Green teens: Girl launches climate change nonprofit
By Will Oremus

PALO ALTO, Calif. — A 17-year-old Palo Alto, Calif., girl has launched what she hopes will become a nationwide youth movement focused on global warming.

In September, some 80 teenagers gathered at Stanford University for a three-day conference that marked the kickoff of Inconvenient Youth, a campaign founded by Castilleja School senior Mary Doerr. Each is being trained to lead presentations on climate change based loosely on the one given by Al Gore in his film, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

But where Gore sought mainly to educate and warn people of climate change’s perils, Doerr says her group emphasizes action. Beyond showing slides, its members will be asked to lobby elected officials, start clubs at their schools, and find ways to cut their own families’ greenhouse gas emissions.

The whole enterprise revolves around a Web site that doubles as a resource hub — with tips such as how to set up a slide projector — and a social networking community where members can share ideas and experiences.

“I want to get young people everywhere engaged and active and really questioning,” Doerr said. “What right do older generations have to jeopardize our future?”

Doerr said her goal of starting a youth movement akin to the civil rights movements of the 1960s is ambitious, especially for a girl who’s taking a full course load in her senior year of high school. But she already has plenty of help.

Other teens, including 19-year-old Miles Alkine of Menlo Park, Calif., have joined Inconvenient Youth as officers. Adults, including family friends and mentors, sit on the nonprofit’s advisory board.

The conference’s young attendees got advice on stage poise from an adult speech coach. A public relations firm helped publicize the event pro bono. Attendees were recruited from the San Francisco Bay area and beyond through a grapevine of school officials.

“We wanted to kick off in the most effective way possible and unite kids from all over the place,” Doerr said.

Jenny Fuentes, 17, came up from Los Angeles after being nominated by her college counselor.

“I always wanted to do something for the environment, but I didn’t know what to do,” she said. When she returns from the training, Fuentes has already lined up presentations to groups at her school and at nearby Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Doerr is hoping Fuentes and the others who attend the weekend’s conference at Stanford University are just “the first wave” of Inconvenient Truth ambassadors. If the Web site takes off, for instance, she could envision holding similar training sessions every few months.

Will Oremus is a reporter for the Palo Alto Daily News.