Last week, eight students from the National Youth Policy Summit for National Energy Innovation visited with the Center for Green Schools staff members to give a presentation on policies that they created on environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient issues. The students presenting were from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax, Va. and Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, Ala.
The National Youth Policy Summit is an event held annually that challenges students to create consensus-based policy recommendations on a wide variety of issues. In June 2011, the Keystone Center hosted the week-long Summit in Keystone, CO, which brought together 39 high school students from 10 different schools around the country to discuss solutions for current and future energy demands.
Part of the student’s work was to interact with leaders in the fields they were working in. Each student was assigned a stakeholder, which included NRDC, the United States Conference of Mayors and Army Energy Program, among others.
The students found eight focus areas, and presented these to the Center, giving clear and concise recommendations to be completed by the year 2060. Below are some highlights and goals from their presentation:
Education
Standardized environmental studies courses in classrooms Create a “clean energy workforce,” by increasing job training More university competitions on energy reduction Oil and Gas Regulation
60 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions Transportation
80 percent of all vehicles to run on hydrogen or other clean fuels Private, incentivized or subsidized research and development Foreign oil
Complete elimination of foreign oil dependency Single stream recycling methods implemented on national level Alternative fuel vehicles Coal
Coal plant carbon emissions reduced by 75 percent Elimination of mountaintop coal removal Improvements in reclamation techniques Renewable Energy
Renewable sources to provide 60 percent of US energy demands Increases in state level funding for renewable energy Usage of military operations for renewable energy product testing Buildings
85 percent of all buildings be net-zero Target fortune 500 companies and government entities to serve as models for green building Minimum of LEED Silver certification for new buildings built after 2015 Sustainable Cities
100 percent of all federal buildings in metropolitan areas are net-zero Hydrogen-fueled public transportation Recycling programs Composted waste
A big thanks to the following students for giving their incredible presentation: Chinmayee Balabhadrapatruni, Jason Ye, Angela Liu, Alec Powell, Ashby Marriott, Austin Robinson, Payton Walker and Ramsha Farrukh.