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Climate Ride 2009 benefited several climate change-related projects at three organizations: Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Focus the Nation, and Clean Air - Cool Planet. Each organization works on a different but critical aspect of solutions to climate change, including bicycle advocacy, civic engagement, raising awareness, creating partnerships between government and NGOs, and building the youth climate movement.
Focus the Nation facilitates engaging Americans in conversation with their Congressional representatives to encourage meaningful climate legislation and a clean energy future.
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy supports the continued growth, interconnectedness, and future development of the nation's network of trails and pathways. With better access to rail-trails, more Americans will use bicycles, rather than cars, for transportation.
Clean Air - Cool Planet develops and implements practical climate change solutions at companies, campuses and communities, demonstrating that early action provides economic opportunities as well as environmental benefits.
Read more about the beneficiaries and the projects we support below.
Focus the Nation is a national non-profit headquartered in Portland, Oregon that empowers young leaders to accelerate the transition to a more just and prosperous clean energy future. For young people inspired to build their clean energy future and hungry for more than campus activism, Focus the Nation offers active and innovative ways to engage face-to-face with policy makers, power players, and business leaders in communities across the country. We give them the tools, support and coaching to mobilize their communities around the call for clean and just energy sources. This sustained engagement and mobilization forges intergenerational partnerships that will accelerate the clean energy transition and provide lifelong skills for organizers to remain clean energy change agents in today's workforce.
1. The FTN Civic Engagement program builds youth-fueled multi-sector campaigns that accelerate the transition to a clean energy future. Recently, Focus the Nation wrapped up their 2009 Clean Energy Town Hall campaign, which included more than 100 town halls and engaged countless local and state level officials and 74 members of Congress--a third of whom are considered "swing" votes on climate. Their 2008 campaign organized 1900 climate change teach-ins at college campuses and other institutions across the country. The FtN staff is currently planning a highly collaborative Fall 2009 campaign around strengthening the ACES legislation in the US Senate, and calling on President Obama to step his leadershp up--to ensure strong legislation here at home and deliver a solid US commitment at the COP15 Climate Negotiations by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Copenhagen, Denmark this December.
2. The FtN Beyond Carbon Leadership program works closely with a small number of young leaders each year who are using high levels of creativity and innovation to activate their community around the crisis of climate change and the opportunities of the clean energy future. The signature initiative is the annual Focus Roots Fellowships. You can read about the three projects from the 2008 Fellows here.
Awarded on the basis of a competitive and juried application process, the Focus Roots Fellowships support stand-out student and young adult applicants with $10,000 grants to demonstrate clean energy innovation in the name of powering their community past dirty energy sources. This year, the program will provide powerful opportunities for young leaders to build intergenerational mentor relationships with clean energy professionals, ant to achieve tangible, replicable results in their communities.
Through these programs and partner campaigns, Focus the Nation continues to strategically develop young leaders within the climate movement and other sectors of the economy that need smart, passionate young innovators. We are establishing a network of these leaders in every corner of America to share knowledge, skills, and opportunities.
Focus the Nation is a 501(c)3 non-profit.
The mission of Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) is to create a nationwide network of trails from former rail lines and connecting corridors to build healthier places for healthier people. Since opening in 1986, RTC has assisted communities and advocates in building more than 15,000 miles of rail-trail. By 2020, RTC wants to see 90 percent of Americans living within three miles of a rail-trail or connecting corridor. Enhancing and promoting trail use in urban areas is vital to achieving this
goal.
What are Urban Pathways?
Shared-use pathways go by many names, including bikeways, trails and greenways. They are open to users such as pedestrians, cyclists and in-line skaters. What these pathways have in common is the healthy recreation and and active, emissions-free transportation options they bring to their communities.
Why Cities? Why Urban Pathways?
Densely populated urban areas often suffer from congestion and lack of high-quality bicycle routes. Urban pathways offer a solution: they add a transportation option that can help reduce the number of trips taken by car. Leadership funding from The Kresge Foundation has allowed RTC to craft core components of the Urban Pathways Initiative: community-based project work with local partners, and creation of a national learning network for advocates and professionals dedicated to urban pathways.
