a single person the lights in the room turn on. Then when a person comes out of the room the system deducts the number from the previously counted value. When the value becomes zero i.e. when no person is present in the room the light and appliances turn off automatically. This project finds itself useful not only in homes but also in schools,colleges etc.

Though this system is a complicated substitute to a simple turning off of the switches but it is essential because power consumption is a major factor contributing to the pollution, particularly in a nation where large amount of power is generated using fossil fuels. A unit prevented from wastage is equal to 1.5 units generated.

Circuit of system that automatically turns lights on/off

 

Teniera, 15, Vanuatu - Climate change is affecting nowhere on earth more seriously than in the South Pacific, where rising sea levels and increased storms are slowly drowning our small islands. In our coastal village, we have already noticed the impact of sea level rise because our underground wells are mixing with sea water. We have learned to adapt though, using the brackish water to cook and wash clothes, and using rain for drinking.

But there is one problem we cannot adapt to: sewage from villager’s pit toilets leeching into the wells. When this happens we have to cut down more and more forest to move away from the polluted areas, forest that would otherwise be reducing green house gasses.

To solve the problem, we would like to design and build a composting toilet for the village that keeps our waste out of the water. This will be the first ever composting toilet on our small island, an idea that might be taken up by other villages (built by us) and have a huge impact on the environment. Most importantly, the compost generated by the village toilet will be used to fertilize a climate garden that we will plant with carbon capturing rainforest trees.

Our group: Joe, Teiera, Kaltang, and Joseph

 

Blake, 20, USA - Climate change caused by greenhouse gases threatens our environment. To decrease and halt greenhouse gas emissions we must replace polluting energy sources like oil and coal with clean energy technologies like wind and solar. While these technologies function safely and efficiently, they’re not widely used in the United States.

Young Americans, who will be most effected by global climate change, feel unable to control energy production sources, and many Americans don’t see wind as a practical choice.

My project will empower young people by bringing together a group of high school students over the summer to build a working wind turbine. The turbine will provide power for a local demonstration farm, which hosts a day camp. The turbine will provide both clean energy and an example of implementing wind power on a small scale. Visitors will learn about wind energy’s ability to ameliorate climate change and provide local energy.

The wind turbine team will share our experiences and technical know-how with local schools and businesses. Through workshops, and using the working turbine as an exemplar, we will educate the community on wind energy solutions. We plan to inspire further construction of wind turbines at local schools and businesses.

Chloe, 16, USA - We are a school club at Lincoln Academy in Maine. We launched four advocacy campaigns. We successfully implemented a school-wide no-idle zone for buses and cars on our campus.

We talked with idling car and bus drivers about the pros, cons, health hazards, and pollution factors of idling. As of this spring of 2008, 6 months after we began the project, we did not see any buses or cars idling. We plan on continuing to monitor the amount of idling on our campus.