Inconvenient Youth Is the New One-stop Shop for Teens Fighting Climate Change
What do you do if you want to live green but have no influence on household consumption or legislation? That’s the problem that faces teenagers across the world. That is, until now. The Climate Project’s new Inconvenient Youth website is the new one-stop shop for eco-minded teens. Al Gore founded the Climate Project in 2006.…
What do you do if you want to live green but have no influence on household consumption or legislation? That’s the problem that faces teenagers across the world. That is, until now. The Climate Project’s new Inconvenient Youth website is the new one-stop shop for eco-minded teens.
Al Gore founded the Climate Project in 2006. Its purpose is to educate the public about the harmful effects of climate change and work toward solutions at a grassroots level worldwide. Inconvenient Youth is an initiative of the bigger project, which launched in 2006 as an effort to train 1,000 people to give Gore’s talk from An Inconvenient Truth. The Climate Project now has eight international branches with more than 3,000 presenters worldwide. Their new Inconvenient Youth initiative is the first to put teens front and center instead of throwing them a bone as an afterthought.
Inconvenient Youth program manager Sam Davidson says the new site is not a website at all. He says, “It’s not a website; it’s a community. We’re trying to build a community—a place where people create dialog and encourage and empower one another to take action. We’re not broadcasting ‘green tips’ from on high; we’re creating a space where teens can share what they’re already doing.”
On the ground floor, Inconvenient Youth is a community where teens can share their “actions” (little things) and their “ideas” (big dreams for tackling climate change) with each other. Ultimately, Inconvenient Youth will serve as a place where teens share what they’re doing to live greener and a space to connect teens with resources that will help them accomplish their bigger ideas.
Inconvenient Youth began as an effort by Mary Doerr, a 16-year-old presenter for The Climate Project who wanted to connect her own age group with the means to do something about climate change. Mary’s work centered on adapting The Climate Project slideshow for a youth audience and touring the country to deliver a customized youth talk to students.
To join the Inconvenient Youth community, users must be between the ages of 13 and 18 — but there are special sections “for adults” and “for educators.” Davidson told me, “Inconvenient Youth isn’t about telling teens what to do to fight climate change, but about encouraging them to think of things on their own.”
The Inconvenient Youth website is up and running, but its official launch date is Earth Day’s 40th anniversary on April 22.
Jeffrey Davis is a regular contributor to the Mother Nature Network.
Reddit user Girlfriendhatesmefor’s three-year-old pitbull, Otis, had recently become overprotective of his wife. So he asked the online community if they knew what might be wrong with the dog.
“A week or two ago, my wife got some sort of stomach bug,” the Reddit user wrote under the subreddit /r/dogs. “She was really nauseous and ill for about a week. Otis is very in tune with her emotions (we once got in a fight and she was upset, I swear he was staring daggers at me lol) and during this time didn’t even want to leave her to go on walks. We thought it was adorable!”
His wife soon felt better, butthe dog’s behavior didn’t change.
Girlfriendhatesmefor began to fear that Otis’ behavior may be an early sign of an aggression issue or an indication that the dog was hurt or sick.
So he threw a question out to fellow Reddit users: “Has anyone else’s dog suddenly developed attachment/aggression issues? Any and all advice appreciated, even if it’s that we’re being paranoid!”
The most popular response to his thread was by ZZBC.
Any chance your wife is pregnant?
ZZBC | Reddit
The potential news hit Girlfriendhatesmefor like a ton of bricks. A few days later, Girlfriendhatesmefor posted an update and ZZBC was right!
“The wifey is pregnant!” the father-to-be wrote. “Otis is still being overprotective but it all makes sense now! Thanks for all the advice and kind words! Sorry for the delayed reply, I didn’t check back until just now!”
Redditors responded with similar experiences.
Anecdotal I know but I swear my dog knew I was pregnant before I was. He was super clingy (more than normal) and was always resting his head on my belly.
realityisworse | Reddit
So why do dogs get overprotective when someone is pregnant?
Jeff Werber, PhD, president and chief veterinarian of the Century Veterinary Group in Los Angeles, told Health.com that “dogs can also smell the hormonal changes going on in a woman’s body at that time.” He added the dog may “not understand that this new scent of your skin and breath is caused by a developing baby, but they will know that something is different with you—which might cause them to be more curious or attentive.”
The big lesson here is to listen to your pets and to ask questions when their behavior abruptly changes. They may be trying to tell you something, and the news may be life-changing.
Throughout history, women have stood up and fought to break down barriers imposed on them from stereotypes and societal expectations. The trailblazers in these photos made history and redefined what a woman could be. In doing so, they paved the way for future generations to stand up and continue to fight for equality.
While conspiracy theories are not limited to any topic, there is one type of event that seems particularly likely to spark them: mass shootings, typically defined as attacks in which a shooter kills at least four other people.
When one person kills many others in a single incident, particularly when it seems random, people naturally seek out answers for why the tragedy happened. After all, if a mass shooting is random, anyone can be a target.
