Congrats Diana Lopez and Alec Loorz!

RAN was absolutely thrilled to hear that two RYSE Council Members –Diana Lopez AND Alec Loorz- are amongst the dazzlingly talented and brilliant 2009 Brower Youth Award Recipients. But we weren’t surprised! These two incredible youth activists have been making powerful waves fighting global warming and planting the seeds of real change for all communities. RAN is especially happy for these two recipients because we have had the distinct gift of their inspiration and guidance here at RAN: Alec and Diana both serve as Councilmembers of RYSE: RAN Youth Sustaining the Earth. Indeed, sustaining the earth they are!

The annual Brower Youth Awards honor six young people for their outstanding activism and achievements in the fields of environmental and social justice advocacy. Each winner is awarded $3000 and brought to San Francisco for the award week and a backcountry camping trip. The Brower Youth Awards not only promote the accomplishments of these young leaders but also invest in their continued success by providing ongoing access to resources, mentors, and opportunities to develop their leadership skills through Earth Island Institute’s New Leaders Initiative. For more information, or to RSVP to the awards ceremony, visit www.broweryouthawards.org

Diana Lopez, 20, San Antonio, Texas. Roots of Change Community Garden

Diana co-created an organic garden at a site in San Antonio, Texas, as part of the struggle for environmental justice

Diana Lopez organizes with the Southwest Workers Union for worker rights, environmental justice and community empowerment in San Antonio, Texas. She has fought to clean up military base contamination, organized for energy POLICIES, and in February 2007, along with community members and fellow organizers, started the Roots of Change community garden.

Diana attends school and works in the Eastside of San Antonio, Texas an area lacking large grocery stores and places to get fresh, organic, or local produce. The new garden provides healthy organic food at no cost to community members, serves as an educational center, and creates a positive space for community involvement. Since 2007, hundreds of youth and adults have created a native plant garden, an arbor and raised garden beds. The garden hosts educational sessions, student work days, and Texas-style barbeques where community members can come together to enjoy a meal and take home locally-grown produce.

Diana says of her time spent working on the garden and other environmental justice issues in San Antonio, “I feel everyone deserves the right to a clean, healthy environment and your color or economic status. You work with other people who are fighting for the same thing: justice for people who, by systematic design, have more obstacles to overcome in their everyday life. I have learned that through sharing our stories and history we become united in one struggle for justice.”
Diana works with the Southwest Workers Union. Check it out! http://www.swunion.org/

Alec Loorz, 15, is a Sophomore at El Camino High School in Ventura California

Alec speaks to thousands about the impact of climate change on the next generation.

Alec first saw Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” when he was 12 years old. Inspired by the message, Alec wrote to the organization and applied to be a presenter, but was denied due to his age. Undeterred, Alec created his own presentation and gave it over 30 times before Mr. Gore took notice. Eventually, Mr. Gore invited Alec to his next training session and Alec became the youngest presenter with “The Climate Project”.

Since then, Alec has gone on to give over 100 presentations to upwards of 20,000 people and founded his own organization, Kids vs. Global Warming, a project of Earth Island Institute since 2008. Its mission is to educate youth on the science of climate change and empower them to take action. Through multi-media presentations to schools, keynote and panel presentations at conferences, videos and social media, Loorz translates the complex science of climate change into terms that motivate youth to get involved with creating solutions.

Another campaign Alec created, the Declaration of Independence from Fossil Fuels, was taken national with the Alliance for Climate Education, where Alec is youth leader. The Declaration is a youth statement requesting that leaders consider the needs of future generations in their decision-making. Signed by 350,000 youth, the Declaration will be presented to Congress by Alec in October of 2010. Alec believes that “youth have a unique sense of moral authority on this issue. It’s our planet now. And we are going to have to grow up and face the consequences of what the world does, or fails to do.”

Check out his site at http://www.kids-vs-global-warming.com/Home.html and sign the Declaration of Independence from Fossil Fuels in the blog post just below this one!

RAN congratulates all Brower Recipients:

€¢ Sierra Crane-Murdoch, 21, of Vermont, for uniting the movement to battle coal

€¢ Adarsha Shivakumar, 16, of California, who implemented a biofuel solution in rural India

€¢ Alec Loorz, 15, of California, the youngest presenter of Al Gore’s “The Climate Project”

€¢ Diana Lopez, 20, of Texas, who created an organic food source for San Antonio

€¢ Hai Vo, 22, of California, for helping transform University of California food purchasing

€¢ Robin Bryan, 21, of Manitoba, who helped protect one million acres of forest in Canada

One Response to “Congrats Diana Lopez and Alec Loorz!”

1. crystal says:

   October 18, 2009 at 7:59 pm

   congrats diana and alec:)