Kids Will Teach Adults About Global Warming

COMMUNITY NEWS

On the eve of former U.S. Vice President Al Gore receiving the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10 in Oslo, Norway, for his work to create greater worldwide understanding of climate change, the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series Nick News with Linda Ellerbee goes around the globe, stopping in Holland, Alaska, California, Kenya, Australia and the Philippines to give kids a chance to tell adults what they think about climate change in A Global Warning From The Kids of the World, premiering Sunday, Dec. 9, at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon.

"There are times when kids must listen to adults, and there are times when it is important for adults to hear kids' voices," said Ellerbee. "This is one of those times. We traveled around the world to meet kids whose lives are already affected by climate change, and who really want us to listen to what they have to say."

In A Global Warning From the Kids of the World, viewers are first introduced to a group of 15-year-old girls who live near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The girls explain that with the temperature rising, the corals are starting to die off. They fear that if global warming continues, there will be no reef in the next fifty years. Yael says, "I'm scared that in the future, global warming will be irreversible and adults are not focusing on what needs to be done." Corinne says, "Adults actually don't fully understand what their actions are doing to this world. They have left it to us."

Next, viewers meet two Inupiat teens, 15-year-old Frieda and 17-year-old Simon, Native-Americans from Shishmaref, Alaska, who, along with the other residents of their village, may become the world's first climate change refugees. Their village and their island are slipping into the sea. Simon, who says it's due to erosion caused by global warming, is angry: "I think adults aren't taking it seriously." Frieda asks, "I think adults had a chance to stop it, but I want to know why they didn't."

In the Netherlands, we meet Boris, a 16-year-old who fears the melting polar caps and rising sea levels will flood his homeland, more than half of which is at or below sea level. "We're sure the water is coming," Boris says. "The only question is, what are we gong to do about it?"

David, Khalil, Luke, Sarah and Joshua live in San Bernardino, California, in the fire zone. Drought and rising temperatures throughout the west have contributed to wildfires that are more frequent and fiercer. These kids work as volunteers at the Fire Lookout Stations in San Bernardino National Park. Joshua says, "I think people waited; they said, 'Oh, it's nothing, nothing's going to happen, it's no big deal.' Now, twenty, thirty years later, it's like, 'Oh my gosh, why did we not deal with this earlier'?"

Nick News also speaks with Deszie, Arianne, Loura, Jerome, Lyle and Neil from the Philippines, which have been hit hard by floods, droughts, typhoons cyclones and landslides that come with extreme weather, and who believe it is the poor of this world who will suffer from climate change more than other people.

In conclusion, Rachel, Judith and Lillian, who live in Kenya, where agriculture is at the heart of the economy, point out that their dry seasons have been drier, and their rainy seasons shorter, causing crops to fail. Rachel is speaking of Kenya, but might be speaking for kids everywhere, when she says, "It's a very sad truth to state that we are paying the price for what we haven't caused ourselves."

COMMENTS ()