As the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen comes to a close, ePals would like to thank all of the students, educators and parents who supported the Team Earth initiative. By signing up for Team Earth and/or participating in the Students Speak! contest, you have all helped bring the critical issue of climate change to the forefront of discussions among our global leaders.

A special thanks goes out to ePals teacher, Lene, and her high students based in Copenhagen. They attended a Deforestation Conference hosted by Conservation International and brought student enthusiasm to the discussion among several influential figures, including California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and United Nations Messenger of Peace Jane Goodall.

Stay tuned for the next segment of Team Earth covering the topic of water, coming soon.  

Harrison Ford. You hear this name and you automatically think “actor.” His body of work includes over 40 feature films, eleven of which have grossed more than $100 million at the box office. Nominated for an Oscar for best actor for his performance in Witness, he is most widely known for as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy, and as the title character in the Indiana Jones series. Five of his films have even been inducted into the National Film Registry, which is a selection of films for preservation in the library of congress. 

Mr. Ford is not only a well respected and known actor, he is also the Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of Conservation International and has been with them for over 15 years. Organized by Conservation International, Team Earth will unite students, non-profit organizations and major corporations including Starbucks, Dell, SC Johnson, Harrah's Entertainment and Wrigley, in an international action campaign to address the most pressing environmental issues facing humanity. ePals is Team Earth's global education partner with Conservational International.

On September 20^th and 21^st Conservation International had a Climate Week Event in New York City’s Greeley Square, which some students were fortunate enough to attend and serve as ePals reporters. The conference was to address the issue of deforestation and to announce the organization Team Earth. During the Press Conference on Monday September 21^st I was fortunate enough to interview actor and Vice Chair Harrison Ford.

SM: You have been working with Conservation International for over 15 years. What first got you interested in working with CI? 

HF: Well I’d have to say my love of nature along with wanting to work with a sincere group of people who are as devoted as I am to protecting the environment for my kids, their kids, even their kids’ kids, and to protect life on earth for our own well being.

SM: Do you believe that Team Earth is a worthwhile cause? Why do you think that this will succeed when so many other projects have failed?

HF: I do believe that Team Earth is worthwhile because what has happened in the past have so far not been sufficiently effective and have been too focused on individual activity which sends a fractured message. What we need is to come together in one mass movement. Think about past movements Martin Luther King, Gandhi, separate youth movements, they have all transformed society and now it is time for a new team such as this one, to get both students and adults involved so we can make a greater impact then we have in the past.

SM: Why do you think that student involvement is important to the success of Team Earth?

HF: Student involvement is crucial because past environmental projects have failed, we need new ideas and the younger generation will be able to not only bring in new ideas but they will also be able to influence some of the older generations.

Sunday, September 20th and Monday, September 21st may have seemed regular days to most New Yorkers spread across the city's five boroughs. However, on the intersection of 6th Avenue and 32nd Street, a special new environmental event was taking place to introduce and promote Team Earth. It was a privilege not only to witness, but also participate in, this presentation as a student reporter given full professional reporting access and opportunities.

During the first day, successful origami folding learning tables were set up around Greeley Square as a means of attracting a mostly young audience to help raise awareness of Team Earth's aims and projects. The passersby, whose curiosity was aroused by the event, were taught by passionate origami-loving OrigamiUSA organization volunteer members to make various interesting paper objects. In addition, it was fascinating to admire origami artist Robert Lang at work as he spent the entire day working in collaboration with Linda Tomoko Mihara on a forest set hand made entirely of paper; a project that Ms. Mihara said took "two 12-hour days worth of work to complete."

The next day, my fellow reporters and I listened to the scheduled introductory presentation of Team Earth with speeches by co-founder and CEO of Conservation International Peter A. Seligmann, chairman and CEO of SC Johnson, H. Fisk Johnson, President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana, and many more Team Earth collaborating partners. After these the true symbolism and significance of the origami forest was revealed with a short skit, during which the set was demolished with electric saws. Just as the hundreds of years a tropical forest takes to grow are ignored and forgotten when deforestation takes place, the paper forest was similarly destroyed in only a few seconds after it had taken those two 12-hour working days.

Shortly after the open press conference, my classmates had the unique opportunity of personally interviewing Hollywood actor and member of the Board of Directors of Conservation International, Harrison Ford. Thibaut Dupuy, a fellow classmate, and I, attainted a five-minute interview with the President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, who was clearly pleased to engage with student reporters such as us. He happily answered all our questions in detail, enlightening us on his personal positive views of Team Earth and the involvement goals he hopes to achieve with the Co-operative Republic of Guyana.

Standing in front of Dr. Robert Lang's origami masterpiece, President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana emphatically voiced his displeasure with the world's lack of attention to a global crisis: the disappearance of tropical rainforests. Guyana, a small country situated in South America, has faced a large amount of pressure from investors to cut down some of its 50 million acres of rainforest. However, President Jagdeo has not allowed this movement to substantially progress, and is still very passionate about putting an end to these often unnecessary acts.

When I asked him what he thought about other world leaders' involvement in the preservation of rainforests, President Jagdeo declared, "There has been a lot of rhetoric among world leaders and many organizations, but the actions to save the forest have not matched the rhetoric." This lack of awareness is the problem that has given Guyana's leader such headaches in the past. To find a solution to this crucial issue, Jagdeo proposes that we "move beyond recognizing how important forests are to the world, and provide resources and policies to make sure that the rainforests remain there forever and become a part of the climate change solution."

Though the solution is ideal, Guyana's President has come to learn that it is easier said than done. As he cleverly put it, "The one variable that remains unanswered is that preserving the forest cannot come at the expense of people getting food to eat, so we must create alternatives to preserve the rainforest and yet allow people to have a job and prosper."
 
My final question was certainly one of the most essential, as I asked what role Team Earth and ePals could play in the fight against climate change. He smiled, and said that "if we work as a team, the message becomes much more effective, and gets out to many more people around the world in many countries," essentially encompassing Team Earth's goal of global awareness.

This past weekend, ePals student reporters headed up to Greeley Park in New York City to take part in a two-day event to publicly announce Team Earth. An origami festival was held all day Sunday to draw in crowds and educate people on the Team Earth initiative, spearheaded by Conservation International. Dr. Robert Lang and Linda Mihara, world renowned origami artists, worked all day constructing an origami rainforest made up of 6 foot tall paper trees. Hundreds of people streamed through the park to get information about Team Earth and try their hand at making origami flowers, snakes and tree frogs to contribute to the rainforest display.

Dr. Robert Lang and Linda Mihara pose with their artwork

The official press announcement of Team Earth was held Monday morning in Greeley Park. Our ePals student reporters from Washington International School (Washington, DC), St. Mark’s School (Dallas, TX) and M.S. 246 Walt Whitman (Brooklyn, NY) were on the scene, covering both Sunday and Monday’s events to find out what actions people were taking to help save the planet.

Stay tuned for new blog posts, photographs and videos from our student reporters, including interviews with actor Harrison Ford and President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana!

I interviewed Dr. Lang on Sunday, as he was folding origami for the origami rainforest.  He was a really great person to interview. The way he went about his origami was inspiring to me because it was perfect every time.  My first question I asked Dr. Lang was, “How do math and origami relate to conservation”?  I had never really thought about that before but when he gave the answer it made sense.  Math is a part of everything. It underlies origami and it can also help us figure out what will happen to our world in the future. Also, it was very interesting to find out that  Dr. Lang starting liking math from a series of books written by Martin Gardner and not from school classes.

Nick interviews Dr. Lang about origami and conservation