This month's interview is with Aiman Arif, who was one of the 22 "eco-ambassadors" high school students chosen for the Weather Channel and participated in the Forecast Earth Summit 2007 in Washington D.C. During this trip, Aiman met with climate experts, toured Washington D.C, made a public service announcements.

1. How did you get interested in helping the environment and spreading the word about saving it?

In 5th grade I participated in and led a fundraiser in school to raise money for the rainforest. That was probably my first 'real' environmental involvement, and it was the first environmental issue that I was really concerned about. And then in 8th grade, I saw An Inconvenient Truth...and that was so informative and eye-opening! Of course I had heard about global warming and other environmental concerns before, but only after watching the movie did I realize that the problems were so *real* and they were happening on such a large scale. An Inconvenient Truth really inspired me to learn more about global warming and try and do what I can to save it. In 9th grade, I was selected as an eco-ambassador and went to Washington DC to participate in the Forecast Earth Summit -- an environmental summit with 21 other high-schoolers from all over the US.

2. How did you become an "eco-ambassador"?

"Eco-ambassador" was the title given to the winners of the Forecast Earth Summit contest. To enter, first I had to submit an essay explaining why I liked the environment and what I had done to protect it. The Weather Channel then reviewed all the submitted essays and chose 40 semi-finalists. Each of those 40 high-schoolers were then interviewed by phone by representative from the Weather Channel.. From those 4o students, 22 finalists were chosen who won a trip to Washington DC to participate in the Forecast Earth Summit. The name "eco-ambassador" was pretty appropriate because we *were* like environmental ambassadors--we traveled to Washington DC, learned from environmental experts, interesting speakers, and the other students...and then returned back to our cities and communities to pass on the what we learned.

3. What did you learn on the trip?

To sum it up...a lot! There was so much to do and see. On Friday (the first day) we had a speaker, Hayden Panettiere (from the show Heroes), who informed us about her role to support global environmental causes. Next was Dr. Heidi Cullen, the leading climatologist of the Weather Channel who explained about climate change and possible solutions. She was followed by Jarod Miller, host of the show Animal Exploration with Jarod Miller, who entertained us with a fascinating presentation about endangered animals. Saturday morning, Dr. Marcus Erikson opened our eyes to the dangers plastic presented to the marine environment. Host of the show Commando Weather, he showed us how even in the middle of the ocean (miles from shore) the plastic at the surface of the water outweighed all the biomass 6:1. We also observed various plastics found inside the stomachs of sea birds—which included cigarette lighters, milk bottle caps, fishing line, and plastic lids!
On Sunday there was a panel discussion led by Lynn Brindell (the senior vice-president of marketing of the weather channel) and various representatives from environmental groups. In included a person from WWF (the world wildlife fund), David Jenkins from REP's (Republicans for Environmental Protection), Russell Simon from CarbonFund, and Michelle Moore from the US Green Building Council. Our last speaker was Adam Gardner from the band Guster who created an organization Reverb, which helped bands and their fans become more eco-friendly. I learned so much about other organizations and groups that were doing whatever they could to improve the world for our future...it was amazing!

5. What do you think are the most important things to do around the house to save energy?

I think the easiest way to 'save' energy is to avoid wasting it. Even small things, like leaving chargers and appliances plugged in uses so much energy, so does leaving lights on, computers running...small things like that really add up. And small solutions--like changing to energy efficient appliances, fluorescent light bulbs, and walking instead of driving really *do* make a big difference, if everyone does it.

6. What tactics at help the environment did you learn from the D.C. trip?

The summit was not quite as much about 'tactics' as it was about informing and educating a younger generation (us) about how each action made a big impact. It also taught us that it's the lots of small things are ones that add up to cause big problems, and so the solutions have to start small. So, I think I can say, that the main thing I learned about helping the environment was to do what you can and get others to do the same. You have to think on a large scale, but start small and it'll work its way up.


To learn more about Aiman and the "eco-ambassadors" visit

http://climate.weather.com/promo/teen-summit/2007/
http://climate.weather.com/promo/teen-summit/2007/winners.html