Project Work
RTC staff will begin in-depth technical assistance by engaging with local partners to identify and implement improvements that will enhance access and foster community ownership of existing trails. This work expands upon RTC’s traditional programmatic focus on trail building by encouraging trail use in urban communities. Funding from The Kresge Foundation allows RTC to expand its existing work in Washington, D.C., Camden, N.J. and Jacksonville, Fla., and to engage in work in Compton, Calif., New Orleans, La., Springfield, Mass., and Cleveland, Ohio.
National Learning Network
The Urban Pathways Initiative reaches beyond the select cities receiving substantial on-the-ground support from RTC. An online and in-person network of case studies, resources, workshops and discussion threads will allow advocates and professionals from cities of all sizes across the nation to learn from each other by engaging in a dialogue about challenges and successes. This content will be moderated by RTC staff and open to all who wish to contribute on www.railstotrails.org. The national learning network will provide a foundation for RTC reports on innovative practices that foster community involvement in urban pathway development.
Clean Air–Cool Planet (CA-CP)
is in the business of solving the global warming problem, developing economically efficient and innovative climate policies and mobilizing civic engagement to implement practical climate solutions.
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Developing and supporting a U.S. climate change policy that is economically efficient, environmentally sound, pragmatic, and bipartisan.
Working with communities throughout the Northeast to inventory and reduce their greenhouse gases across all of their civil sectors.
Educating business leaders on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the workplace with an eye on saving money, improving morale, and attracting new customers.
Providing free inventory software and hands-on support to college and university partners looking to measure their campus greenhouse gas emissions and educate the next generation of climate stewards and environmental professionals.
Collaborating with science center and museum educators to design fun and rigorous climate change educational tools.
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CA-CP is a science-based, non-partisan, 501(c)3 non-profit. 2008 Annual Report
Climate Fellowships
Although Clean Air-Cool Planet has been working with communities, corporations and campuses for a decade, recent years have seen an increase in inquiries from two groups in particular: young people looking for opportunities to begin a career in the fields of environment or energy; and enthusiastic institutions who have great ideas for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions but who lack the human resources to move their projects forward. Now, with our Climate Fellowship Program, we’re playing matchmaker, bringing this expanding pool of committed and passionate young people to institutions poised to carry out meaningful climate-related projects. The Climate Fellowship program offers college and university students in the Northeast hands-on experience applying their skills and schooling to real-world climate and energy problems (not to mention a competitive stipend provided by Clean Air-Cool Planet). The host institutions, meanwhile, gain the high-quality people-power they need to get catalytic projects off the ground. To date, more than ten Climate Fellows have been placed at postings including the City of Providence, RI, and Poland Springs. A second series of Fellowships planned for summer 2009 includes climate planning projects in Nantucket, MA, and Tupper Lake, NY, as well as a policy communications posting in Washington, DC.
FoodPrint Calculator
As more and more college and university campuses begin to take a closer look at their environmental impacts, food service is emerging for many as an unexpectedly large source of greenhouse gas emissions – and an area where simple changes can have big impacts. The CA-CP FoodPrint Calculator, currently under development, will fill a vital niche by providing a free, methodologically-sound, comprehensive tool designed for college and university campuses, as well as other “campus-like” institutions incorporating concessions or cafeterias, including hospitals, large office buildings and museums. The data at the core of FoodPrint Calculator will cover impacts of raw and processed foods from the agricultural phase to the farm or wholesale phase, with the additional option to enter supply chain information for separate calculation of delivery- and disposal-related emissions. The FoodPrint Calculator will serve as a valuable source of data for campuses looking for a nuanced understanding of their environmental impacts.
Community Climate Action Planning
On the premise that you can’t manage what you don’t measure, Clean Air-Cool Planet works with citizen-led groups to inventory their local greenhouse gas emissions, and then to reduce them in ways that strengthen their communities. Through this work, our ultimate goal of helping a town, city or region achieve greenhouse gas emissions reductions is accomplished by building local capacity among businesses, municipal leadership and active citizens to address climate change in ways that are effective, meaningful to the community, replicable and inspirational. The specific strategies we implement – including working with local interns to gather inventory data and holding neighborhood meetups to gather public feedback on inventory results and emissions reductions recommendations – have been tested and fine-tuned in communities like Pittsburgh, PA; Maplewood, NJ; Portland, ME; and the Monadnock region of New Hampshire.
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